Charles Lazarus is on assignment to investigate some creepy sounds and events occurring at an abandoned school. He teams up to search with his female partner and not all goes well when echoed spirits start to call out. His teammate is captured by a ghoulish ghost who seems to feast on flesh. Charles finds out that he not only has to rescue his partner, but unravel the mystery behind a laboratory and its ghost hunting past.

Ghosthunter is a third-person action game that uses high and low tech weaponry to get rid of haunting spirits. Charles can shoot standard handguns and shotguns, but also take out a pulse rifle and sniper gun to target ghosts. To capture ghosts there’s a boomerang-like grenade that will stun them while you take out their energy bar. It’ll eventually capture the ghosts for good once its power is gone. Charles also has an all purpose action button to jump, climb, and clamber (a weird climb with a weird name).

Players move from area to area to find out what the cause of the spirits are and why Charles is chosen to hunt ghosts. There are nice cutscenes with great voice acting to help move the story but there’s only a few notes here and there to update you in between.

The R1 trigger gets Charles in target ready position while another push of the trigger initiates fire. The left analog controls movement and the right analog controls aiming. Enemies have unique vulnerabilities to weapons. Some can be rid of with a pulse rifle, but others need to be hit with a shotgun to die.

In addition to firepower, Charles can transform into a spiritual entity to get to places not normally accessible. The out of body experience lets players float around and use powers like gravity to knock elevator shafts down to Charles. No one said they had to be great powers.

With the speed of the enemies floating or dodging bullets, the controls can get awkward. When Charles is in firing position he moves slowly while ghosts float fast or run towards him. It’s also a pain to change weapons with an L1 trigger hold and moving the right analog to select. There’s no way to do it well in a frantic fight and you have to wait till you’re in the clear. The camera can also get quite horrendous in the game. Tight corridors will have the camera right up on Charles’ back so you can’t see around. The auto camera doesn’t work to well and players will have to keep one thumb on the right analog to keep adjusting.

The graphics are above average in Ghosthunter. It runs at 30 frames per second with detailed characters and expansive backgrounds with not as much detail. The ghosts get the best treatment with transparency effects, blur, and lighting that makes a very convincing ghostly effect. Sounds are also effective in making players a little uneasy as they head to new areas.

Ghosthunter is a fun game that gets run down by camera problems and lack of cohesion. Players will have fun hunting down ghosts, but the searching and finding in-between winds up a bit empty.