When I was a kid, we didn’t have video games, in fact for a time, we didn’t even have color TV. But we did have comic books and that was my passion. I would spend hours in our club house sharing and reading all of the best comic books. The of course our play was often surrounding those stories. I loved the story of the Ghost Rider, fighting injustice and evil. Now Sony Pictures has released the movie based on that Marvel Comic book and I have to say that they did a great job of bringing the magic of that story to life for me.
Of course, more and more often, these great stories are released with a video game based on that movie. It is often difficult to do the story justice because it’s very hard to create something that will allow the gamer to be completely absorbed into the depths of the storyline and the intricacies of the characters, especially the enemies. I am afraid that Ghost Rider as developed by Climax Studios was also one such attempt that fell a little short of their goal.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed playing the game to a point, but it was somewhat…well, very…repetitive. First let’s lay the groundwork for the game. The story surrounds the exploits of a 17-year-old Johnny Blaze, who along with his father ride motorcycles in a stunt show as part of a carnival. Johnny finds out that his father is dieing of cancer and shortly after that discovery is approached by a stranger. This stranger offers Johnny a deal. He will cure Johnny’s father’s cancer in return for Johnny’s immortal soul. Johnny of course doesn’t believe but makes the deal to save his dad. The next morning Johnny’s dad is better…healthy as a horse in fact. He was cured miraculously of his illness, just in time to die a faster death in an “accident”.
The stranger then reveals himself as Mephisto, a demon of hell and now Johnny is conscripted into his service. Now this is where the game departs from the movie in that the game places Johnny in hell and he has to fight his way out. As the Ghost Rider, he is a flaming skeleton in a leather jacket, with a chain as a weapon. With this weapon he whips demons to death and destroys anything that gets in his way to emerging from this evil place.
As you take on the role of Johnny and battle your way out of the depths of hell, you will unlock more special moves that can make your trial a little easier. Some of the moves include the Ghost Riders most powerful weapon, the Penance Stare. There are upgrades in the categories of Fire Combos such as Fire Cutter, Light Combos such as the Helicopter Attack, and Heavy Combos such as the Super Quake. Ultimately, the game is a button-masher.
The Sony PSP version of Ghost Rider has to be the best of the platforms in my opinion. It was similar graphically to playing the Sony PS2 version on the PS3. The environments were rich and deep. The detail was well done and drew me into the game effectively. But alas, it was still a repetitive button-masher.
After creating an account, you will enter the arena so to speak. The demons of hell start crawling toward Johnny down the walls. There are LOTS of enemies to fight and you will find yourself just mashing buttons and at some times doing some special moves like drawing one of the enemy toward you with your chain and throwing a pro wrestling body-slam on them. This is a pretty nice animation and fairly satisfying. Then after clearing the area, you will be able to explore a little but remember that you get bonuses for completing the level in a certain time. You will then be able to choose when you will move onto the next level by stepping into the blue circle. Then you are off to the races again as you chain whip, shotgun and Penance Stare your enemies into oblivion.
Other areas of the game allow you the chance to ride the fire-breathing chopper. This was a lot of fun in that you will be able to whip the enemy with your chain as well as shoot them with fireballs from the front of the chopper. You will find yourself on the chopper for about one-third of the game. The rest of the time you will be doing the same brawler action over and over again.
There is little variety of the enemy that you will fight throughout the game but you will face some bosses including the likes of Lilith, Vengeance, Scarecrow, Deathwatch, Blade and Mephisto, and their many demonic thugs throughout 25 levels. And I do mean many as the enemy will continue to swarm you and often times you will find yourself stuck as an enemy off-screen nails you and completely depletes your vengeance bar requiring you to start over from scratch.
The graphics were well done to a point but there was so much more that could have been done. With the repeat of the enemy and environments over and over again, it just felt that Climax was recycling the same game scenes over and over again in an effort to expand the game without adding any new content.
The sound was not bad though the PSP speakers are rather limited. There was a good variety of sounds like the clink of Ghost Rider’s chains or the screech of the hellbats and the shotgun blast that really stood out and helped to draw the player into the game. The voice acting was really quite repetitive and not as imaginative as I would like. More work in this area might allow the player to develop more of an understanding, really a feel for the bad guys.
The PSP version of the game does allow for some multiplayer options. This was one thing that I liked in that up to four players can compete in the challenge modes using the PSP Wi-Fi mode. And of course you know how I like it when the developer allows us to share one copy of the game to play these multiplayer modes.
Overall, Ghost Rider is a great story and the game was not able to really do the story justice. There was a lot of fighting the same or similar enemies over and over again, and the environments were okay but were also fairly repetitive. The game is a classic brawler, a button-masher where you will find yourself smashing a combination of buttons over and over again and just hang on for the ride. I found the game pretty fun to play but will not get a lot of replay-ability out of it. I just think there could have been so much more of the story put into it that would really draw a player into it.
This game is a good game for those who like the classic brawler, but may not be a great game for the fans of the story, in either the movie or comic book version. If you are looking for something that is light, very action packed, that you can put down at any time, then Ghost Rider will be a game that you might enjoy. If you are looking for a game that allows more exploration and less action, then this is not the game for you.
