Singular Joys is a series of short-form blogs that highlight a single element of a game that has surprised, intrigued, or delighted me. It’s the best bit of something, distilled into 500 words or less.
Ghost Squad is everything you could want from a lightgun shooter. Its action is chaotic, its shooting is sublime, and its terrorist antagonists are profoundly – beautifully! – dumb.
Originally released in arcades in 2004, Ghost Squad was ported to the Nintendo Wii in 2008. There, it became closely associated with the console’s gun-shaped “Zapper” attachment, which promised all the thrills of a lightgun cabinet from the comfort of your living room. However, while the arcade game could be enjoyed for a handful of coins, the Wii version retailed for as much as any other game, a high price to pay for something that could be completed in as little as 45 minutes.
But what was once considered an expensive proposition in 2008 is now a reasonably priced curio. I picked it up for a fiver last week and can happily confirm that in an era where the lightgun shooter is no longer a thing (outside of VR, anyway), Ghost Squad is a refreshing blast of mid-2000s nostalgia.
Its best bit – and a thing that made me howl with laughter throughout my first playthrough – is how ridiculous it is. Specifically its enemies: militants fighting for a terrorist organisation known as the Indigo Wolves (rad).
Bad guys topple out of levels like a clown troupe emerging from a Vauxhall Corsa. Within a modestly sized living room, 15 will leap from behind an ottoman while 12 more scurry from under the sofa. A hostage will scream, distracting you for a moment, but as you turn back 14 more gun-wielding lads are already leaping out from the safety of the ottoman again.
When they’re not springing from the side of a household object, they’re diving comically in front of you as you try to take cover. I’m not sure if they were trained to lie down 4 inches in front of a machine gun, but I’m sad to report that it’s not a particularily effective defensive manoeuvre.
The icing on the cake is that the titular Ghost Squad operate by the mantra: “Leave no trace”. It’s a phrase rendered meaningless the second 43 blokes tumble out of a wardrobe and are immediately slaughtered by you and your squad.
It’s all very good and fun. The Wii version even contains a surprising amount of unlockable content that makes it bigger than I expected, which is nice.
The only real downside is that to play it, you may have to dig your Wii U out of storage, a process about as enjoyable as drowning. Is Ghost Squad worth dusting off an ageing gamepad? No. No, it’s not. Go and find a local arcade that has a cabinet instead like a normal human being.