The Home Arcade returns

You haven't lived until you've played a game like Time Crisis in an arcade. Picking up the brightly colored gun and blasting away at baddies on an overlarge TV screen is one of the most fun experiences you could possibly have. Now replace the arcade with the comfort of your own living room, and the WiiMote with the brightly colored gun controller - and probably the TV should get a little smaller too. You're in Ghost Squad territory now. I played through this game with the Wii Zapper, which is probably a better choice than the WiiMote alone. The Zapper is heftier and far easier to control, plus it gives you that arcade feel that you just don't get from the WiiMote. Ghost Squad looks and plays exactly like you'd expect an arcade game to, right up to the persistent "Press + to begin" message on the right side of the screen, exactly where player 2 is supposed to stand, and the absolutely pathetic voice acting. All this makes sense, since Ghost Squad's origins are in the arcades, where things couldn't have been much different than this. All the game is missing are the flashing lights and the noise from the racing sims across the room. You have absolutely no control over where your character goes in this game; you're just going along for the ride, blasting away anything that shoots back (and not shooting anybody who has a giant "HELP!" sign over their heads, which is equally critical). The upside is that, when you die - which, unless you've been trained by the Marines, happens often in light gun shooters - you don't need to plug the Wii with quarters to keep playing. Just press a button and you're right back in it. I played this game back to back with another light gun shooter, Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, which was also released recently for the Wii and also is compatible the Zapper. And it's hard to say which I prefer. Umbrella Chronicles is far more polished graphically and also a bit harder - Ghost Squad is more fast-paced, if not adrenaline-inducing, and, I suppose, more fun. I suspect that, if I held a party and laid out both of those games, Umbrella Chronicles would draw the most interest at first, but Ghost Squad would end up being more popular. It's more of a party game anyway.