Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex
Preview: A study in human-cyborg relations.
By Libe Goad

PLATFORM: PlayStation 2

PUBLISHER: Bandai

DEVELOPER: Bandai

GENRE: Action

ESRB: Rating Pending

A part girl/part cyborg serving as security officer for a rough side of town finds out that someone has hacked into the society’s mainframe (think Matrix here) and are using it to steal people’s souls. Did we mention that most everyone is a cyborg at this point?

Enter the story’s main mistress, Motoko Kusanagi, a.k.a. “The Major.” She must to hunt down a group of nefarious hackers. So she enlists the help of her hunky cyborg-enhanced partner, Batou, and they run throug the city, looking for the evil genius behind the latest rash of cyber-terrorism.

In the demo we saw of Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex, most of the action fits into a arcade-like run-and-gun scenario. When the lithe Major can’t pick up and use a huge weapon, you can switch to Batou and have him do the heavy lifting (and firing) for you. Pretty standard stuff. The cool part comes in where you can transfer your soul to any object in the game and take over that object. So say I want to spy on the goons chatting on the street corner, I just hack into the world’s mainframe and transfer my soul to the nearest light post. Hey, Ma! I’m a light post! Then from there, you can hack into one of the goons and pull a surprise attack on the rest of the party.

Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex will be released in conjunction with a new Ghost in the Shell film and animated series on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim—the late-night adult cartoon hour. The original film from 1995 will also be released on a special edition DVD.

Throw in a bunch of Japanese philosophy—interesting to some, boring to people who just want to blow stuff up, and you have the workings of a game that will most likely appeal to people who are already fans of the series or sci-fi geeks who are still saving money to buy their very own Matrix jacket. For the ladies, it’s always nice to see a game with an enabled female lead—who, in this case, must deal with complex emotions while she blasts her way through levels of bad guys. The game runs the risk of being a lesson in repetitiveness, but the storyline might be strong enough to make up for it.

If this sounds worth 50 bucks, keep your eyes out for this game when released in early November.