Geist is one of those increasingly rare games that is exclusive to the Nintendo Gamecube but isn't actually developed by Nintendo themselves. Instead, Geist is a product of N-Space, who haven't release a game that wasn't based on Mary Kate & Ashley since 2000's Duke Nukem: Land of the Babes. The title has gained a lot of attention leading up to release, for numerous reasons. Some say it's because of the unique style of the game, while others will probably tell you that it's because it is an exclusive first person shooter on the Gamecube without Metroid in the title.

In Geist you start off as John Raimi, who has a well established background and career in biological and chemical threats. You're in high demand with the government and other organisations; indeed, you've got it made. Until a company called the Volks Corporation comes under the spotlight, when it's discovered the arms dealer is hiding something deep beneath the surface that needs investigating. In an admirable move, the writers of this game actually aren't making you 'the man' and sending you in to figure out what's going on. That job is Thomas Bryson's, who just happens to be your best friend of many years. After weeks of silence, Bryson makes contact and he wants out. A group is sent in to extract him, with you following behind the pack and not armed to the teeth with heavy weaponry. Then, when everything seems fine and dandy, it happens. Your team is killed as you and Bryson are captured and subjected to a bizarre experiment that separates you from your body. You become a spectre... a ghost. Or, if you're German, a geist!

The gameplay of Geist is certainly unique: when you first take control of ghost Raimi, you're in a heavenly outdoor area that looks very appealing, full of rabbits that you can possess. As you explore this area, a wireframe texture starts to overcome everything and you wake up strapped to a machine, as your ghost escapes for unknown reasons (for now) from this artificial prison. As a ghost your job is to explore the underground facility, find Bryson and escape. The cool thing is that you can't just pull out two machine guns as a ghost and blast your way through; you have to posses a huge variety of things throughout your journey to progress. Living beings like soldiers, dogs, bats and rats can all be possessed, just as long as their fear is high enough. You see, to actually take over a body you need to scare the hell out of the poor soul before you can dive in. To do that you'll need to posses non-living objects like telephones, trash bins, ladders, paint cans, machinery, mirrors and a lot more, to mess with your victims' minds.

For instance, take over a phone and you can cause it to ring, yet when someone picks it up off the hook it'll be dead. As a trash can you can spew flaming pieces of garbage out of it when somebody approaches, or as a paint can you can make a huge mess of bright colours when the can literally explodes. The concept is a damn good one that breathes a huge breath of fresh air into the first person shooter genre, but unfortunately it seems that the developers thought that this was all they needed to make a great game.

There are certainly a lot of really cool things to posses, some of which cause mass destruction and send enemies flying (and since ghost time moves slower than real time, you get to watch bodies fly through the air in glorious ragdoll slow motion), but the problem is that you are given no freedom at all when it comes to what to take over and when. Every room where you possess something is like a puzzle; you need to take over certain objects in a specific order, or you just won't get anywhere. A bit of looking around and it becomes fairly obvious what to use, especially when you need to use more than one object, because the enemies' reaction always places them near to the next object. Geist could've really been something special had you been given the freedom to properly explore rooms and possess almost anything you wanted, even if there wasn't much of a point to do so. A non-linear approach would have been spectacular, allowing you to replay rooms in a completely different way, trying to figure out every possible method to scare somebody. But, no, that's not what we've been given. The developers want you to do it one way and only one way, which most of the time it isn't a particularly exciting one.

Aside from that massive and potentially game-crippling flaw, Geist's actual gunplay (don't forget this is a first person shooter after all, even though it mostly seems like a first person puzzler) isn't very spectacular either. The guns look quite cool and reload well, but every character you possess either has one specific gun or none at all, which would be fine if there was a large variety of people to take over, but there isn't. Sluggish controls don't help matters either, although they feel appropriate when you're floating as a ghost. Each character has their own 'special' ability, which is usually crouch (for soldiers), sprint (for characters not packing heavy heat) and jump (for animals and some people). Logically, every character you take over should be able to do this, but I guess that would've meant the creators having to make some abilities that actually were special. The result usually causes you to attempt to crouch and end up running very fast, or attempt to jump and end up crouching. In their defence, the controller doesn't really have many buttons and it was probably all they could do to fit everything in. Finally, for some odd reason, you seem to always be given an infinite amount of not just bullets, but whatever secondary attack your possessee may have (such as grenades). It throws out any strategy when you've possessed someone, but helps keep the pace fast and perhaps 'old-school'. Geist does indeed feel like an arcade FPS from back-when that should please some people, but for most others it will probably just seem weird.

Another element that helps Geist feel a bit retro is the giant boss battles, but before you get excited, let me clue you in. You remember boss battles from titles on the Megadrive, NES and SNES? When the enemy would repeat the same couple of patterns over and over and you simply did the same attack - over and over - until it died? Well, they're back! Good times are here again! Or perhaps not... to say the boss fights are dull and chore-like would be putting it mildly.

