Pandora's Box: The Ultimate GameCube Tier List

#21: Geist

Rating: M

Players: 1-4

Price Range: ~$41 USD

A first-person shooter with puzzle elements.

Haha...

Ghost game...

(By the way, isn't it ironic that after the majority of A Ghost in the Hall was posted that I talk about a game involving ghosts?)

This one is truly interesting.

This is the second game published by Nintendo to be rated M, but unfortunately, today, it is considered a laughingstock with how much of a failure it was due to a multitude of reasons, leading it to be forgotten.

It wasn't even released in Japan, Nintendo's home country.

However, I'll be a contrarian and say that Geist was very misunderstood and given way too much hate at the time and even now, as I think it is easily one of the coolest and most underrated games on the system, and an exclusive one too that had tons of potential.

First of all, I need to explain the general mechanics of the game by talking about the campaign.

With supernatural elements, you play as John Raimi, a soldier in the U.S. counter-terrorism team UR-2, who, with the team, attempt to extract Thomas Bryson, a mole, in the suspicious Volks Corporation, but on the way out and having most of the team wiped out by security and a monster of unknown origin, you're taken down by a member that turns on you and Bryson, leading to unconsciousness. When you wake up and attached to this dark and demonic mechanism, your soul is ripped from your body. Now a poltergeist, you go on your way to reclaim your body, rescue Bryson, and stop the leader of the Volks Corporation, Alexander Volks, from resurrecting dark powers with the help of Gigi, his deceased young sister and a fellow poltergeist.

In this game, you, as a ghost, must possess objects to progress, along with other creatures, like the dog Phantom and even people in order to bypass doors and combat enemies. However, in order to possess living beings, you have to scare them first in order to reduce their spiritual defenses, allowing you to take over their body, which is a puzzle in of itself to use the environment to not only figure out solutions to problems, but also to find the way to scare a host to possess. It's a really great game loop, with some very creative solutions, like possessing a number pad to see what Volks soldiers use as a password, or to move things that are impossible to otherwise.

When getting Bryse to safety close to the midpoint, you have to defend him from legions of soldiers by utilizing traps to deal with them, which is just some of the examples I can think of.

Some even have fears and likes that affect the host. For example, you use this crane in the facility to scare an engineer in order to possess him. However, you need a fuse on the side of the crane, but his fear of the machine physically prevents you from going near it, so you have to possess the fuse itself, roll it to his feet, and then take control of him to progress. Animals like mice also can be attracted to food on mousetraps, sucking you in and forcing you to fight it as you are being pulled towards them. These abilities are also used to defeat groups of enemies to prevent damage to your host in combat or to save your resources. Really great.

The ghost form also has its own gameplay. Time moves much slower as your ethereal form and your invisible. Your time left is limited however, as you have to quickly possess something before you are removed from the world of the living and are forced into the afterlife, with stealing the lifeforce from plants giving you more time. Really interesting.