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Raaaaaaaimiiiiiiii...

A 2005 First-Person Shooter developed for the Nintendo Gamecube by n-Space and Nintendo, with this being their second ever M rated title they've developed/published. Geist is the story of John Raimi, a scientist hired by a counter-terrorism unit to help them investigate a biochemical corporation. They have good reason to be suspicious. The Volks Corporation has apparently been developing chemical weaponry, according to information gathered by the unit's inside man (and Raimi's mentor). But even this is far from the truth, as one of the soldiers seemingly kills the rest of the team against his will, and Raimi awakens to discover that he is now a ghost, and the only way to survive and discover the truth is to possess others...

While the gameplay never leaves the first-person perspective except for cutscenes, the gameplay varies widely from sequence to sequence. Some areas demand standard shooting and platforming skills, while others take the form of puzzles and resource management. A playthrough can be found here.


This game provides examples of:

  • 11th-Hour Superpower: During the final boss fight, Raimi get the ability to fire energy bursts in his spirit form. Justified, as he's fighting the demon possessing Volks in some kind of spiritual plane; obviously not bound by the rules of the real world.
  • And I Must Scream: When Raimi prepares to fight the demon one last time, he finds the child Alexander, implying that Volk hasn't been truly in control of his actions for decades.
  • Affably Evil: Despite knowingly and actively furthering plots to take over the world, despite conducting highly unethical experiments that literally rip the souls out of the test subjects, most Volk's staff appear to be otherwise nice people who genuinely care about each other.
    Remember, Friday is Hawaiian shirt day!
  • Air-Vent Passageway: You're a dog that appears to be a boxer at the time, and you still have to crouch to get through. No one notices barking or paws clicking.
  • An Astral Projection, Not a Ghost: John Raimi spends most of the game as a ghost after his body and soul are separated at the start of the game. His empty body ends up being hijacked by a demon.
  • Bad Boss: Rourke
    • Seems neglectful enough to have missed out on all the damage you caused throughout the game, according to a few security officers you can talk to.
    • Is stupid enough to try and force the dimensional rift open, despite one of the portal engineers clearing telling him why that is a BAD idea... right before Rouke shot said engineer, forced the other one to open the rift, then was surprised when a massive demon escaped.
    • Also, is terrified of Phantom the dog and will draw his weapon on him and anyone else nearby if approached by him. He even threatens to use poor Phantom for target practice!
  • Battle in the Center of the Mind: The final boss battle against the Volks demon takes place in a trippy Amazing Technicolor Battlefield contained entirely within Volks' body.
  • Bedsheet Ghost: This strategy actually works on someone, scaring her enough to allow you to possess her. It's a bit scarier than usual, although the accountant literally sees the sheet rise up off the bed. Raimi-as-a-bedsheet-ghost has an empty dark hood and dives after her, after all.
  • Big Bad: Alexander Volks. Although most details of the main Evil Plan were not what he had initially intended. The demon possessing him serves as a Greater-Scope Villain.
  • Black Helicopter: No aliens or (conventional) terrorists are involved, but the Volks Corporation drew the attention of the US Government due to reports suggesting what seems to be paranormal activity, so a group of high-ranked soldiers (among them the protagonist John Raimi) arrives the corporation's building via black helicopters to storm it and investigate. They learn the hard way that, yes, there is paranormal activity inside.
  • Body Surf: The central concept of the game.
    • In the main campaign, the player takes the role of John Raimi, a scientist separated from his body by an experiment by terrorists. Raimi cannot do anything outside his body, but luckily he can possess and control anything he can frighten from animals to armed guards, and can even possess objects ranging from mop buckets and cans, to Gun Emplacements and Bombs. Unfortunately for you, some of the later enemies in the game can Body Surf you as well.
    • The hijack power up in multiplayer lets you take hosts other ghosts are already "surfing", unless they have the "anti hijack" power up.
  • Boss Bonanza: In the final level, Raimi fights two giant statues, Alexander Volks and the demon who is possessing him. One after another in a row.
  • Boss Remix: The battle against Alexander Volks in the final chapter (Volks) is a boss remix of the game's main theme. Notably, it's first heard near the end of chapter 4 (Medical), when Raimi is escorting Bryson while confronting numerous enemy soldiers. It's heard one last time in the credits, after the game ends.
