Ghost Squad

Better than Umbrella Chronicles.

Reviewed by kngzmexican on November 22, 2007  |  report this review

Since SEGA's announcement that Ghost Squad would be coming to Wii, we've been in a constant love/hate relationship with the game. On one hand, Ghost Squad is one of the top light-gun games of the last five years, and is a no-brainer for any purebred shooter fan. On the other, it's a game that released in arcades back in 2004, and as such won't offer much on top of what gamers already may have experienced years ago for a handful of tokens. Still, once we got the title in office, tossed a controller to a friend, and ripped through the oh-so-familiar levels again, pure entertainment took over. Ghost Squad may not off a wealth of new material for gamers, but it certainly delivers in the fun department.

That isn't to say Ghost Squad is a straight-up port of the original arcade cabinet; it isn't. SEGA AM2 could have easily taken the original game, added IR functionality, and called it a day, but the team instead introduced new modes and options that - along with a competitive price point - really saved the experience as far as we're concerned. Ghost Squad is made up of only three levels in total, each about 15 minutes long, which basically equates to one chapter of Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles; not a whole lot. How the game makes up for the lack of locales, however, is in the different skill levels of each stage.

Each of the three stages has 16 total levels of difficulty, which take the same architecture and scenarios, but change enemy spawns, events, and circumstances within that level. Like the extra scenarios in Umbrella Chronicles, these are made up of the same core, but are essentially 16 different versions of the same level. Team that with the branching paths for each mission, adding enough diversity to replay any given area three or four times to take each route, and you've got a game that seems a lot shorter than it is. Just know you'll be running through the jungle, storming one cottage, and sneaking around in Air Force One dozens upon dozens of times to see it all.

Most of what made Ghost Squad fun in the arcades is still retained though, as there's a huge emphasis on weapon management and mid-level missions. There are 25 weapons total, each with different attributes for a unique style of play, and you'll need to level your character profile up in order to gain access to all of them. Some guns (like the sniper rifle class) have the ability to pierce through cover, while others (such as the shotguns) rely on laying down huge burst of fire and getting multi-hit combos. As far as the mini-missions or "challenges" go, the game launches quick prompts telling you how the control works, and then expects you to execute on the fly. This could be as simple as holding A to free hostages during firefights, or as complex as using a one-shot sniper rifle to peg enemies at a safe distance. The game adds a ton of diversity in its 16 "levels" through these challenges, as an area that used to center around rescuing hostages c