Story-wise, Geist is a lot like Darkwatch in the respect that the lead character doesn't speak, even when he has the ability and chance to. For me this absolutely kills most of the story, throwing out many chances to progress the story and character; don't be surprised if you don't end up caring about Mr. Raimi whatsoever and the only reason you'll remember his name is because every friendly character says it to you when you initiate a conversation (which also have no voiceover dialogue, but just text, despite the cut scenes having full voiceovers). The actual story is pretty cool and sci-fi fans will surely enjoy it, as they learn more about why these people are being separated from their bodies, but again... it could be so much better if the lead character actually had a spec of personality. The title at least keeps you guessing for a good while, which is noteworthy.

Aside from a sometimes awful frame-rate, the graphics in Geist are quite impressive, especially in situations with dynamic lighting. One thing I really liked was the fact that when you ran you could tell your character was running and when you're a ghost you can definitely tell you're floating. Along the same lines, when you push buttons, pull levers and perform similar actions, you actually see your character's hand reach forward and carry out the action (unfortunately not so with doors, however), which is a great touch that helps immerse you in the experience and is almost needed. Why? Well, when you can switch between an unseen ghost and a person it wouldn't be very good if your 'person' pushed switches without actually touching them. Some people would probably forget they were even inside a body most of the time. So, well done to the developers for not being like most and taking the lazy way out when it comes to this aspect, like almost every other shooter out there. The character models are fairly well done and have a cool cartoon-aspect to them, but not to the point where they look semi-deformed. Almost everything is bright and colourful, with a distinct difference in how everything looks and sounds when you go from ghost to host.

The sound doesn't fair quite as well, be it the total lack of in-game voiceovers to bland music that does nothing to help the experience, though it frequently does at least come in at the right times. Matched with some hit-and-mostly-miss voice acting, the sound is pretty average overall. There's some good little touches, like the different sounds you make while running on different textures, but there is also a good deal of problems, like some actions completely missing sounds and the ones that are there just not being either not that great or too subdued.

A number of other flaws pop up along the way: like the horrible AI that never reacts like it should unless it's scripted. Another thing that could have pushed Geist to be great was if enemies always reacted according to the bizarre things happening around them. But they rarely do, unless the linear nature of the game forces you to possess something and use it. But when it's blatantly obvious someone is being taken over and used, the enemies don't do anything; even if you cause multiple barrels to explode nearby they just don't care (on that note, it is cool that for once you aren't shooting strategically placed explosives but instead actually possessing them and manually blowing them up in slow motion.)

The pacing of the game also suffers and could easily ruin the experience for some. Just after you solve a momentarily mind boggling puzzle you'll run into another situation where you aren't sure what to do right away and end up wandering slightly. It takes a while for it to balance out with the exciting action sequences and sometime it just doesn't. The single player just isn't as gripping as you would expect due to this and some will end up quitting simply because they got bored of doing similar things back to back, even if the game does a good job of throwing new and unusual things at you to possess and experiment with. Finally, the game is simply way too easy - enemies can riddle you with bullets and only put a dent in your health bar while you take them down with one pistol shot to the head with ease. There just isn't very much challenge anywhere and the dreadful AI doesn't help much.

If you've got some friends then the multiplayer modes here should keep you entertained for a good while, as the game features various traditional modes with a unique spin on all of them. The possession aspect of the single player carries over to the multiplayer, with modes like Possession Deathmatch (where you fly around an arena with the ability to possess idle soldiers, as well as containers that you can slyly detonate when somebody passes by), Capture the Host and Hosts (where human hosts use anti-spirit weapons to track and kill enemy ghosts, whilst the ghosts actually try to possess the humans and manoeuvre them into traps and pitfalls.) The mode supports four players obviously, but also allows four bots to pad out the match. Those who haven't leaped to the online world will probably really enjoy Geist's multiplayer options and even bring back fond Nintendo frag-fest memories of Goldeneye and Perfect Dark. Now, you already know what I'm about to say… this game would have rocked online!

Geist had tons of potential and could have really been something special among a sea of mediocre and similar shooters. I would love to be sitting here writing about how great this unique game is, but after creating such a cool concept the developers let the rest go and forgot to add the things that truly make a shooter great, like good AI, freedom of approach and a gripping story that progresses in interesting ways. It certainly has its moments and is indeed a unique experience, such as later in the huge battles when you find yourself switching frantically from body to body and watching your enemies fire on each other in slow-motion confusion, and you should try it out for that, but I wouldn't necessarily run out and buy it, because it simply doesn't last too long and doesn't offer the freedom that a must-have game should. Nonetheless, Geist is indeed an important reminder that there are still unique premises out there even in a genre as crowed and hard to stand out in as the first person shooter. If you enjoy action games but have grown tired of shooter after shooter after shooter, Geist will surely keep you occupied and entertained for a little while, despite its myriad flaws.

Reviewed by Christopher Martin for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).