  • Bottomless Magazines: The turret guns and the prototype weapons in the main single player mode.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: What Volks' computer simulators do to ghosts. According to him, by the time the program is finished, the ghosts "won't even remember their own name".
  • Bullet Time: Being a bodiless ghost naturally slows time down; there are also battlesuits that can temporarily produce the same effect. Ghosts don't get bullet time in multiplayer though, for competitive balance.
  • Capture the Flag: Two multiplayer modes are "capture the host", where ghosts compete to possess a body and move it to a designated location or ghosts compete to get a body that can make use of Interchangeable Antimatter Keys to open up specific areas.
  • Censor Suds: In order to progress, Raimi has to possess a female doctor, of whom is in the shower with another woman. There's nothing stopping the player from gawking at the scene, however her naughty bits are covered.
  • Chef of Iron: The multiplayer Chef can kill you with an empty plate. In single player you merely have an Angry Chef, who is only so because you're possessing him.
  • Connected All Along: When Raimi finds an abandoned mansion while looking for his stolen body, he finds Gigi there, who tells him that she lived there with her aunt and brother. When she died her brother tried to bring her back, but he got a cursed brand on his face. Her brother's name is Alexander Volks.
  • Console Cameo: There's a Gamecube inside one of the lockers in the Medical level.
  • Convection Schmocvection: Averted, both with fire and with smoke.
  • Cool Chair: While he seems to at least be able to stand, Volks moves around in a fancy hover chair, which in the final boss fights is revealed to be equipped with machine guns and rocket launchers.
  • Creepy Child: Gigi, mainly as a side affect of being one of the few ghosts who both speaks and can maintain a lasting existence without possessing anything.
  • Cutscene Incompetence: The guards are easily killed by the imps in cutscenes. No, these imps are not Immune to Bullets, and no, they aren't remotely strong. They're by far the weakest enemies in the game, and have about as much HP as your typical Goddamned Bats, except without the numerical superiority. They are killed by one bullet from any gun. They can be killed with a fucking fire extinguisher, for crying out loud! And yet, in the cutscenes, when guards are confronted by them, you'd think they were Nigh Invulnerable minibosses. In fact, the fire extinguisher doesn't do any damage, it just has the game check if the target has less than 1 HP (this is why guards don't shoot some of your possessed characters even if you spray them with one, because they're not suffering a health loss). The imps are Zero Hit Point Wonders.
  • Cutscene Power to the Max: Watch those jumps you cannot duplicate, watch those weapons do a lot less damage when you finally get to use them!
  • Deadpan Snarker: Raimi is a Heroic Mime, but descriptions of his surroundings, archived here, reveal that he makes some snide observations. "This is where all of the important faxes come to the morgue", "This [gurney in a morgue] must have been difficult to get down the stairs. At least the passengers don't mind the bumpy ride", "Thanks for the pants" [to a dead guard whose pants he stole] are the most notable.
  • Dead to Begin With: Subverted. After the first level of the game, the protagonist has their soul removed from their body. This gives them all the functions of this trope, but still leaves their body comatose, while they are still technically "alive".
  • Death Is a Slap on the Wrist
    • If the host Raimi is currently possessing has the life meter depleted, and is an expendable host, Raimi's soul simply leaves the body so he can look for another one. But if the deceased host is key for the mission, or no more hosts remain, then it's a definitive Game Over.
    • For obvious reasons, this is averted in death match, where death of your host doesn't just lose you points, the host is still considered yours a few seconds after voluntarily relinquishing possession. So if you're planning on using the ghosts form's advantages to preserve your score, you'll have to plan for it ahead of time.
  • Death of a Child: What started off the whole plot. When Gigi was alive, she tried to climb up a tree to play with her brother Alexander, but when she tripped and died, he tried to resurrect her, but ended up possessed himself, setting the stage for Volks' demon to invade.
  • Deflector Shields - Orange shields reduce the amount of damage hosts take in multiplayer. Volks demon has rings that completely stop whatever Raimi can hit it with, but it needs to shed them to attack Raimi.
