The bad: Random movement of characters can make solving each scenario unnecessarily long. The recommended roster of ghosts to use in a scenario may not be optimal. There is no indicator of how much time is left for a ghost to recharge its power. The 3D models aren’t as attractive as they could have been, and clipping problems are sometimes evident during cut scenes.
The tally: 7 / 10.
About the Game
After a briefing, you start each scenario by selecting which ghosts to bring with you to your mission. You can click the “Recommend” button to automatically select spirits to help you complete your objectives, but this roster isn’t necessarily the best for finishing your mission fast. In some cases, there may be hidden spirits that cannot be uncovered with the recommended roster. You may have to go through some trial and error to find a set of haunters that work best in a given scenario.
Spirits can only be positioned over objects or areas in the map that are associated with their manner of death or their strongest attachments in life. These objects or areas are called fetters. Spirits that can be bound over areas have more freedom of movement and a wider selection of fetters to choose from than those that can only be attached to objects.
Deploying ghosts on the map and activating their powers requires having sufficient plasm available for your use. Plasm is a kind of energy that serves as an expendable resource in this game. You start each scenario with a small amount of plasm that you can temporarily increase by frightening mortals. Over time, this gain in plasm will decrease as mortals calm down. Causing mortals to flee off the map will increase your plasm level permanently for the rest of the scenario. When you summon a ghost to the map or activate one of its powers, you tie up some amount of plasm in the process. Deactivating a power or removing a ghost from the map frees up the plasm that was used. If you attempt to use more plasm than you have, an alarm will sound, giving you a few seconds to deactivate powers or unfetter ghosts. If you don’t free up excess plasm usage in time, the scenario will end abruptly in failure.
Each ghost has several powers that require different amounts of plasm to use. Weaker powers cost less plasm to use than stronger ones, and some ghosts require more plasm for the same power that other ghosts may have. You use these powers to affect the behavior of mortals (usually by scaring them) or to change the environment somehow. Once used, most powers take some time to recharge before they can be used again. Unfortunately, there is no indication of how much time a haunter needs to recharge a particular power. Neither does the game indicate which powers need to be recharged and which can be used continuously. These are things you’ll need to figure out for yourself.
For most scenarios, you will need to cause mortals to exit the map in terror or to render them hopelessly insane. Mortals have three stats you will need to monitor from time to time; namely, Terror, Madness, and Belief. Terror indicates how frightened a mortal is. Each time a haunter scares mortals, their Terror goes up. If a mortal’s Terror is filled to capacity, that person will flee the map. Some haunter powers raise Madness instead of Terror. Mortals who go completely insane will not leave the map, but that’s as good as having fled for determining if you’ve achieved the scenario’s victory conditions. Belief determines how easily a mortal is terrorized. Those with low Belief are difficult to frighten. Fortunately, some haunter powers can raise Belief. You may need to use those powers to soften up skeptics before you barrage them with terror tactics.
In addition to these three stats, mortals also have a Conscious Fear and an Unconscious Fear. Mortals who are especially afraid of fire, for instance, will be more easily frightened when you activate fire-based powers. Unconscious fears are even more effective at terrifying mortals than conscious fears. Some haunter powers can uncover a mortal’s fear, but it isn’t necessary to know what they are to win a scenario.
A few mortals have the ability to banish ghosts that are fettered on the map. The game will immediately warn you if a mortal is banishing one of your spirits, at which point, you may have to unfetter the ghost to escape banishment. A haunter that is banished cannot be summoned to the map for the rest of the scenario, and if enough of your ghosts are banished, you will lose the game.
Many of the characters and scenarios in this game are inspired by TV shows, movies, and comics. Recognizing these pop culture references may get you chuckling. I’ve spotted references to The Evil Dead, Casper, Ghostbusters, The Three Stooges, and many more. The whole concept of gathering ghosts to scare off mortals makes this game immensely fun, especially when plenty of humor is thrown in. It certainly helps that many of the scenarios are cleverly designed.
When you complete a scenario, you are awarded gold plasm, which you use to purchase more powers for your ghosts. The amount of gold plasm you receive depends on your scenario score. While you can conceivably complete the game without purchasing new powers for your ghosts, having more powers at your disposal can help you complete scenarios faster. This grants you more victory points in turn. If you are not satisfied with how well you did in a scenario, you may replay it at any time.
Despite all the good things going for this game, some of the fun is sapped out of it when trying to figure out what powers should be activated to get mortals to do certain actions. For example, in one scenario, you need to send three mortals to a cabin to complete a ritual, but the mortals would first have to find a way to cross a raging river and a deep chasm. Since the solution to these and other problems isn’t always obvious, you may need to experiment with different powers before making headway.
This wouldn’t have been a problem if not for the fact that mortals move around the map randomly like characters in The Sims. Some will use the bathroom, take a drink of water, or converse with their friends at random moments. While it does seem natural to have mortals behaving in this manner, it doesn’t help if you have to wait a long time for a mortal to do a particular action, such as bringing a gift to a specific room. If you aren’t even sure that what you’re attempting will work as intended, then having to wait more than a minute becomes an exercise in frustration.
The graphics are another problem, albeit a minor one. Even considering that Ghost Master was released in 2003, its 3D models are not as attractive as they could have been. The graphics in older games such as Max Payne and Black & White are much better. In addition, Ghost Master has clipping problems that are especially evident during cut scenes. That said, none of these issues should seriously detract from the enjoyment of this game.
