![]() Taking yet another cue (see the pattern?), this time from DEVIL MAY CRY, the game features a meter that once filled by combos, allows you to either shoot off a round from the Hellfire Shotgun, or go into Vengeance Mode, where Ghost Rider becomes stronger, and enemies get weaker. Trouble is, the meter fully resets any time you’re hit, and given the camera (more on that one later), enemies will appear offscreen and tag you when you’re not expecting it to make this whole process intensely frustrating. You can’t build up your combo meter unless you throw in as much attack variety as possible, so you’re arbitrarily forced to use as many different attacks as you can to eventually crack this shield. ![]() In a moronic moment, there are a couple of instances where enemies will pop up with shields that can only be broken by reaching a certain ranking on the combo meter. One particular combo allows you to kill any enemy within 3 hits, unfortunately defeating the purpose of using the other combos until the game forces you to use those other combos. Taking another cue from GOD OF WAR, using your combos to dispatch enemies increases a combo meter, which increases the amount of demon souls you obtain, allowing you to power up and unlock more combos for you to use. And like some bastards, this one doesn’t get much lovin’ (and for good reason). You might as well call the game the bastard love child of GoW and DMC. Taking more than a few cues from bigger action games like GOD OF WAR and DEVIL MAY CRY, GHOST RIDER also features a dark, brooding button-masher with linear levels, large bosses to beat down, and a combat ranking system, as well as a protagonist that shoots chained blades out of his hands in a flurry of combat combos against a horde of foes, who can be dispatched by some wicked finishing moves. Obviously, along the way, Ghost Rider will find out that there’s more to what’s going on than Mephisto lets on, but we’ll just nod our heads, wink, and move on. Told through comic-paned cutscenes, basically Ghost Rider is sent on a mission by Mephisto to save the earth from Blackheart, who intends to start up his own Armageddon boogie. Picking up where the movie left off (sort of), Johnny Blaze wakes up in Hell as Ghost Rider. The story is an original one written up by Marvel’s own team of writers, Garth Ennis (who also wrote the story for THE PUNISHER) and Jimmy Palmiotti. If they make a sequel to GHOST RIDER, don’t expect a video game to follow. Movie-based games are more miss than hit most of the time, and GHOST RIDER is a perfect example of that. Needless to say, the game based on the film hasn’t gotten much love, and for the right reasons. Sure, the film’s been drawing mixed opinions from across the board, but I liked it for what it was. Okay, it’s been a couple of weeks since GHOST RIDER hit theatres, and the film’s snagged almost $100 million domestically. ![]() Systems: PlayStation 2, PSP, Gameboy Adavance (PlayStation 2 version reviewed)
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