Ghosthunter

Sony's Cambridge Studio wants you to star in their horror movie. Take a glimpse into their world with our full preview, including videos.

	Version PS2	Developer Sony Cambridge	Publisher SCEE	Genre Action

By Rico Rodriguez

No. This is not Ghostbusters: The Video Game. While the bunch at Sony's Studio Cambridge do have a fairly macabre sense of humor, they're not trying to make you laugh with Ghosthunter, their latest ambitious project. They want to put you into your very own horror movie, immersing you in a dark fantasy world painted with cinema quality graphics where you stand alone against the malevolent spirits of the dead.

Okay, so it is kind of like Ghostbusters. You play as Lazarus Jones, a homicide detective reporting for your first day on the job in Detroit. Your new partner, Anna Steele, takes you on a tour of a supposedly haunted high school that has been shut down ever since a bloody massacre occurred within its walls. Inside the school you stumble across the secret ghost research laboratory of one Professor Peter Richmond, the missing prime suspect in the school murders.

Through some ill advised tampering with the laboratory equipment, ghosts and other supernatural creatures are released, one of which abducts your partner. Another spirit bonds with you, giving you the ability to see the spirits of the dead. It is now your mission to recapture all the ghosts you have unwittingly unleashed, locate your abducted partner, and solve the gruesome high school slayings.

The developers describe the game as action horror. While there will definitely be times to go in with guns blazing, much of the game revolves around exploration and mastering your ghosthunting tools, which include spectral goggles and a flashlight with a UV attachment that allows you to see messages written in blood on the walls. Your ghosthunting arsenal includes shotguns, capture grenades, ghost lassoes, machine guns, and even rail guns. After you capture the ghosts, you will have to return them to Professor Richmond's "array", the device you freed all the ghouls from in the first place.

Professor Richmond founded the Ghosthunters, and he left behind a very helpful virtual version of himself to help teach you his ghosthunting techniques. You will also receive a great deal of support from Astral, the spirit who bonds with you to let you see your prey. As an added bonus, Astral is capable of possessing defeated creatures, allowing you to make the monsters' skills your own, which will of course be necessary to access later parts of the game.

Some ghosts will be corporeal enough to let you simply blast away with a shotgun. Others will force you to figure out ways to capture them, such as the invisible poltergeists that can pummel you with anything in the room, including television sets. Studio Cambridge also designed the well received PSX game, MediEvil, and the same dark sense of humor that permeates that title can be seen in some of the creature designs for Ghosthunter. Behold the ferocious Teddy Bear Monster, who will try to pull himself back together as you literally shoot the stuffing out of him. And his weapon has to be seen to be believed.

Both creatures and landscapes are as beautiful as nightmares can be. The graphics build upon the impressive engine developed for Studio Cambridge's last release, Primal. While that title received mixed reviews due to a poor mix of repetitive puzzle and bland battles, everyone agreed that the game was gorgeous, and Ghosthunter looks even better.

Aside from the haunted high school, you will be hunting specters across swamplands, in a prison, and even on a ghost ship, where all the spirits move as if they are still underwater. The locations intentionally evoke memories of movies past to help play on the dread you feel as you traverse them. You may just provide your own squealing when the astral hillbillies assault you in the swamplands.

Sound will also be a big factor in keeping your heart racing and your hands clutching your controller. Studio Cambridge says that they are experimenting with a dynamic music system that will layer sounds and add new effects to manipulate the tension felt by the player.

Studio Cambridge came up short with Primal, a title where the plodding gameplay just didn't live up to the promise of its amazing graphic prowess. It looks like they've learned their lesson with Ghosthunter, a similarly beautiful game busting out with gaming goodness. We'll find out if the game is worth all the attention come winter.