	Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex
	Developer: Cavia Publisher: Bandai/Atari Release Date: Out Now Players: 1-4	Words By:
Ghost in the Shell, or GITS as we like to call it (being immature old farts) started life as a kick-ass anime film oozing style and techno jargon that set the trend for its genre. It’s a little late coming, but the people at Sony Japan finally realised the potential for this to make a cool third-person shooter, but after nine years GITS hacks its way onto PS2 with Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone complex. First off, the game isn’t based on the film. It’s actually based on the TV series released after the film; using the same characters as the film, and the whole narrative acts as one assignment for Major Kusinagi and Bateau (who you switch between in the game) from the secretive Section 9 Policing unit. For those not familiar with the film or TV series the Major and Bateau are both kick-ass government agents, with their bodies being modified by technology so much that they’re nearly all android. The story, which I won’t divulge, is fairly strong and has the plausibility of a GITS storyline. It has pretty much everything-government shady-dealings, rebels, computer hacking, viruses and a helluva lot of jargon that would confuse even Bill Gates. It’s just a shame that its over so soon; put in about six or so hours and you’ll have this game cracked. Unfortunately, the gameplay isn’t as cool as the storyline or characters. You get the choice of a load of cool weapons in the game, but you really end up using only a couple (especially since you can only carry two at a time). In the film the major is seen flipping around enemies at great speed and generally kicking ass in a stylish way. This is not really in the case in GITS, as you really just end up strafing the enemies, the “evade” button letting you flip around like a mad gymnast, but not actually doing anything useful, like shooting. The game just feels like it should be more based around acrobatic combat rather than the standard stuff. The AI definitely is an old program, as you can run right up to the guards and kick them before they even notice you most of the time (this will be accompanied by a nice slo-mo view). I don’t want to be a moany madam but I expect a little more from my enemies, especially given that the game play is split between fighting and jumping from ledge to ledge, which also suffers… …I’m not saying that the puzzles that involve jumping from this ledge to that and hanging on are rubbish, far from it, they could just do with a bit more attention to avoid giving gamers the urge to jump off high ledges themselves. The camera angles are deceptive, and the controls such as wall-jumping are very temperamental. This leads to a lot of blind jumping, and bouncing the wrong way off a wall down a cliff, and to another restart. Sometimes the game is quite friendly and implies what has to be done, or where you have to go, but at a couple of points you get nothing, and are just standing around trying to figure out where to go next. The game does have a few cool things that put it above the average bland third-person shooters, the main thing being the computer element. Most of the narrative is moved along by the radio chatter, but the game moves along via computer terminals, which can unlock doors, start lifts and deactivate shields. Kill a commander guard and you can hack into his brain and withdraw the info of his unit, showing up all the guards in the area with a yellow triangle, which is quite useful. Find one with a blue triangle and you can hack into his mind to control him. This is via a small mini-game with aligning cogs getting harder and faster throughout the game. These little features aren’t bad, but definitely could have been used a lot more, and perhaps integrated into the storyline rather than tacked on. GITS also has a multiplayer option for up to four people to face off against each other, but the maps seem too big for just two people, and four just doesn’t seem right for this type of game. Again, like many things in the game, it feels tacked on and not in tune with the feel of the original anime. Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex feels like a night with a hooker. Sure, it may be good for a quickie but it just doesn’t feel quite right, it’s over too soon and leaves you with a hole in your wallet…

Best Bits
- Looks stylish.
- Some kick-ass weaponry.
- Good storyline.

Worst Bits
- Too short.
- Dumb AI.
- Fiddly controls.
- Doesn’t have the feel of the anime series.


by: Crazypunk