Ghost Master: The Gravenville Chronicles Preview

Ghostmaster: The Gravenville Chronicles was a welcomed change of pace at E3.  You hear gaming Journalists repeating over and over again that there seems to be no new ideas in videogames.  If one title catches on then you’ll see several clones that look, sound and play just like that one big title.  It’s the nature of the industry because no matter what, videogames are still expected to make a profit for a company.  Ghostmaster works off of a standard concept in gaming, but adds a different twist for the players.  Imagine playing the Sims in a haunted house, but instead of controlling your Sim you control the ghost. 

At first glance the game does appear very similar to the Sims.  You have a quasi over the top 3D view of a house.  You see characters in the gaming that have life bars above them just waiting for something to happen.  But you’ll never control the human characters in the game.  You’re in charge of the ghosts and the ultimate goal is to scare the living heck out of the humans in the game.  But you don’t want to scare them to death.  You’ve got to keep the humans in the house and keep them scared.   

You select a ghost from the in-game menus and then decide a location to place the ghost.  Depending on the objective, the mission allows you to determine the best location for your ghost.  If the objective is wake up a human out of bed, then place the ghost in the human’s room.  You then select from the in-game menus for different scare tactics and options for your ghost.  But your ghost only has a certain number of plasma points it can use right away.  The humans even have a resistance against the scare tactics.  The higher the resistance, the harder it will be to scare that particular human. 

The graphics were standard Sims style.  Nothing incredibly impressive but it gets the job done.  You can zoom in for a closer view of your ghost and the humans in the game.  The graphics seemed sharper when the developers would zoom in but appeared a little blocky when zoomed out to the normal perspective.  This could be corrected when the game is shipped later this year.  

The game was a true highlight for E3.  It wasn’t the big technology demo that other games are, but it had its own unique style and flare.  I’m sure we’ve all blown up our share of ghosts and zombies before, but now its payback time.  The ghosts are coming for you so you better watch out. 

For All E3 2004 Previews