Ghostrunner

johnny_ultimate

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI4_4NRHYlI

Out on PC, Xbox and PS4 now... Switch in a few weeks I believe.

The power of a good demo, ey? Played through the Steam demo of this a few days ago and was enough to convince me to give the full thing a go when it dropped.

Think of Ghostrunner as Titanfall 2 by way of Celeste - fast, acrobatic first-person action / platforming mixed with difficult but short levels (and, thankfully, instant respawn). You're a robot ninja, armed with a katana. You're able to wall-run, grapple, slow down time, slide etc... so you're fairly able to speed around the place. The major novelty is everything is a one-hit kill - yourself included. So you need to constantly be aware of your surroundings as you pick off enemies (rooms basically stay locked down until they're cleared).

No getting around it: this is a difficult game. Much like Celeste, some rooms will likely take you dozens of tries. But the game becomes kinda like a puzzle in the process - picking out your optimum route while minimising danger. There's also the rare example of good first-person platforming, with mostly generous checkpointing to ensure you're usually safe once you've gotten past a particularly testing bit.

This could become repetitive - and maybe it does! But having played around 2.5 hours now I appreciate the way the designers mix things up. It's very Titanfall 2 in that respect - new ideas are introduced liberally to give you something new to play with. Enemy types are also interesting so far - hopefully that can be maintained.

Anyway, this is exactly the kind of jam I was in the mood for and it's hitting the spot very nicely: hard but surmountable; blistering speed; rock-solid basics matched by clever level design; and just overall a game that makes you feel like an absolute ninja when it slows down as you land that crucial final cut in a room.

Would definitely recommend mouse & keyboard, if possible, for this one - moves at a hell of a pace that seems designed for m&k.

wes

The game is fun so far and yes it is hard, but the respawns are instant, so it doesn't bother me. I can die like 20 times, and jump right back into trying again.

The story so far is not so bad. Its pretty standard sci-fi fare, but it adds a nice texture to the world, and why you are doing what you are doing.

This is a fun little game!

Jordan 199

A robot ninja armed with a katana. I'm in

Potential-Monke

I've been keeping an eye on this one, tempted a few times. I reckon I'll pull the trigger as it does look like infuriating fun.

McFly85

Played the first couple of levels, died a lot! But satisfying to work out a route and chain together a few kills without stopping.

Will keep me entertained for a while anyway!

johnny_ultimate

Haha the first ‘boss’ is an absolute doozy. That’s how you do a punishing video game obstacle course. At least the second two phases aren’t quite as punishing as the first.

johnny_ultimate

Finished it there. One of the most pleasant surprises of the year, honestly: a short, sharp, varied single player campaign with plenty of good ideas spread out across its duration. Cant recommend it enough especially at the modest asking price (I’d be all for more double-A games at 30-40 quid).

Pretty impressive that the designers came up with a steady stream of enemy types that mix things up without breaking the game in cheap ways. They all make you reconsider the game space in new and intriguing ways - the design always emphasises movement in ways that make the game more interesting.

There’s one or two annoying platforming bits here and there, but generally the ideas they dish out are really smart and clever - nothing that fundamentally changes the flow, but enough new wrinkles liberally dished out over the course of the game to ensure it doesn’t feel samey even when the basics remains the same.

The game looks superb for a smallish production. There are obvious budgetary limitations - the fairly static environments for one, and a relative shortage of new locations (there’s basically three or four basic level backgrounds over the 15 or so levels). But it’s more than made up for elsewhere.

It’s a tricky game, with the mid-game boss I mentioned above a clear difficulty spike - nothing that follows is anywhere near as punishingly precise, with the subsequent bosses actually pretty easy by comparison. Some encounters take dozens of tries, but they tick up without you even noticing and every challenge it throws at you is surmountable once you’ve gotten to grips with the space. It’s trial and error design-style without doubt, but in a good way. And the delightful, rock solid basic movement mechanics are so key to everything else.

Basically it takes all the best bits of Titanfall, Mirror’s Edge, Super Meat Boy and Celeste, puts them in a blender, and delivers a very refreshing cocktail

Cordell

626. 626 deaths I had on that mid boss. What I lack in skill I make up in determination I said a couple of times that's it I'm done, but I always got back to it, so it must be doing something good.
I got it on pause after I beat (quite easily if I may say) that Hel boss, I'll get back to it after I finish Watch Dogs Legion.

johnny_ultimate

Ha, think I ended up over 200 deaths for that boss. I knew those laser patterns off by heart by the end - and especially the split second timing needed to dodge through the blasted things :pac:

spiritcrusher

Got this about 2 weeks ago and have been ticking away at it since. Just beat that absolute dick of a boss Tom. Took me two evenings in total to manage it. The first evening I was a solid 30/40 minutes just trying to get through the first section, I think the route through that I picked was probably the quickest (about 20s from bottom to top when it worked) but required ridiculously specific timings to get through. Proper Matrix/Spiderman stuff when it worked though.
Even as someone who loves Dark Souls I found some of this punishingly difficult at the beginning, possibly not helped by me only recently having swapped over to PC gaming and was finding hitting button combinations very unintuitive (despite having dash & skill mapped to my mouse thumb buttons).
But it's great fun when you eventually settle in and get on a run with the dash/blink combination and just wipe out a room of enemies in minutes.