Geist for Gamecube - The not-so-final word...

Against the ratings of this game, I decided to purchase it. It only ran $15 brand new from a seller on Ebay, so I figured "Why not?"

Prerelease, editors had every right to be excited about this game. The idea is quite awesome; possessing people and objects to accomplish your goals. This game looked to be a semi-new take on First Person games, and the idea had potential to get people interested.

But alas, as reported, this game is somewhat disappointing. I've only played the first few levels, and the most important thing this game is lacking is freeform. It is far from allowing you to choose you own path, such as some Splinter Cell Chaos Theory levels. It feels so preset, and if you can't figure out what you are supposed to do next, then you're stuck. If you kill the only available "host" in a room; Game Over...even though you didn't know that was a "host" that you needed.

Other than that pitfall, the only other concern is a jumpy framerate and unsmoothed polygons. The textures are there on the polygons though, so it makes the graphics close to standard fare. Once into the game though, the graphical hiccups are excusable and may go unnoticed. You'll be too busy figuring out how to procede.

The idea is fun, and I actually hope it isn't abandoned. A sequel would provide ample opportunity to fix the major problem with this game. Freeform is almost an expected feature in a game such as this. If you could go around possessing random objects and some how make it fun, but not necessarily required in the game, they may have a winner on their hands.

Hopefully when I get time to finish the game I'll have good things to say about it.