Button mashing that will soon tire you out
Cashing in on the film of the same name (you know, the one where Nick Cage’s head bursts into flames!), comes a serious button mash fest.
Ghost rider was born in the Marvel universe. Jonny Blaze, a stunt motor cyclist, has sold his soul to Satan to save his mentor and stepfather Crash Simpson. Only trouble is it turns out that it was not Satan, but in fact a demon called Mephisto. Now bound with the demon Zanthos, Jonny is doomed to a life as a leather clad, motor cycle riding, burning skeleton!
Starting in the depths of hell, Jonny is in a bad mood. He has been sent there as a punishment, to prove that he has no free will. He must now fight his way past waves and waves of hells soldiers to make his way to the surface and face off against Blackheart.
It won’t rock your world, but it may punch it upside the head!
At his disposal is a plethora of chain based fighting combos, a shot gun and a few grapples and specials. All of these are pulled of with the face buttons. There is not much to it, button mash and you will be rewarded with some seriously good looking, fire based, fighting! Some combos work better than others, but to be honest you will just hammer the buttons for most of the game!
Defeating demons releases souls. These can be collected and cashed in at the end of a level for upgrades. You can upgrade your combos, your specials and a few other bits like health. You can also unlock artwork and movies, which will keep fans happy.
Interspersing the hand to hand combat are the motor cycle levels. These are a simple affair of getting from A to B as quick as you can, killing as many baddies as you can. You have your trusty chain at hand and also your hell fire shot gun. To be honest this is a real dull point in the game. It shows a slight lack of confidence in the main game’s abilities and really just frustrates you!
A lot has been made of how much this mirrors the gameplay in God of War. Having never played that, I can not comment. However it does play a lot like Onimusha, so I must assume that God of War borrowed from that, so swings and round abouts really!
The problem is not who it copies, but how it copies it. So much more could have been made of the combos, you can finish most levels using no more the two or three combos. Some creatures require you to use a little more skill and finesse, such as aerial combos, but again it’s not that taxing. The story is thin at best, albeit told with some nice voice overs and comic book style screens.
At the end of the day this is a fairly fun, if short lived, button masher. It won’t rock your world, but it may punch it upside the head!
The Bad: Monotonous, bike sections are a pain.
Bronze Y Award