August 8, 2005 - Developer n-Space doesn't want its spooky new GameCube title, Geist, to fall into the saturated "first-person shooter" category. At least, that's what Nintendo said when it delivered a nearly finalized copy of the game to us late last week. We smiled and said yes, of course, that we'd do our best to remember that, but honestly we didn't think much of it. After all, in previous play tests with Geist, which situates players as a federal agent turned ghost, we found ourselves drenched in mechanics that could be described as the textbook definition of a first-person shooter. Armed with a gun, we ran through hallways and shot soldiers -- and that was pretty much it. Add in the fact that some recent magazine reviews of Geist compared the game to typical FPSs like Halo and we thought we had a good idea of what to expect. But it turns out we were wrong. Like the beings that agent John Raimi is able to possess in this unique new thriller, there's much more to Geist than initially meets the eye.
First Impressions Mean Nothing
Geist doesn't make a good first impression, which may be the game's biggest problem. You are agent John Raimi, assigned with a team of soldiers to investigate the mysterious Volks Corporation, whose corrupt exploits have drawn the eye of the government. Credit goes to n-Space for creating a would-be hero who doesn't follow the videogame template. You're not a muscle-bound army specialist with enough guns to supply a third-world country, but a scientist type whose knowledge of weaponry is secondary. In that way, the game reminds us of the Half-Life series. Raimi runs through the high-tech hallways of the Volks Corporation with his PDA in hand, and eventually downloads from a computer terminal proof that the organization has indeed been experimenting with dodgy cellular reconstruction. That's when the action picks up and impressions go bad.
If Geist were strictly a first-person shooter, it would likely be a failure, and this is evidenced from the moment the first group of Volks-employed goons fires upon Raimi's squad. Dual analog control enables Raimi to simultaneously run and aim. When he looks at objects or soldiers, icons appear when he can interact with them. He can manually reload his weapon and crouch to avoid gunfire. But the control mechanics are a little too loose for precision aiming and the framerate can be sporadic when large groups of enemies are displayed on-screen. The result is a clumsily manipulated first-person shooting experience. Not bad. In fact, once you come to grip with the setup, it's functional. It's just not as polished as other shooters. So if you are the type who plays a game for 10 minutes and then decides whether it's worth your time or not, you might be tricked into thinking that Geist isn't. On the other hand, if you can brave through the game's less than spectacular beginning, you'll find a light at the end of the tunnel and an intriguing quest that in fact does largely fall under the first-person adventure umbrella.
