GHOST SQUAD (T)
Rating: ***1/2
Sega
Wii
Ghost Squad feels like a relic from 1991—a simplistic light gun, on-rails shooter you might visit in an arcade before heading home to watch re-runs of The A-Team. This relic would be riding a wave of ’80s violent action movie nostalgia, carrying clear references to Rambo movies and anything starring Chuck Norris (it could be called Delta Force just as easily as Ghost Squad). And gamers willing to pump enough quarters into it would be rewarded by unlocking Paradise Mode, which turns all the terrorists into babes in bikinis.
But this isn’t a port of an old ’90s game. It’s a throwback to an age when it was okay for a game to be so bad it was good—when it was okay for characters to have inarticulate designs and blocky textures, and it was cute that all the dialogue hinted that English wasn’t the game designer’s first language (or even the voice actor’s). In a strange way, all of these present-day video game faux pas, are acceptable simply because Ghost Squad is so unapologetic about its anachronistic cheesiness. The most legitimate complaint would be that it’s too short, but the brevity is to be expected. In 1991, kids didn’t carry enough quarters to through more than three levels.
GODZILLA: UNLEASHED (E10+)
Rating: *1/2
Atari
Wii
If Godzilla had as poor control over his motor skills as he does in this game,
SILENT HILL ORIGINS (M)
Rating: **1/2
Konami
PlayStation Portable
Silent Hill Origins was built from the ground up for a portable platform, but it feels like a genuine Silent Hill game, which is to say that it has an atmosphere that’s creepy as hell, combat that’s an exercise in frustration and a story that raises more questions than it answers. Fans will be delighted that the conventions of the series have remained intact, but, personally, I wouldn’t mind a few of those conventions getting lost in the game’s signature fog. The annoying controls are still the scariest thing in the series.
ALIENS VS. PREDATOR: REQUIEM (T)
Rating: **
Sierra Entertainment
PlayStation Portable
Movie tie-in games tend to be bad because they’re rushed through development in order for their release to coincide with the film. So it’s a really bad sign that Aliens vs. Predator has actually managed to precede the film. Had Sierra taken a little extra time for fine tuning, they might’ve realized that they made the player-controlled Predator into an invincible, dreadlock-sporting Superman, essentially eliminating any challenge his acid-dripping adversaries might’ve brought to the table.
When Las Vegas Weekly contributor Matthew Scott Hunter realized his career as a lab technician was seriously interfering with his gaming, he pink-slipped himself into a successful career as a freelance writer. Bug the hell out of him at [email protected]