Ghostrunner
Ghostrunner, developed by One More Level in conjunction with 3D Realms and Slipgate Ironworks sees the remnants of humanity all residing in Dharma Tower after an unknown world-changing event known as the Burst. You play as Jack, a cybernetically-enhanced super-soldier known as Ghostrunner, who wakes up with no memory and must assist The Architect, the creator of Dharma Tower and the peace-keeping Ghostrunners. The Architect was betrayed by his confidante Mara, leading to all but one of the Ghostrunners being destroyed, and the takeover of Dharma Tower by Mara - now known as The Keymaster - and her thugs.
With a cyberpunk aesthetic and a large world filled with detail, Ghostrunner does well to continuously keep things feeling fresh and interesting, with levels being able to be navigated in a number of ways. Wall running, deflecting bullets and using varied abilities such as Sensory Boost to slow down time or utilising the Gapjammer: a grappling hook that can pull you to safety when crossing large spaces. Gameplay is fast, but death is faster. Enemies can wipe you out surprisingly quickly, so you’ll find a lot of trial and error can be required in some of the trickier spots - but thankfully, loading up after dying is speedy, so you won’t be hanging around all day after each untimely demise.
Three different types of collectibles; artifacts, audio logs and swords, are dotted around the world often requiring a sharp eye and an even sharper sense of direction when trying to figure out how to reach them. These collectibles provide further information on the story, and background events happening as well as paint jobs for your katana. Upgrades are also done in a very unique way, in that they must be used in a Tetris style fashion within the upgrade menu - and varying puzzle based segments follow a similar stylistic choice.
Standard control layout feels a bit odd to begin with - with jumping mapped to RB and attacking to RT, so this took a little bit of getting used to, particularly due to how fast-paced everything is. The face buttons only serve purpose to crouch, or have a good wee look at your sword with Y. These can all be adjusted to your preference, but we eventually got used to it and actually quite liked it. At first, running felt awkwardly slow and sluggish, but when used in conjunction with dashing for a boost and other abilities you unlock, this helped to negate the slow run. Being able to deflect a bullet into an enemy with your sword, whilst simultaneously carving up another enemy feels great, and really cranks up the chaos.
Priced at just £24.99 on the Xbox Store, Ghostrunner is a fantastic price for what it entails, with hours of content and amazingly gorgeous graphics - as well as an absolutely killer soundtrack. It’s a punishing game, no doubt about it, but one that feels tonnes of fun and fair in its challenges. We both had a great time playing through Ghostrunner, and while we did sometimes come across sections of the game that felt a little less polished, with frustratingly precise requirements, and oddly specific htiboxes for grabbing ledges, etc. these were few and far between enough to not have too much of a negative impact.
In the end, we decided to give Ghostrunner the Collecting Asylum rating of 8/10.
Have you played Ghostrunner yet? What did you think of it?
Let us know in the comments below!
- V x
Thank you to All In! Games for the Ghostrunner Xbox One review code!
