I had the pleasure of reviewing the latest release from 505 Games and All In Games, Ghostrunner. An all out hack and slash action game with plenty on offer, here are my thoughts of the game and how I thought it played out.
Synopsis
Ghostrunner is a hardcore FPP slasher packed with lightning-fast action, set in a grim, cyberpunk setting of a futuristic megastructure. Climb Dharma Tower, humanity s last shelter after a world-ending cataclysm. Make your way up from the very bottom to the top, confront the tyrannical Keymaster, and take your revenge. The streets of the tower city are full of violence. Mara the Keymaster rules with an iron fist and little regard for human life. As resources grow thin, the strong prey on the weak and chaos threatens to consume what little order remains. The decisive last stand is coming. The final attempt to set things right before mankind goes over the edge of extinction.
Gameplay
Firstly I need to say, and I’ll probably say it a lot more, Ghostrunner is visually stunning and you notice this straight off the bat with the first cut scene playing out giving you the back story of your character and how you are in this situation. Now before you get into it I have a little bit of advice, take a look at your control layout and if you feel more comfortable give it a bit of tweak if needed, the controls are sensitive and I personally found the bumper button to jump a bit clunky. Think of Ghostrunner as a mix of Mirrors Edge and Blade Runner and that will give you some sort of idea. You kind of get the feeling of what the action will be like as you drop down on an unsuspecting enemy and giving him the old slice and dice treatment, it actually made me sit up in my seat in a sort of “ok here we go” moment.
Now I’m not going to sugarcoat this Ghostrunner isn’t the easiest of games, in fact it is borderline break your console frustrating, I shall explain you move about the different areas using different parkour techniques and it is fast paced, get one of the moves wrong and you fall to your death, you will do this a lot but Ghostrunner is the only game that I’ve ever played that has frustrated the life out of me but I simply cannot stop playing it and keep going back for more and when you do finally pull off one of the many parkour chains there is a sense of achievement that you finally did it.
Another aspect of the game that can be frustrating is the one-shot kill mechanism, which basically means that if the enemy shoots you you’re dead and back to the checkpoint you go, meaning at times you may have to go back to the beginning of the level again and try to pull off that parkour link system you just took ages to do. But on the other hand I just love the combat, there is no better feeling that dropping down in your enemy and literally cutting them in half and when you manage to take out multiple enemies again it is a satisfying feeling.
Slashing and jumping about isn’t the only things to do in Ghostrunner there are also abilities to unlock and on ability it particular is handy if you want to collect all the different katana variations, if you pre-ordered the game you do receive a bonus skin to start you off.
Now don’t get me wrong Ghostrunner is hard (very hard) but it draws you in, for the first time it is actually a frustrating game I am really wanting to play as normally my patience runs thin very quick and it goes to the bottom of the pile, but Ghostrunner has the pull that draws you back in thinking “I’ll just have one more go to see if I can do it this time” hence the 190 attempts I racked up on my first attempt!!.
Graphically Ghostrunner is one of the best I’ve seen this gen and can’t wait to see how it looks running on the next gen with it taking the smart delivery option you get a free upgrade when you get the next gen console of your choice.
Verdict – 9 out of 10
Ghostrunner is quite simply fantastic and an all round great game I had a lot of fun playing it and will continue to do so, with awesome cinematic style graphics and storyline. I would recommend this game to anyone it really does need to be in every library, but a word of advice persistence pays off so do keep trying.
Ghostrunner is available now on PS4, Xbox One, PC and Nintendo Switch – it is also offering Smart Delivery giving you a free upgrade to the next gen consoles.
For more information head to www.ghostrunnergame.com
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