Ghostrunner is a first-person action game that oozes with style, polish, and lots and lots of blood. I spent about 20 minutes playing through an early section of the game and I can confidently say that this indie title feels more like a full-blown AAA experience that I can compare to Respawn’s Titanfall and DICE’s Mirror’s Edge.
Ghostrunner has you running through linear-ish sections to take down the enemies that are scattered about the level. Each of the enemies that I fought only had a blaster equipped on them but these would be fired off every second or so, forcing me to constantly be on the move to avoid death.
And I died a lot in Ghostrunner because if you get hit even once, you lose and must restart the section. Luckily, the respawns are almost instantaneous similar to Hotline Miami so I never felt any push back from the game –if I died, it was my fault and it was my job to find a more effective route or use a different method of murder.
You can easily run and jump between walls; a dash move lets you move side to side or reach far spots; you can attach to hooks that hang around the levels and best of all, you can slow down time in the air for a short amount of time to quickly dodge attacks to then go in for the kill with your blade.
At first, I was taken aback by the Ghostrunner’s control scheme but once I got a handle on all of the game’s mechanics and systems, I felt like a total badass samurai cyberpunk warrior, slicing and dicing my way across the map while running and jumping seamlessly.
Getting kills is extremely satisfying in Ghostrunner and whenever I did die, I never wanted to stop playing. The intense gameplay and smoothness of it all makes you want to keep going and going even if you die over and over again.
And that’s what made Ghostrunner such a fantastic experience for me. As someone who doesn’t really play first-person games in general, I immediately fell in love with the combat and the slick movement system that the game had to offer.
Even better, I had no expectations going into this demo and I walked out thinking that this was one of the best games I played at PAX.
I was very impressed and awestruck with the demo that I played over at All in! Games booth at PAX East 2020 and if the gameplay segment that I pushed my way through is any indication of the final product that’s planned to release in 2020, you’re all in for a very delicious treat.
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