One of the genres that the gamecube falls far behind in is the first person shooter. Choice is limited, and with the exception of Metroid Prime, the gamecube hasn’t seen any original creations in this area, until Geist.

Geist is a shooter that starts you off as John Raimi, a scientist accompanying a special forces unit to infiltrate the Volks Corporation. You soon find yourself strapped above a fissure to hell with your soul being ripped from your body. The rest of the game, you play as a sort of ghost – able to possess people, animals, and objects.

The game’s concept is not entirely new, buts its one that we rarely see. The last time I saw a game that would allow you to possess people was Omikron: The Nomad Soul for the PC just before the turn of the century. Being the only recent game to apply this sort of unique gameplay feature, Geist does stand out slightly for those tired of the standard FPS elements.

Looking at Geist from all angles, there seems to be a few areas the game excels very well in, and some where it falls short. Some areas of the game are very nicely polished whereas others seem to have been neglected. This leads me to believe that it had been rushed to market at some point during its development.

Graphically, Geist is average. There are some cool bullet-time effects as a ghost and some very nicely done lighting in certain areas, but the majority of the visuals are typical. While human animations seem to be fluid and natural feeling, the animals you encounter in the game and are very rigid and could have used some work. Nothing horrible to look at, but I’ve seen the Gamecube push much nicer graphics to the screen.

Geist employs the use of puzzles throughout the game in order to complete certain objectives. In order to possess living things, they must first be scared, so you have to possess objects in the surrounding area to freak out your target. This is done in a very scripted way, and isn’t very deep. There are a few puzzles that might get you stumped for brief periods of time, but generally they are fairly easy to overcome. Along with the puzzles, the course through the single-player game feels very linear.

This game was designed to move straight from point A to B, with little room to wander. When there is room to wander, you occasionally break the game. Not crashing, but lets say you possess a host before you are supposed to, you might be told that you need to possess someone who has clearance when your current host already does, you just skipped an objective that’s preventing you from continuing. Problems like this would have probably been fixed in the game spent a little more time in the development oven.

The FPS aspects of the game are a little on the deficient side too. Controls could have been tighter and the AI was just plain stupid. Boss battles were very hit and miss, too. There are definitely some shortcomings, but if you can look past them the game is worth a play through.

Multiplayer was very nicely done, using the possession dynamics to create some very cool game modes. Probably the most original would have to be the Hunt mode. Players as ghosts must try to possess players that are human and force them into deadly situations. Next up would probably be Capture the Host, which involves possessing someone and safely guiding them to a predetermined point. If those aren’t to your liking then you can hit up some Deathmatch. This mode places hosts with different abilities around the map free for the possessing, with your goal being to kill your opponent’s host.

Thought the gameplay modes in multiplayer are fun, it suffers the same loose controls and bad AI (when playing with bots) as the single-player campaign. Its really too bad, because this game’s multiplayer could have been enough to make it the Halo of the ‘cube. One more disappointment is the lack of LAN play. The Gamecube doesn’t have a single networked shooter, and it’ll stay that way. Its too bad, because that alone might have been reason enough to pick this game up, given tighter controls and better AI.

Geist offers some very refreshing concepts to its genre, but it just feels a little unfinished and bland in other areas. At its current retail price it is very hard to recommend you buy it. I had picked it up over the Christmas holidays for $19.99 CND and its worth it, but not a penny more. Since the game was fairly quick to complete single-player, you might want to consider renting it.

Time played: 10 hours (completed)

EPO Review Verdict: Don’t Buy

Editor’s note: You can find Geist easily for under $10 new at this point, and at that price it is well worth the cash.

[Show as slideshow]