  • Demonic Possession: Fairly early into the game, Volks is possessed by a powerful demon who intends to hijack Volks' own world domination plan for his own ends.
  • Disney Death: Done twice with the same character. The first time, he is swallowed whole by a boss monster, then escapes from its stomach when you kill the boss monster, causing it to burst open. The second time, his helicopter is shot down, but he appears at the end of the game with no explanation of how he got there.
  • Distressed Dude: Bryson, the only other surviving member of Raimi's unit at the start of the game, is captured by the Volks soldiers, who plan to subject him to the same separation procedure that was used on Raimi. While he gets rescued, he then spends a fair amount of time convalescing and relying on Raimi to keep him alive, is Swallowed Whole by one of the boss creatures, and is shot by the demon possessing Raimi's body while trying to escape the compound via helicopter. He ultimately survives and comes to pick Raimi up during the ending. Seeing how he is a special forces soldier who can very much hold his own under more conventional circumstances, this also makes him a Badass in Distress.
  • Dying as Yourself: After defeating the final boss, Raimi watches Gigi and the ghost of the Child Alexander reuniting.
  • Easter Egg:
    • Part of the Medical level takes place in a women's locker room. Inside one of the lockers is Samus Aran's helmet. Another locker in the same room holds a GameCube console.
    • The lounge area in chapter 5 contains two TVs set up with NES and SNES consoles (though, as Raimi notes, no games for them on the nearby shelves).
  • Elites Are More Glamorous: The game begins with the main character as a member of a suspicious paramilitary unit.
  • Escort Mission: A bizarre one; you help a friend escape by possessing any and all useful objects in the vicinity, including the escape vehicle. Before that happens there's a more standard escort mission, but fortunately the unarmed Bryson is too weak to run out ahead of you and the enemies don't really focus on him.
  • Evil-Detecting Dog Dogs can tell if you're possessing a soldier, and will bark. This sets off the alarm and causes every soldier nearby to start shooting at you immediately.
  • Evil Laugh: Anti-Hero variant. While possessing the Volks' facility cook, Raimi serves the guards soup contaminated with rat poison, then smiles and chuckles as they each grab a bowl of the lethal meal.
  • Evil Phone: You can be one, briefly at one point, in order to scare a janitor so you can possess him.
  • Extra Lives: Only in multiplayer's "Hunt" mode.
  • Eye Beams: There are statues that can uses these on Raimi, blocking his way to Volks.
  • Faux Action Girl: Anna is an average nurse who only turns into a gun-toting Action Girl because you are possessing her at the time. After you leave her, she keeps the outfit and weapon, but not the competence.
  • First-Person Ghost: Zigzagged. Perhaps because of the obvious pun, single player only partially uses the trope by containing a full model of your current form in the corner, to give you an idea of what your actions look like to anyone who may see you. You still cannot see your feet, tho any action (such as pressing a button, turning a valve, etc) allow you to see your hand as your character interacts with the object.
  • Flunky Boss: Volks can summons spec ops to harass you. He will do this every time you successfully redirect one of his rockets back at him, because the only logical conclusion is that you left your body unattended.
  • Fog of War: Ghosts can't be viewed by hosts in multiplayer, excepting hunt mode. And even then, only if the ghost is moving. Additionally, you can choose whether or not to allow radar and whether or not players can immediately identify possessed hosts in the multiplayer settings.
  • Gameplay Roulette: The game perpetually oscillates through first-person shooter, survival horror, puzzle and action-adventure. This is justified by the game's premise (spiritual possession), as the gameplay mechanics can change according to the current host character.
  • Gender Bender: John Raimi, the ghost of a man, has to possess several women to progress through the game. This actually becomes important gameplay-wise when you possess towel-clothed Anna, who will not walk past a male-guard without proper clothes.
  • Giant Enemy Crab: The boss of Chapters 4 (Medical) and 7 (Captured) is a giant shelled pillbug capable of rolling around the battlefield and shooting numerous projectiles in succession.
  • Good Is Not Nice: Raimi is undoubtedly the hero of the story, trying to stop 1, technically 2, world domination plots, but if his smug satisfaction of lethally poisoning some guards is any indication, he is rather enjoying killing the Volks' staff and guards.
  • Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: No foreshadowing or explanation is given for the two giant living statues fought near the end of the game.
  • Grand Theft Me: It reaches the point where ghosts try to kill you by inhabiting your body and killing yourself.
  • Grenade Hot Potato: Variation, in that Cord is competent enough not to wait to throw a grenade until it's about to explode, but if you shoot him in the arm when he pulls one out, you can possess it and cause it to explode near him prematurely.
  • Hacked by a Pirate: Ghost Raimi can possess a computer and cause it to flash the skull-and-crossbones, pretending to be a virus to scare a technician.
  • Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Few named characters will be wearing any and none of them will be full faced. Granted, not all named characters are "heroic".
  • Heroic Mime: Mostly played straight. Raimi is almost completely silent throughout, even when possessing humans and trying to convince a friend it's really him. The only they speak is when possessing a dog handler, speaking through their host to gain the dog's trust.
  • Hospital Hottie: Anna, more, or perhaps less, so when Raimi is possessing her and rolls up most of the hospital uniform getting in the way of his escapade.
  • Infernal Paradise: The demon's plans for Earth, which involve blotting out the Sun, boiling the sea, and setting fire to the landscapes, turning it into a "paradise".
  • Immune to Bullets: Ghosts. In the multiplayer death match this means that ghosts that don't take a host are almost invincible, but they can't score any points until they take possession of someone susceptible to bullets.
  • Improperly Placed Firearms: The game is set in France, but one of the weapons available is the SAR-21, a bullpup assault rifle of Singaporean origin.
  • Improvised Armor: One monster covers itself in random bits of debris after its shell is broken.
  • In a Single Bound: Yellow arrow power ups in multiplayer allow hosts to jump higher.
  • Just Eat Him: One boss swallows one of your allies whole, but "spits" him back up later.
  • Justified Tutorial: The game never bothers with a how-to-shoot tutorial, but after the main character is separated from his body his spirit is immediately put into a training/brainwashing machine, where he's shown some of the basics of being a ghost - floating around, possessing animals, drinking plant energy. After that the machine is broken by a Creepy Child ghost girl, who shows him how to possess objects, do things with them, and then how to scare humans so they can be possessed.
  • Kill the Host Body: Any living being you possess can be killed by somebody or something else. If the host killed is important to a task you need to accomplish, or is the last available host in the area, it's Game Over.
  • Last-Name Basis:
    • No one but Bryson calls you John.
    • Gigi (and the Demon Lord, for a brief moment at the beginning of Chapter 5) are the only two people who call Volks "Alexander". The former makes a little more sense, given that he's her brother.
  • The Legions of Hell: Behind your human antagonists is a demon, and in fighting them you let more crossover. They have apparently invaded the world in the past too, based on the first one's dialog.
  • Lethal Joke Character
    • Towel girl in multiplayer, who attacks with a wet...towel, in a game with guns and invisible ghosts. That said, her towel is an instant kill if she lands it.
    • The same is true of the chef in multiplayer. His plates move slowly and can be wonky to hit with, but the porcelain he throws is way more lethal than any bullet you can use from another host.
  • Let Me Get This Straight...: Happens one chapter after Raimi rescues Bryson (as in the previous one their top priority was to escape). Raimi explains Bryson offscreen what's going on with the Volks corporation (because Raimi is a Heroic Mime in-game), and then Bryson paraphrases what he's told to make sure he understands the situation. This is further justified because Raimi had been turned into a ghost and was possessing a female nurse. They might have thought that going right to the next action scene was too jarring, but they couldn't show Raimi talking.
  • Lightning Bruiser: Raimi, Volks and Anna in multiplayer, particularly heavy insistence on the lightning in the case of Volks. Raimi is notable though because unlike the other two his multiplayer incarnation doesn't have a sprint command, he's just that fast.
  • Living Bodysuit: The game's main gimmick is the possession mechanic, as you make everyone your personal costume and disguise. The Big Bad is also incorporeal, so it takes over the wheelchair-bound old man heading the corporation which had accidentally released it.
  • Living Statue: Two serve as the last boss before the fights with Volks and the Demon Lord.
