Four Fat Chicks -- Ghost Masters Review

Review by Old Rooster
October 2003

Boo!

At my age, one thinks about the afterlife. Having been a civil servant most of my working career, it's not a far cry (or howl) to believe that I may find my heavenly(?) self in charge of teams of ghosts—specters, banshees, ghouls and spirits—all with the goal of frightening my former earthly human companions. If you're in the mood for a really different game, have a twisted sense of humor, and enjoy horror films, then Ghost Master may be the game for you.

Let's dispel one misconception right away, though. Many who have not played GM view it as an adventure title. That's not the case, I'm afraid. GM is primarily a real-time strategy game, with strong simulation overtones, and some RPG components. It's Ghostbusters (or "Peoplebusters," really) meets The Sims. One might think of GM as "haunting management." It's original, creative, funny and graphically lovely; but it's not an adventure.

Discworld

Ghost Master comes to us from Sick Puppies, a British development house. In doing a little research, we find that one Gregg Barnett is not only responsible for this inventive title, but also had a major hand in all three Discworld games! I may be a bit biased, with my English wife, but I do feel that, except for peculiar spelling, the English have a wonderful talent for subtle and off-the-wall humor (or humour). Given GM, I'm very much anticipating further products from Barnett and company.

Haunter Committee Handbook

The presentation of Ghost Master, from the 39-page manual to basic design and interface is excellently done. Clearly, time, patience and care were "exorcised" (get it?) with game production. It installed (750 MB) and ran smoothly on my moderate 1.8 GHz, nVidia 3 system.

As mentioned, the basic premise of GM is simply to scare the living daylights out of the poor, unsuspecting denizens of Gravenville. You'll employ about 50 ghosts of various types and descriptions, using 130 powers, all within 15 levels set across 12 different locations. This is a game where the manual needs to be read and the fine tutorial taken seriously. It's tough, and very different, if you don't play many real-time strategy titles.

In each of the locations, you begin with a recommended team of spirits, or a group selected by you. Your goal is typically to frighten the characters—whether in a sorority house (I used to frighten them just by showing up), police station, hospital or barnyard ("Poultrygeist"). As nicely outlined in "Twenty Steps to Easy Haunting," your individual ghosts need to be "fettered," or bound to a specific place within the location in order to do their ghostly work. They also need "plasm," or energy; this energy being increased by successful haunting, thereby giving them more power. The particular mortals who are your targets have varying degrees of weakness—termed as Terror, Belief, and Madness—all colorfully depicted on the interface. So, to sum up, much like some of the Rainbow Six kind of titles, you need to select a squad, trying to tailor it to your particular destination and goals, being watchful of the squad's health (plasm) along the way. As you may guess, there is considerable replay opportunity available, given the multitude of ghosts eventually available (not all are there up front), and once all of the levels are opened. In addition, some missions have extra puzzle elements and challenges, such as finding two hidden corpses—nice stuff like that.

Spooky Hollow

The range of locations, as well as names, are inventive and highly entertaining. We have Spooky Hollow, where you try to create rain, winds and thunder; the Blair Wisp Project; the Unusual Suspects, set in a police station; the Calamityville Horror; the Phantom of the Operating Room; and What Lies Over the Cuckoo's Nest, just to name a few.

Within each setting, you'll find little Sims-type people, going about their routines, not suspecting the horrors you're plotting. Once members of your team are in place, the fun begins. To some extent, you can sit back and watch, but there is also a need to exercise some degree of management.

The graphics are all in 3D, with special effects from your ghosts providing the highlights. Unleashing spider hordes, controlling mortals like a puppet, creating storms inside a room, making walls bleed—all are beautifully enacted. Further, the house, for example, can be rotated completely, with each floor examined in detail using a zoom feature. Indeed, a la Dungeon Keeper, the camera can even enter the character of the spook or victim, showing you what he sees in grisly detail.

As evident from mission titles, homage is paid to classic films, horror and otherwise. This homage is also evident with the incredible music and sound effects. From the title screen to the missions themselves, one can't help but smile, remember, and be properly inspired by the aural quality of Ghost Master.

Spooktacular

Ghost Master is unique, creative, colorful, challenging, and a good deal of plain old fun. If you've ever wanted to enter the puerile world of your Sims with a team of bizarre spirits, then this is the game for you. If you're up for a hard, but satisfying, puzzle/strategy mission objective game, Ghost Master should fit the bill. Heck, it gets "10 extra points" just for being so weird and different!

My raves don't lead me, though, to award a coveted Gold Star. Although the settings are different, and ghosts/powers are considerably varied, there is still a redundancy that sets in after three or so "exorcises." The game engine is terrific, yet I wish there was more of a story or adventure involved. Considerable discussion is evident on GM fan sites regarding more missions or add-ons in the future, but nothing is yet in the works. To some extent, the game may be the beginning of a work in progress, but it is also very possible that this will be all we see of Ghastly, Shivers, Weather Witch, Electroplasm, and all of the other ghostly fiends and friends we made during our tour of Gravenville.

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