iPad Game On! Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

March 5, 2012

When your character comes to at the beginning of Capcom’s latest iPad adventure game, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, he has a lot of questions. Who am I? Why am I here? What’s up with my wacky hairstyle?

Freshly dead and floating above your own limp body, your spirit is less restless and more confused. Next to you, a shady looking hit-man holds a beautiful young redhead at gun-point. But who are they? You don’t know much, but you know that you have to do something to save this woman, before she ends up like you.

Thankfully, the game’s narrator chimes in just in the nick of time. Want to be a hero? Here’s the deal:

As a member of the newly deceased, you have two ways of interacting with the waking world. In ‘Ghost-mode’ you swipe your finger on the screen to inhabit various objects around you, jumping from item to item to move throughout a location. In ‘Trick-mode’ you can cause these objects to spring to life, turn on or off, and jostle about. It’s your job to sniff out the truth with your Ghosting and then use your Tricks to set up Rube Goldberg-type chain reactions that will confuse or distract the living, pushing them to achieve your goals for you and unwittingly alter their own fates. Like any good puzzle, it starts easy and slowly adds more elements, timed challenges, and just enough dry humor to keep you searching for answers.

If you’re a fan of beautifully animated “point and click” adventure games, a lover of Agatha Christie-style whodunnits, or just have an iPad and a few hours to kill, check out Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. The first two (of eighteen) chapters are free, so you’ve got nothing to lose. Except maybe your soul… but I’ve got a feeling you’ll get that back.

 

Alexei Bochenek is a lifelong tech nerd & film buff based in Los Angeles. When he’s not playing with his phone, it’s because the movie has started. Shhhhh!