  • Lotus-Eater Machine: After Raimi is first separated from his body, Rourke and Volks try to recondition him into a soldier in one of these before being saved by Gigi.
  • Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Cord uses a shield to block your shots while throwing grenades in the first boss battle. Ironically, the next fight where he doesn't use these is harder.
  • The Man Behind the Man: Volks' Demon, as it's the one who made Alexander truly evil after possessing his body when he was only a kid.
  • Meat Puppet: The game surrounds itself in having the player possess hosts both biological and machine to affect the living world and defeat the Big Bad. There's even a minigame devoted to Ghosts vs Hosts.
  • The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Possessing some characters results in subconscious desires and aversions that the player doesn't share. Some examples include the technician who cannot approach the machine, requiring you to move the part you need to him. Or Anna, who cannot approach the guards until she gets dressed. An inverse of this is the rats, who actively pull towards the mouse traps because of the cheese, requiring Raimi to quickly pull them away in order to avoid killing them and reaching his target.
  • Mini-Boss: Two fights of this type take place during the start of the final chapter, occuring one after another:
    • Raimi has to take down two helicopters which attempt to transport the indoctrinated souls to the United Nations in order to possess all the presidents and ministers in the world so Volks can command them. Raimi can possess one of the anti-air turrets to easily take down the first of them, but then the second will destroy it and proceed to attack his physical body, forcing him to fight it by shooting at it with his equipped machine gun.
    • With both helicopters down, the soul container they were transporting falls down, freeing the corrupted souls which will now try to attack Raimi, one after another. Raimi can only dispatch them by throwing ethereal bombs, as bullets are useless against them. After Raimi defeats them, enemy soldiers start appearing, and the game progresses normally.
  • Mini-Game: Among other examples, one area can only be passed after a literally riveting action sequence. Or one could just kill all the workers in the area.
  • Misplaced Accent: Despite being set in France, several American Accents, such as Dixie, Military Basic, Midwestern and Tidewater seem to appear.
  • Modesty Towel: After the "Censor Suds" situation, the girl Raimi scares will leave the shower and cover herself in a towel. After scaring her further, you can possess her. While you can leave the locker room, you cannot progress until she gets dressed as there are guards everywhere and, as one would reasonably expect from a mostly naked woman in the presence of strangers, she has an aversion to approaching the male guards without clothes.
  • Mook Debut Cutscene: The game introduces the Spirit Hunters, the topmost Elite Mooks of the game, via a cutscene. They are capable of seeing ghosts and harming them with their weapons, and can also slow down time to catch up with the ghosts' speedy movement. When you, a ghost yourself, meet them for the first time, the only thing you can do is run away for your life. The second time, you're possessing Rourke, who is equipped with Spirit Hunter gear, allowing you to evenly fight them.
  • More Dakka: Your bullets slow down just like everything else when using Super-Speed, but you can still shoot more bullets in a shorter amount of time while using it. Normally this is just a waist of ammo, as the player should be used to aiming by the time they get access to super speed, but it is valid tactic against the helicopter and Living Statue bosses.
  • Mouse Trap: One section in Chapter 8 (Rourke) requires you to possess a mouse and traverse a veritable minefield of mouse traps. They may be in plain sight, but that cheese is surprisingly tempting.
  • Nail 'Em: A part of Chapter 3 allows the player to possess a worker who has a rivet gun. While it's useful in a (literally) riveting action sequence, it's not much of a ranged weapon.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Trying to keep Bryson from being hit by the separation procedure and possibly driven mad, Raimi destroys the machinery that's keeping the rift stable. This does result in Bryson being taken down and sent to the medical wing, but it also means that a huge incorporeal demon can pass through and start making everything worse. Though it can't be solely blamed on Raimi - after the machinery was destroyed, one of the technicians insisted that the rift be closed down lest something escape, but Rourke orders it forced wide open, and when he gets argued with, he gives the engineer a present from his gun to the head to convince the other engineer to open it.
  • No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom: For a game with a fundamental point of scaring people to control random guards, there is only one direction you can ever go in any given situation whatsoever, going back is never an option, as the game will never let you reopen some doors, not that there's a thing to find besides multiplayer content and life upgrades (that come with extra story details) anyways. There is rarely more than one solution to any given obstacle either.
