Back around 2009-2010 I kept seeing Ghost Squad on the shelf in video game stores at a very affordable price and I kept telling myself ‘I’ll have to pick that up soon.’ Well in 2024 I finally grabbed a copy and then started it at the beginning of this year. Better late than never I guess to at last play this fun, solid, highly replayable, on rails shooter.

At a quick, blind, first glance Ghost Squad might seem like this serious Special Forces type of game but once you start playing the goofiness reveals itself and continues to build throughout. It’s about half an hour or so to play through but what a ride it is. I shot so many terrorists and also some hostages, my bad. I was meant to detain hostages, yes that’s right, detain, not rescue. I diffused some mines and bombs. There are quick time melee moments where I did some cool CQC and a knife fight. I shot guys off jet skis, shot down helicopters and I gave the American President a high five. The characters play it pretty straight the whole time too which makes it even funnier.

The enemies in the game come at you in goofy ways. They pop out of the side of the screen and jump into sideways positions on the floor. They are on the roof. They take cover under tables. They jump at you with a knife yelling DIE! They shoot at you from every position and stance you could think of. The game is constantly creative with this and there is such a ridiculous amount of them just coming out of nowhere. There are bunch of costumes to unlock, many of them silly, and then there are the two bonus modes as well. The first is a Ninja Mode. In this mode the game gets a Japanese theme, the enemies are replaced with ninjas and you use shurikens instead of guns. The second one is Paradise Mode that takes the game to the absolute peak level of silliness it could be. This mode is beach themed, the enemies are replaced with women in bikinis, your gun is replaced with a water gun and the bosses get some ridiculous outfits. These two modes actually change the game mechanically a bit too as the weapons in them function differently to regular guns. Ghost Squad needed this style and sense of fun. It would have been dry without it. It helps by putting no limits on what the extra content could be and it makes the game more enjoyable to replay over and over.

Speaking of, the replayability here is very impressive. This game is 3 missions and about 30 minutes long, yet there is no issue putting 20 hours into it. They extract every possible ounce of enjoyment that could be pulled from those three missions. The missions are full of choices leading to slightly different paths or events and it requires you to play through many times to see 100% of it. Ghost Squad is relentlessly inventive with the angles and positions you are shooting from; behind cover, around corners, on the floor, under furniture, hanging upside down. It adds variation by using an odd take on stealth, sniping sections, darkness, flashlights, night vision and thermal vision. The missions have many levels so that when you keep coming back it is slightly harder with small changes. It is playable in two player co op but there is also a party mode for four players. There is a great training mode with good challenges. A long list of weapons to unlock and of course the other modes and costumes I already mentioned. You can go for no continue runs and play for score and it had online leader boards.

It is wild to stop and think about a three mission, 30 minute game, originally from 2004, providing more hours of enjoyment than so many ‘cutting edge,’ 20+ hour long games with ludicrous budgets. After the credits rolled, for like the 10th time, I still immediately wanted to play it again. A massive mistake was made and the wrong path was taken. We need to go back to arcade design, lower budgets and shorter development times. Excluding obvious examples like RPGs, video games should be around 20 minutes to maybe 15 hours long and very fun, dense, well designed and highly replayable.

Ghost Squad delivers this and it plays exactly how you would expect it too. You point and blast at enemies, while quickly trying to prioritise which ones need a bullet first and trying to get quick shots and head shots. The direction buttons change shot type and you need to point away to reload and then get back to blasting. Everything is quick, snappy and accurate (mostly). There are destructible objects, adding to the chaos of the scene and some of them are hiding items. The game does look a little stiff and lacking in detail but for its time, budget and goal I think it looks great overall. Most importantly for a game like this everything is very clear and readable. There are some options like having the reticule on or off and difficulty choices. Quick cut scenes or dialogue moments transition you or keep things moving or explain something new. The melee moments and other little things help break it up a bit. Very little time wasted. Just dense, quality gameplay and it’s really good but not without it's flaws.

This version of Ghost Squad is on the Wii and it is also the only version I have played. That means Wiimote and sensor bar which does not give the same experience as holding the gun and pointing it at the screen in a real arcade. Not that playing it here is bad at all though and the Wii version has extra content. While I found shooting to be fine and accurate sometimes reloading didn’t register for me. This could all come down to where the senor bar is, how far you are from it and how you are sitting and holding the Wiimote. Sometimes though I would clearly point it away and get no reload, maybe I was doing it too fast but I want to reload quick.

While on the negatives, it is difficult not to run into some bad repetition in games like this. I have diffused more than enough mines for this lifetime. Obviously I have no problem putting up with a bit of this because of how much I enjoy it taken as a whole. As much as I praised this games replayability and how it does so much with not a lot, it could have had another mission. It would have provided more challenges, more diversity, more variety and another stage for them to wring everything they possibly could out of. I would still want a tight run time though, so to compensate the other missions would need time shaved off. The game nails silly fun but it could have been more flamboyant and excessive. There is a little frustration, like how the success in the second mission hinges on a final, tricky headshot. Unfortunately some of the unlockables look like they are going to require quite a serious bit of time to get as well but at least the way this game rewards encourages getting better.

Despite some complaints there are no serious issues and I would strongly recommend it. Ghost Squad is enjoyable, well made, super replayable and very cheap. If you own a Wii or Wii U grab yourself a copy for a good time. Pour hours in chasing scores or keep it on the shelf for whenever you want something quick and fun to pick up and play or do both.

8.1/10