The fall of the light gun game is one of the worst things to ever happen in the history of gaming. Ghost Squad is a campy, fun, but downright insane experience that never fails to leave you at the edge of your seat. The villa level alone has you rescuing hostages, defusing bombs, and shooting down helicopters with a rocket launcher. You can never guess what is about to happen in this game, and the shooting is responsive and satisfying. It’s the type of game that nobody makes anymore, and I love it for that reason.

If you know me, you'll likely be aware that I had the good fortune to come across a nice Toshiba CRT TV lying on the street, early this summer. I've understandably been tearing through a bunch of lightgun games since then, but a side-effect of this is that I've become a much bigger advocate of the Wii's lightgun-style arcade shooters.

I don't think you're missing out on too much if you have to play them this way, and even if you've got all the gear to do proper lightgun games, these are a more comfortable and casual alternative. There's no fiddling with cables, or calibration, you don't need any special controllers, and you don't even have to sit upright or put that much effort into your aim. And hey, they're wireless! You take that for granted these days, but after messing around with G-Cons and Justifiers, it's refreshingly liberating. There's going to be those who scoff at the thought of playing a lightgun shooter with an on-screen reticle, but to me, that's just snobbery. Lightgun games are great, and this is a nice way to play them.

So what's Ghost Squad like?
ACCEPTABLE!

It's unlikely to leave much of a lasting impression, but it's a fine wee shooter. It attempts to straddle the divide between arcade game and console title with multiple routes and an unlock system. During each mission, you'll come to crossroads where you're given the choice of which path to take. Different routes change the scenario a little, sometimes asking you to rescue hostages, defuse bombs or use different weapons for short segments. About half your time in any given mission will be spent doing something other than the standard shooting. Sometimes it's kind of a cool change of pace, sometimes it feels like a lame minigame.

Having played a lot of these games now, I've realised something - I don't really care for rapid fire. Machine guns kind of dampen the experience. There's a satisfaction and reliability to pistol-based lightgun shooters. Aim well, pull the trigger, and they're down. Machine guns are kind of airy fairy. Kind of vague. Mushy. I'm not into it.

That's kind of the problem with Ghost Squad in general. It's mushy. Picking different lanes feels arbitrary. There's no sense of excitement or tension to it. Multiple routes can work really well in a lightgun shooter, but I think it's only really exciting when it's tied to how well you're playing. The House of the Dead 2 or Time Crisis's "Original Mode" provide alternate routes as an incentive to play as well as you can, and reward returning players who've become more proficient. In Ghost Squad, it's just an option of which minigame you fancy playing this time. It's boring.

That said, Ghost Squad is fine. Inoffensive. It's a fair representation of the genre, has a pleasantly corny aesthetic, and most crucially, it's really cheap. CeX are currently selling it for two quid. If you're looking for a way to play a lightgun game, but you're not that convinced you'd be into them, this is about as accessible as you can get these days.

I'd really encourage you to spend a bit more and get The House of the Dead 2 & 3 Return instead, which is about a million times better. But this is fine. Yeah. I'm not going to tell you off if this is your gateway. Just know that there's far better stuff out there.

After finishing Arcade Paradise recently I was thinking about the arcade experiences I had in the past which are a rarity now.

Fighting games never went away and beat ‘em ups have had indie revivals here and there but light gun games that’s something that really doesn’t exist outside of their “evolved form” of VR shooters.
Konami and Sega killed it with this genre in the arcades with games such as: Point Blank, Time Crisis, House of the Dead, Virtua Cop, Silent Scope… who remembers Police 24/7? That game blew my mind at the time, a decade ahead of the Kinect.

The point in time I remember most about these were when the light guns came into our homes and offered “arcade accuracy”. Sure there were N Zaps and Meancers but the Playstation and Saturn eras, that was when for me it clicked the most.
Now as far as Arcade cabinets go I’ll take Point Blank over most, I also wouldn’t disagree with anyone who said Time Crisis was the king of the light gun games but for me my time with the Saturn and Dreamcast holds that place in my heart if not my head.
House of the Dead and Virtua Cop were series I played with pals to death, ports that were good even without guns because of the depth and ideas these games were bringing during this period.

All of this brings me a little further in time to the Wii and this game.
As CRTs started to disappear and flat screens and HD ready were the craze, light guns were no longer the plastic accessory people wanted - it was guitars.
Nintendo though, always stubbornly staying behind the curve were a shining beacon for the man who wanted to point a gun at his screen and the Wii and the zapper accessory if you wanted still allowed that to be a possibility.

I could continue to talk about other titles, the failures and successes, the ports and the strange tie-ins but I’m here to review Ghost Squad.

Ghost Squad is probably best thought of as a spiritual successor to Virtua Cop and much like the time of the Saturn, it’s really second fiddle to House of the Dead but for me is the heart over head choice.
There are only three levels but Ghost Squad loves to play with its arcade stylings by bringing variety in a lot of replayability.
Multiple routes add different directions and game play elements to missions where sometimes you’re not simply shooting terrorists but uncuffing hostages, disarming mines and more.
The more you play the more routes unlock and the more you play those the more weapons you unlock to change up play styles.

Ghost Squad on Wii goes as far as to add a Ninja Mode which replaces the protagonists, enemies and even some of the scenery with Ninja themed items, throwing stars and all.

To hit the credits in Ghost Squad takes maybe fifteen minutes, and that’s a complete guess because it flies by and is such a laugh you’re not checking your phone to see the time.
The alternate routes aren’t all as exciting as each other and sometimes feel as if they make little difference but really it doesn’t matter, you’ll be coming back to run through again and wanting to tag in some friends.
The game doesn’t take itself seriously, the villains feel like they’re pulled from B-rate action flicks and the voice acting matches with its terrible bluntness.
To think too deeply about this game would ruin it. It is more about how it feels and it is frictionless and joyful.

Ghost Squad is pure and it is fun. It’s not an all-timer stand out in what games should be and isn’t the best argument for why light gun games should still exist, but what it is, is a bloody good time.