Ghost Rider preview at 1UP

Ghost Rider hits store shelves next week and 1UP's Mike Nelson has a short and to-the-point preview of the game up on the site. It seems the game is a bit of a mixed bag but isn't as bad as it could have been. Am I making any sense?

Anyway, here's the interesting stuff:

Comic book games have a bad rep save for a few Marvel property gems and DC has yet to get its act together. Ghost Rider looks to settle somewhere between those two comic extremes: It's fun, simple and rewarding at every turn, but it feels too simple. Perhaps that's why 2K will be throwing in an unlockable secret character that you encounter in your videogame travels.

The secret character is Blade, by the way. And no, that isn't a spoiler. Everyone knows by now. Try having Final Fantasy VI Advance spoiled for you by Silicon Era, then we'll talk.

Ahem. Anyway, moving on -- it seems not all is lost as Mike feels the game will satisfy those looking for some God of War-like gameplay until God of War 2 sees its release.

But the true action of the game will be when you're on foot and dispatching your brand of justice amongst the evil-folk of the world. And yes, nods to God of War are very apparent in the way the Rider swings his chains around and his overall movement around the screen. In short, for those who can't wait another month for GoW 2, Ghost Rider looks to keep you satisfied until then. The only problem with the action after killing off waves of bad-folk is determining where we are supposed to run to next -- no hovering directional arrows here -- which makes it feel unintuitive, and borderline frustrating.

What can I say? It could have been a lot worse. I'm thinking of Fantastic 4 here. Also, keep in mind the PSP version has multiplayer support and a few racing minigames thrown in and is probably the version of the game you should be getting.