Reviewed: October 10, 2003
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Vivendi Universal

Developer
Sick Puppies
Empire Interactive

Released: August 19, 2003
Genre: Strategy
Players: 1
ESRB: Teen

6
9
8
6
7.9

System Requirements

Ghost Master is one of those games that slipped under my E3 radar this year, so when it arrived for review I had absolutely no idea what it was about or what to expect. After a quick install I sat back and watched one of the most beautiful and charming opening movies of any game this year. Imagine a wild mix of Ghost Busters, Scooby Doo, and Animal House then throw in some Monsters Inc. quality graphics and you just begin to scratch the surface of the movie and the entire concept of the game.

Ghost Master can best be described as a Halloween version of Dungeon Keeper, of course if you have never played or heard of that game then allow me to explain. Ghost Master is a strategy game that is based around specific unit types and rules that govern those units. Rather than directly controlling the actions of your units you set up “situations” and allow the units to act and react based on their own AI or pre-programmed set of rules.

You are presented with 15 challenging scenarios, each with multiple objectives and branching paths that you get to haunt with a wild and crazy assortment of ghosts, goblins, and spooks. As the Ghost Master you are in charge of assigning certain ghosts to specific areas and issuing limits on their haunting abilities. You goal – to scare the pudding out of the inhabitants of each location, or better yet, drive them insane.

Ghost Master is broken down into a group of people with unique properties (fears, phobias, beliefs), and a group of spirits with their own haunting specialties. It’s your job to mix and match the haunts with the humans for the quickest and most effective scare tactics. To make things more challenging ghosts must be “bound” to locations, people, or even specific items. This creates frequent puzzle-like situations where you must analyze the level design and place your spooks in high traffic areas.

Scaring the native inhabitants is only part of Ghost Master. There are also many creative mission objectives woven into the levels. One of the earlier missions has you haunting an old house with several dead bodies hidden in various parts of the manor. It’s your job (using the ghosts at your disposal) to lure mortals into these out-of-the-way parts of the house to reveal the bodies and summon the police. You might need to rattle some chains to get someone in the attic or create a water leak to get a plumber to investigate the basement.

The other type of puzzle in Ghost Master is freeing additional trapped spirits. You will often need to use the special abilities of your ghost squad to free imprisoned spirits. Once free they will be added to your spiritual army along with their own useful abilities. A classic example is in the tutorial level where you must free a witch chained to a vacuum cleaner. You have a spook with the ability to affect nearby electrical items so you bind him to the nearby radio and let him do his “thing” and the witch will be freed and added to your available units.

At the beginning of each level you are given an animated tour of the level and instructions for your primary and secondary goals. Everything is made perfectly clear. You can click on the various people in that level to get an idea of what scares them. You can also custom pick your own haunting crew or let the computer pick a default group of spooks. This guarantees you have the necessary skills to complete a level.

Ghost Master is a game of observing, planning, and tactics. There is no time limit involved, so you can study the mortals for hours if you wish. This is actually quite entertaining thanks to multiple camera views that allow you to track individuals or even see the world through their eyes. The AI controlling these people is impressive considering it can control up to 30 individuals at a time allowing them to move about multi-tiered levels, talk to each other, and perform routine tasks like using the bathroom or going to bed.

Once you know where people are going and have looked at their bios so you have a good idea of what scares them and how susceptible they are to supernatural events you can start placing your ghosts around the level in designated “fetters” (binding areas). Some ghosts can only go outdoors, others must be bound to certain spaces, items, or even people. Placing the ghosts is easy since only the available fetters will glow when you pass the mouse over them. Placing a ghost only gets it in position. You have to assign them a haunting level before things get scary.

Each ghost has a set of skills (or haunts) and you basically pick the maximum level of haunting you want each ghost to use then let the AI control them. Ghosts will use any haunting abilities up to and including the haunt level you chose for them. Each haunting skill requires a certain amount of Plasm. Plasm is the primary resource used in Ghost Master. You earn it by scaring people and absorbing their “fear” and you spend it by using your supernatural powers. It’s your job as ghost master to make sure you are generating enough fear to power your spooks.

At times you may encounter a Plasm Alert. This means you don’t have enough energy to power all your spirits at their assigned haunting level, or it could mean you have too many ghosts in the field. You can easily “bench” a ghost thus making him inactive and regain the Plasm allocated to that particular spook. It all boils down to simply being aware of the environment and not having spooks haunting unoccupied sections of the level or using haunts that aren’t effective on the people being haunted.

With more than 40 spooks and dozens of supernatural powers at your disposal, the fun and mayhem is limited only by your imagination. Between levels you can visit and train your spooks using Gold Plasm to increase and add to their list of haunting abilities. This gives the game a bit of an RPG quality that you don’t expect from a strategy game.

Once you get into the gameplay the graphics take on a more Sims-like appearance. The levels are gorgeous and nicely detailed. You can rotate and zoom through all the levels using the icon interface or a combination of mouse buttons and movement. Passing through the vertical levels simple drops you through cutaway views of the building from the attic to the basement.

The various people are nicely detailed even if some of the models do get their fair share of repetitive use. Even when the same model is being used the details will be swapped around (clothing, etc) to make them slightly different and almost everyone is doing something unique. People will go up and down stairs, go to the bathroom, eat, talk to each other, etc.

The ghosts are especially creative, both in their general design and their frightfully entertaining animations and wondrous special effects that result from their unique haunting abilities. Sparks will fly from electronic devices, water will spout from the walls, and spiders will swarm from the woodwork. When the Plasm is absorbed the entire room will glow and energy will surge and arc across the room.

The tutorial is totally scripted and voiced with an angry (or perhaps its just authoritative) female. She guides you through all the basics and even scolds you if you try to click on something you shouldn’t or move ahead of the current lesson.

The sound effects of the haunts are excellent and there are distinctive pleas for help from trapped spirits. When you switch the camera to first-person views of the mortals you get a thumping heartbeat sound that reflects their current fear level and a heavy breathing that is almost claustrophobic.

Humans speak to each other in that “Charlie Brown teacher nonsense speak”, so even though they carry out lengthy realistic conversations you gain nothing by eavesdropping. The most satisfying sound in the game are the shrieks of horror as terrified or insane mortals flee the building.

There is certainly no motivation to go back and repeat any of the levels once you have accomplished all your goals. It would have been nice to have some variable difficulty settings, perhaps trying to vacate a building of people with no supernatural beliefs.

Ghost Master is definitely more appealing to me than a game like the Sims, but not quite as diverse or engrossing as Dungeon Keeper. Even so, Ghost Master will offer enough entertainment to at least get you through the holiday.