  • Not Quite Flight: Your ghost form can float a little but not really fly until the end of the game.
  • Oh, Crap!: One of the possible death sounds for the standard soldiers. It's also how Volks, when he was a kid, reacted when he inadvertedly summoned the demon that ended up possessing him.
  • Older Than They Look: Raimi is 35, according to his profile in the manual. With his youthful face and overall dress sense, he could pass for a man a decade his junior.
  • Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Averted. Raimi's supposed to have knowledge on chemical and biological warfare. A scientist. But descriptions have him looking at control panels and thinking "Hmm... looks complicated", and finding equations incomprehensible, showing that the mix of science and the occult that Volks is working on is well beyond his fields of study.
  • One-Man Army: Amusingly, everyone Raimi possesses becomes this, as while they're still definitely very mortal and can die quickly, an untrained combatant is able to turn even nurses, scientists and engineers into walking badasses that kill hordes of soldiers and monsters alike. Which then establishes the threat level of Volks' other spectral operatives trained to be loyal to him.
  • Our Ghosts Are Different: John Raimi becomes a ghost after his soul and body are separated. He doesn't get many of the standard ghost powers, apart from possessing people. He can't even walk through most walls (though probably because that would break the game). He also meets another ghost, Gigi, who is the Big Bad's deceased sister.
  • Player-Guided Missile: During the boss battle against Big Bad Alexander Volks, Raimi can exit his physical body to possess any missile shot by the villain and control it to redirect it to him. Due to the missile's speed, this is difficult to pull off, but if it lands onto Volks it'll deplete a quarter of his Life Meter.
  • Poltergeist: You play as one. You can cause objects to bang around and break in order to scare guards and animals, and once they're scared enough you can possess them and use them to accomplish physical tasks.
  • Pre-Final Boss: The game combines this with Boss Bonanza, because the endgame pits you against three different bosses back to back: Two golem statues that serve as the guardians of the final chamber's entrance, then Alexander Volks who is the Big Bad, and the demon possessing him (and the Greater-Scope Villain).
  • Quad Damage: Purple power-ups increase the damage done by weapons and host attacks in multiplayer.
  • Railroading: Generally if you find an item or person that you can possess, the game is designed so that you have to possess it. Many of the game's puzzles can be solved simply by looking around for what you are allowed to possess.
  • Recurring Boss: Three bosses in the game are fought more than once each: An unnamed Creature (in chapters 1, 6 and 7), a mercenary called Cord (in chapters 2 and 3), and a shelled crustacean (in chapters 4 and 7). In fact, they're the only bosses faced prior to chapter 8, but they do change tactics in each fight and the respective battlefields also add to the differentiation.
  • Red Right Hand: Volks has a scar on the right of his forehead. It's later found out to be a brand that's controlling him.
  • Remote, Yet Vulnerable: The second-to-last boss in the game (Volks) can be difficult due to this. The best way to defeat him is to leave your body, possess the missiles he fires at you, and pilot them back at him. But you have to be careful, as enemy ghosts are prone to jumping into your body and running into a One-Hit Kill furnace if you aren't there to resist it.
  • Replay Mode: The game allows the player to replay the chapters of the game after its completion. And since those chapters are already complete, the game will only save any items and lore entries gathered when they're replayed; so if there's a previously-missed item or lore entry that can only be accessed near the end of the selected chapter, the player must advance up to that point before turning the game off to get it.
  • Rolling Attack: The boss of chapter four can roll up to regenerate its health and to roll over you. Luckily there is a hole in its shell, unluckily your bullets won't do anything even if it is shot there, you need to use grenades and time your throws carefully.(You can shoot its face when exposed but it will be shooting at you too when it is and will likely regenerate faster than you can do damage that way). The second time you fight it, it is always rolling, but it hasn't fully recovered from the first fight and you have the prototype weapons, which make a mockery of its Improvised Armor.
  • Run, Don't Walk: You probably will not be releasing that L button very much.
  • Sarcastic Clapping: About halfway through the game, the Wraith does this, and while possessing your body just to show off.
