Someday,
I'm going to sit down and write a letter to my senator asking for a ban on
SWAF. Oh, sorry...that means "Shooters without auto fire."
Honestly, think about how often a shot bursts from your plane/jet/space
ship/etc. when your playing a shooter. Now, imagine having to press a
button every time. Not only is it annoying, but it's actually hard to
write this review due to the pain in hands thanks to Ghost Pilots
on the Geo. It's by no means a bad game, but it could've been so much
more....
Ghost Pilots takes on WWII look and drops players right into the line of fire. 2 players can tackle this on simultaneously or one player can handle the war alone. Anyone who has ever played Raiden (or any of it's numerous ports) will be right at home. Not only does the game borrow numerous elements from the above mentioned classic, it even looks like it. Beyond the obviously borrowed concepts, the game still manages to hold it's own.
As a game nearing the 10-year old mark, it still looks great. Planes dive bomb players from the sky with relentlessness thanks to a cool mode-7 style effect and the backgrounds serve their purpose. The bosses are of the usual variety, usually taking up a screen or two. A little slowdown does occur when things get outta hand, but this is kept to a minimum. On a side note, it's odd that that when a screen clearing bomb is dropped, the explosion looks EXACTLY like the one in Raiden, flickering screen and all.
While the game could never win any awards for it's sounds, what's here fits in perfectly. The music has a nice war-movie sound to it, kinda like a "Patton" theme. The explosions are loud and bosses all have their own mechanical sounds when pulling out the big guns. Not the most spectacular sounding Geo game ever, but everything sounds just about right.
As one of the few affordable shooters for the Geo, this is one to pick up. The gameplay may be derivative of hundreds of other shooters and a blatant rip-off of another, but it's one of the best on the Geo. It's just one of those games that does nothing terribly wrong, but has a few nagging things that bring it down a few notches. The games massive length will cause your hands to cramp, but thanks to unlimited continues, your guaranteed victory (unless there's a power outage or something of course). Having an auto firing controller would be extremely helpful, but I guess we can't have everything.
