Ghosthunter

Moby ID: 12608
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Description official description

What started as a simple report of strange lights at an abandoned school has become something much more for rookie cop Lazarus Jones. After unwittingly unleashing hundreds of ghosts from a containment facility, including one that took a liking to Lazarus' partner, it's now his job to travel to the four corners of the earth and recapture them. This is going to be one long night.

Lazarus starts the game with a pistol, but bullets aren't much use against the incorporeal. Eventually he will find energy weapons that can drain away a ghost's energy, and when a ghost has been sufficiently weakened it can be captured with Lazarus' homing "Ghost Grenade". Not all the monsters Lazarus faces are the undead, however, and more solid foes can be dispatched the traditional way: shooting them until they stop moving. Levels are traveled through sequentially and range from flooded bayous to a sunken battleship and abandoned prison island. Sometimes Lazarus will be assisted by a mute ghost named Astral who can reach areas beyond Lazarus and open paths for him. She has to be careful however as she has no way to attack or defend herself.

Spellings

  • Охотник на призраков - Russian spelling
  • 幽灵猎手 - Chinese spelling (simplified)

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Credits (PlayStation 2 version)

159 People (158 developers, 1 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 68% (based on 25 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 12 ratings with 1 reviews)

Suddenly you find yourself in a horror film

The Good
The sound effects in this game are done very nicely, making it sound like a true horror film and probably making you look in all the corners before moving on. The graphics are excellent; lots of different ghosts will scare you when they come out of thin air, swirl around and growl at you.

The Bad
Would like a better map system.

The Bottom Line
Lazarus, a policeman, becomes a real ghost hunter and your job is to guide him through different missions in this horror shooter bound to scare you. The controls are easy to learn and there are a few nifty moves you can take that make this game different. The graphics and sound effects are both very good and add to the horror setting. With the lights turned off and sound turned up you must be very tough if this doesn't scare you the least bit.

PlayStation 2 · by Klirr (9) · 2004

Trivia

Development

In early preview screenshots Lazarus was shown wearing a jacket with a patch reminiscent of the Ghostbusters logo.

Enemies

In cut-scenes, you'll see a Undead Swordsman along with the Undead Crossbowman and the Undead Hammer Knight, but oddly enough, the Swordsman doesn't appear as an enemy in the game.

Primal

When you think about it, there are actually quite a few similarities between Ghosthunter and SCE Studio Cambridge's previous game, Primal.* They share the same basic premise, namely a normal person being thrown into extraordinary circumstances.

  • A supernatural sidekick is present, i.e. Astral and Scree.

  • A machine being is featured, the entity Cronos and the A.I. Digital.

  • Both Lazarus and Jen are humorous and tend to make jokes.

  • Both protagonists have a "Straight Man" to counterbalance their humour. Both Scree and Digital are serious almost all of the time.

  • In both games you can control the sidekick as well.

  • Both Lazarus and Jen are searching for someone important to them who is kidnapped by the antagonists.

  • The theme of betrayal

References

One of the funnier characters you'll meet in the game is the ghost of Colonel Freddy Fortesque, who is obviously a descendant and homage to Sir Daniel Fortesque, the undead hero of the MediEvil series, which is also developed by SCE Studio Cambridge. Freddy also is missing his left eye.

Also, in the section of the game where you meet him, the boss is a huge human/octopus-like ghost. In life, he was a treacherous captain named Kraken, appropriate considering that the Kraken is a mythical octopus or squid of gigantic proportions. His beastly ghost is the result of being stabbed by a cursed dagger, which may reflect the sword and sorcery style of MediEvil, especially considering the more "mundane" deaths of the other Phantom Bosses.

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by lowlife.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Phil Mansell, Mark Ennis, DreinIX, Patrick Bregger, 64er, Zhuzha.

Game added March 28, 2004. Last modified December 27, 2023.