Ghost Squad review

If someone says the term Ghost Squad to me I conjur up images of Yvette Fielding and her cronies running around a haunted mansion going ooooh, ahhhh and ‘can you make a noise’. Of course, that’s not what Sega’s new game for the Wii is about, it’s a home conversion of their arcade game about a group of soldiers who apparently go into a situation to stop terrorists and the like by leaving no trace. That is if you count leaving lots of bodies full of holes and smashed up furniture as leaving no trace.

In essence what you get here is an exact replica of the arcade game, albeit without the massive guns, a party mode and a training mode to help you practice your shooting without using any crosshairs. You use the Wiimote as a light gun and can configure the buttons to use normally or with the Wii Zapper or any other third party device that makes you feel like a big boy because you’re packing some heat.

In the main arcade game you shoot your way through three locations that take about 9 minutes each to complete. You fight through a cabin, Airforce one, then in a jungle ending with a boat chase on the river. Being an arcade game the whole thing’s on rails as you shoot any enemies that pop out at you, and also bonuses for extra ammo, health and armour.

The first thing you’ll realise is just how well this works. The game is very responsive and is still fun and more challenging if you decide to switch off the cursor and just aim intuitively. It’s pretty cheesy throughout and the graphics aren’t anything special but this game is a few years old now and being a direct port from what was effectively Xbox hardware for the arcade, it fits with Sega’s style and runs quickly and smoothly throughout.

The main game is very short but there is some replayability as you can choose different paths to go down which ultimately lead you to the same goal. Play through the game a few times and you can see all the various locations in which you can shoot bad guys. And it’s not just shooting, there are also sections where you must diffuse bombs, land mines and take part in a bit of hand to hand combat.

The party mode lets up to four players shoot at once which can be a little confusing and see who gets the highest score, and there are other new modes to unlock such as ninja mode which I found to be lots of fun. You carefully choose when to sneak to the next scene, your squad are dressed like Shinobi and you use throwing stars to kill the nasty now Kimono-wearing terrorists.

The game’s certainly a blast of action and great fun while it lasts but as a full price title I can’t recommend this as great value for money. If you’re a die-hard shooting fan then you may still wish to buy this now. To everyone else, maybe hire it for the weekend or wait until it’s found its true price in the bargain bins.

Ghost Squad gets a good but short 6 out of 10.

Ghost Squad

Ghost Squad

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