  • Scenery Censor: The game was given an "M" rating in the US for (among other things) a brief scene containing nudity — but anything objectionable was covered by strategically-placed soap bubbles.
  • Secret Character: Extra multiplayer hosts are rabbits, Raimi, bats, Towel Girl, rats, Chef, roaches, Volks, imps and Anna. They have to be unlocked in the single player mode.
  • Shock Wave Stomp: The living statue bosses sometimes create shock waves, and there is nothing to be done about them except moving far away.
  • Shout-Out:
  • Shower Scene: A part in Chapter 4 involves scaring a woman taking a shower so that you can possess her friend; she helpfully has soap suds covering her private parts, while the friend is clad in towels. A man is even peeping on them through a crack in the wall beforehand.
  • Spirit Advisor: Gigi during the first six chapters of the game. Afterwards, when Raimi approaches the darker corners of Volks Corp, she's unable to go any further with him.
  • Splash Damage: In multiplayer, using this on themselves is a common tactic hosts use to get rid of ghosts.
  • Stock Animal Diet: Rats and cheese.
  • Strapped to an Operating Table: Happens a few times in the game. First, Raimi is strapped up in a gigantic, vaguely telescope-like thing to be separated from his body. Later this happens to his friend Bryson, and when that is interrupted Bryson is strapped down and left to die. There are also a few others who failed separation and got strapped and straight-jacketed down.
  • Team Pet: Phantom the dog, who must be possessed for a stealth section early in the game and returns later for a section where his trainer must be possessed to lure him to a specific location with treats. Most of the Volks staff seem quite fond of him, and he gets his own quirky theme song. He's even shown to be in the getaway helicopter during the ending.
  • Tennis Boss: In an odd variant, you possess the boss's missiles and guide them back manually, but this is optional.
  • Trust Password: A non-verbal example: Since Raimi has the ability to Body Surf, he has to prove his identity to Bryson by reproducing their Secret Handshake.
  • The Social Darwinist: Volk's demon, to the point it is disgusted by the idea of peaceful resolution.
  • Unexpected Gameplay Change: Repeatedly, up to and including a space shooter.
  • Unusable Enemy Equipment: The player can only possess imps in multiplayer mode. The player can never use the guns that increase the speed of shots fired to match Super-Speed when activated.
  • Very High Velocity Rounds: There are enemies whose rounds get faster when they activate Super-Speed, while your own projectiles remain slowed even when you get access to a version of their speed suit. However, these projectiles they shoot are normally slower than bullets, and when they show up with these very high velocity rounds it's to reinforce that the player's only option is to run away.
  • Videogame Flamethrowers Suck: As usual it has a good damage output but a pathetic range. It does have a longer range secondary fire, that is shared with two other weapons found in the same area. Better than most video game flamethrowers but still much worse than a real one.
  • Voice Grunting: Only during cutscenes will people actually say all their lines. Soldiers will generally have "Sir!" if you're inhabiting a man, "Ma'am." if you're inhabiting a woman, and "Hey boy!" if you're inhabiting a dog. Gigi will always say "Raiiii-mi" or giggle. In one particular case when you're possessing an engineer, his irritable boss says "Walters!" each and every time you talk to him.
  • Voice of the Legion: Volks gets a bit of this in his speech at the end of Chapter 7.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: The soldier possessed at the beginning that kills Raimi's team and gets him abducted is never seen or spoken of again.
  • Who You Gonna Call?: Multiplayer's "Hunt" mode has one team take the role of ghost hunters, and the other as the ghosts trying to make the hunters commit suicide through possession.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Rourke seems to suffer from Cynophobianote , it's foreshadowed in Chapter 3 when the animal trainer of the facility talks with one of her co-workers about how much Rourke seems to dislike dogs (outright planning to use one of them for target practice). Close to the end of the game, Volks holds a meeting behind locked doors and gives specific orders to shoot anyone who comes close who isn't himself or Rourke. The solution is straightforward: possess Rourke. To possess someone, you must first terrify him and Rourke is a hard-as-nails mercenary who doesn't scare. Thus, you undergo a series of short missions for the sole purpose of trigerring his cynophobia.
  • Would Hit a Girl: Rourke slaps Anna when she tries to administer medicine for Bryson.

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