A now underated game that offers good action/adventure gameplay with some scares along the way
So the protagonist, Lazarus Jones and his partner, Steele, are investigating a mass murder case involving a professor that allegedly killed several students and then ran away, no clues, nothing. They arrive at the school and have an "interesting" conversation, they split up and Lazarus explores the basement of the school but finds a strange machine, he presses a button and releases the ghosts secured inside, and one spirit enters Lazarus body, giving him the power to see beyond the mortal possibilities, and now its up to him to hunt them again with the help of the electronic identity created by the professor, and since his partner has been kidnapped by one of the ghosts (a dead british knight, he´s like the "Liquid Snake" of this game) you accept the job.
The first thing you notice are the graphics, they´re great of course, i wouldn´t expect nothing less coming from sony, the character models are very realistic and theres really good lightning effects, much like in the Gran Turismo series, there can be a few bugs in this section but nothing serious. Gameplay is also great, to shoot ghosts or whatever you want to shoot you have to activate Hunt Mode, a recticle appears and then you can shoot, to capture the ghosts you have to weaken them and then throw a disc at them that captures the ghost, you can take cover (seems useless against ghosts but it´s a handy feature sometimes, cuz some enemies can shoot at you) and sometimes you´ll have some puzzles to solve, the spirit that now "resides" in Lazarus´s body, Astral, can be summoned at designated points to help you with this (shes in a see-thru dress, wich is a great), she gets new powers as you capture ghosts.
The game isn´t short, i got stuck a few times but even if i got through it non-stop it would be a fairly lasting experience, you get various weapons and objects,you go through locations ranging from redneck-habited swamps to a haunted prison and a military research base and all of these scenarios are well concieved, specially the flooded town/swamps wich is the scariest location in my opinion because of the big mansion that you´ll have to enter at night, a really sinister place, its also the one with the more comical approach, along with the damned british ship.
overrall its a great action/adventure game (i don´t really consider this an "horror" game, although there is some scary material sometimes) and you´ll love it if you like games like Resident Evil or The Thing. I recommend it