One of my friends introduced me to StarCraft as a kid and, being obsessed with anything remotely related to outer space or aliens, I immediately fell in love with it. When Ghost was previewed in game magazines, I couldn't contain my excitement. A full 3D adventure in the StarCraft universe, engaging the Zerg in direct combat, playing as one of the badass spy-adjacent characters (a lady, at that)? "This will be the coolest game of 2004," my dumb child brain thought.
Being able to play this thing in any capacity is mind-blowing to me. A rough, unfinished mess of a generic 6th gen action-adventure though it may be, the fact that it leaked in a state where I actually got to play it at all more or less overrides any other reaction in my mind. There are seven levels here, none of any particular quality, and one of them doesn't work on my Xbox, so I suffered through it at 10fps with missing textures and no audio on an emulator. Anything to sate my nostalgic curiosity.
I can see why this game was cancelled. The graphics are great for the time, especially Nova's character model, but everything else would be decent at best even with polish. I always imagined Ghost would play something like Splinter Cell or Metal Gear Solid, but it seems the devs decided to make a 3rd person shooter instead. The guns don't feel good to use, the enemies aren't fun to fight, and the level design doesn't lend itself well to interesting encounters. There's a turret section, because of course there is, as well as an extended sequence where you have to call in air strikes on specific targets by holding one button and pressing another. It's all very typical stuff, which isn't inherently bad, but it's hard to live up to the innovative masterpiece kid me dreamed about.
The last two stages do incorporate stealth, and they'd fare a little better if they didn't feature the absolute worst mechanic known to man: silent takedowns that require the player to execute quick-time events. I've only ever seen this blight in one other game, and that was Secret Agent Clank, so you know, good company. The sneaking itself is janky but competent, no worse than any other non-stealth game that tries to do stealth really. I had more fun with these levels than the first five, possibly because I'm insane and actually enjoy bad stealth missions for some reason.
There's a foundation for an okay game here, and I do wish it had been finished, if only so the mysticism surrounding it could be dispelled and the developers' hard work could properly see the light of day. I'm ecstatic I got the chance to play this leaked build, even if it wasn't very good and made me feel foolish for being so excited over it back in the day.
Being able to play this thing in any capacity is mind-blowing to me. A rough, unfinished mess of a generic 6th gen action-adventure though it may be, the fact that it leaked in a state where I actually got to play it at all more or less overrides any other reaction in my mind. There are seven levels here, none of any particular quality, and one of them doesn't work on my Xbox, so I suffered through it at 10fps with missing textures and no audio on an emulator. Anything to sate my nostalgic curiosity.
I can see why this game was cancelled. The graphics are great for the time, especially Nova's character model, but everything else would be decent at best even with polish. I always imagined Ghost would play something like Splinter Cell or Metal Gear Solid, but it seems the devs decided to make a 3rd person shooter instead. The guns don't feel good to use, the enemies aren't fun to fight, and the level design doesn't lend itself well to interesting encounters. There's a turret section, because of course there is, as well as an extended sequence where you have to call in air strikes on specific targets by holding one button and pressing another. It's all very typical stuff, which isn't inherently bad, but it's hard to live up to the innovative masterpiece kid me dreamed about.
The last two stages do incorporate stealth, and they'd fare a little better if they didn't feature the absolute worst mechanic known to man: silent takedowns that require the player to execute quick-time events. I've only ever seen this blight in one other game, and that was Secret Agent Clank, so you know, good company. The sneaking itself is janky but competent, no worse than any other non-stealth game that tries to do stealth really. I had more fun with these levels than the first five, possibly because I'm insane and actually enjoy bad stealth missions for some reason.
There's a foundation for an okay game here, and I do wish it had been finished, if only so the mysticism surrounding it could be dispelled and the developers' hard work could properly see the light of day. I'm ecstatic I got the chance to play this leaked build, even if it wasn't very good and made me feel foolish for being so excited over it back in the day.