It's the typical scenario - an agent goes undercover at a super hush-hush facilities for what one might think too long, until finally contact is received and the cavalry's called in to get the 411 on a possible new threat. And you know things can't turn out good when it's something to do with biotechnology.
As John Raimi, you accompany a small infiltrating force into Volks Corp. to get your friend the covert ops agent out of there. Naturally, just when you think you're through with your mission objectives, things go Horribly Wrong (TM) and your entire team gets shot down.... by one of your own?
The next thing you know, you're floating in some strange, surrealistic landscape, with a creepy electronic voice that calms and directs you to explore and to try some interesting things. Draining life from plants, possessing rabbits... what in the world is going on!?! Something, at least, definitely goes wrong. The world around you begins to fizzle and short out, the voice fragmenting before your surroundings explode. Suddenly, there before you is a strange little girl, and she calls you by name and bids you to follow her. She leads you through walls, and into some isolated old storage room. And here, you are broken the news... The little girl introduces herself as Gigi, and explains that you are now a ghost. She herself is a ghost, and gives you a little crashcourse in using your newfound abilities. While she seems to enjoy it, there's other things on your mind, like how to get back to your body (if you even still -have- a body), and get to the bottom of things in this creepy corporation!
The game shifts between being someone or thing of tangibility to being, well, a ghost. The controls take some getting used to, but probably aren't too complicated for someone used to first-person perspectives. Controlling the camera angles can get annoying, especially when you're walking one way and trying to get the view to follow. Started feeling a little queasy after playing for a while, but I guess the upside to being a ghost is that you don't have to worry about being sick to your stomach since you lack one.
You start off the game in your own body, so it gives you something of a practice run to get used to using the physical controls as someone rather than just tossing you out into the open without a body to do anything with. After Gigi's little orientation (or is it disorientation?), as a ghost you can possess both inanimate objects as well as the living. Of course, in possessing the former, you don't usually get to go anywhere, but they have other uses, such as freaking a prospective host into becoming possessable. Time moves slower around you while you're floating about as a ghost, so it takes some getting used to, such as watching your former host body get blown away into the air, suspended as they flail before bouncing off a wall and falling to the floor in all of what might seem like a good few minutes. Hosts can range from animals to human, and offer you special abilities, depending on whom you possess at the time. They can only be taken when they're scared spitless, so you'll have to use your intangible brain to figure out how to do things right.
Volks Corp. sure hirers some dull-witted employees, as they seem totally oblivious to strange appearances of a fellow guard, and act as if nothing happened even when you've just shot two of their own and the ghost-sniffin' dog right in front of them! It wouldn't have been so bad if that hadn't taken several tries and the sacrifice of two hosts, the latter of which seems to magically respawn at the opposite end of the room for you to make use of since there's nothing to spook any of the other guards around to make use of instead. Silly, really. It's kind of fun making things explode, but once again, this game takes a lot of looking and puzzling things out to work out appropriately. As easy as it might seem for a ghost to get around, there are things you have to worry about (like a 'life' bar?!) and hey, why do the dirty work when you can get (or use, rather) someone else to do it for you?
The game's got an interesting idea for it, but after a bit of playing, it didn't really have that continuing draw that would make me want to play through. That, and the fact that I started getting a headache from trying to work the camera angles. Not my cup o' tea, but perhaps it's your's?
