Video Game / Ghost Rider (2K)

(aka: Ghost Rider 2007)

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Ghost Rider is a 2007 action game based off the 2007 Nic Cage film of the same name, and is in fact a sequel to the film.

After the movie's events, Mephisto sends his minion, Vengeance, to bring Ghost Rider to him. After an intense battle where Ghost Rider chases Mephisto down to the Gates of Hell, he then finds out Mephisto's army of demons is on the verge of escaping the underworld and could trigger The End of the World as We Know It.

Johnny initially refuses Mephisto's offers, but is later coerced into working with Mephisto after the demon threatens to use his Love Interest, Roxanne, as leverage.

Gameplay-wise, Ghost Rider is your standard Devil May Cry and God of War clone (made when these franchises were relatively new) but adapted with the movie's characters. Much like in the film, Johnny can kick ass with his fists or trusty motorcycle, in several levels where he battles demons and elementals left and right.

The game was developed by Climax Action for the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable, and by Magic Pockets for the Game Boy Advance. 2K Games was the publisher for all three versions.

Ghost Rider (the game, not the movie) contains examples of the following tropes:

• Absurdly Spacious Sewer: One of the stages Johnny has to cross in order to find the Water Elemental is a sewer large enough for him to hold a motorcycle chase against hordes and hordes of demon mooks on their own cycles.
• Airborne Mooks: Flying, red batlike imps will appear to menace Johnny at several points.
• Amusement Park of Doom: The game's final stage where Johnny confronts Blackheart is an abandoned amusement park filled with demons.
• Auto-Scrolling Level: Levels where Johnny lives up to his name and kicks ass while riding his trusty Hellcycle have him speeding ahead, either attacking enemies he's pursuing or avoiding obstacles along the way. Crashing would require him to restart the stage.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: One of the demon mooks has blades grafted to its arms, which it can use to perform a Spin Attack to slice up Johnny.
• Bubblegloop Swamp: In the middle of the Quentin Carnival Johnny drives to a swamp to get the final elemental soul.
• The Cameo: The Orb's mask appears on a standee in the Quentin Carnival. A reference to the fact he was the Quentin Carnival's stuntman before Johnny.
• Chain Pain: Just like in the movie, Johnny can use his chain to grab enemies from afar and yank them towards him for additional damage.
• Chase Fight: Johnny, befitting his namesake, gets to fight motorcycle-riding demons while riding his own bike, where they'll pursue each other while attacking. There's also the bosses, Vengeance and Blackout, all of them on bikes of their own.
• Circus of Fear: The final stretch of the game takes place in the Quentin Carnival. Having been overrun by demons wishing to resurrect Blackheart, presumably to mock Johnny.
• Cool Bike: Johnny's Hellcycle, of course, just like in the movie. And its game incarnation is upgraded with the ability to fire flaming projectiles for good measure.
• Crossover: Blade appears halfway through as an Assist Character helping Johnny deal with Blackout.
• Crystal Landscape: There's a cavern filled with crystal stalactites and stalagmites, where Johnny faces the earth elemental boss.
• Degraded Boss: Terrosmith, Earth Elemental, Water Elemental and Air Elemental are first fought as mid-bosses and after that appear as regular enemies in later levels.
• Double Jump: Once the player obtains the Earth Soul, they do this during bike missions, though sadly this doesn't apply to the player character themselves.
• Elemental Embodiment: The game has monsters based on three of the four elements as bosses, which Johnny needs to defeat, in order - the Earth Elemental, Water Elemental and Air Elemental.
• Elemental Powers: Ghost Rider himself engages in Playing with Fire by default, but can also obtain the Earth, Water, Air and Dark Souls that allow him to get past blockades derived from those elements in addition to giving his bike new abilities.
• Elevator Action Sequence: Johnny infiltrates an Abandoned Mine in one stage, and as he enters via a rising elevator platform, multiple enemies start swarming from all sides. He needs to defeat them all before the elevator reaches the bottom.
• Evil Counterpart: Vengeance, as per usual.
• Ghost Town: The first level after escaping hell is San Venganza (the town from the end of the movie).
• Level in Reverse: Several of the game's levels require to traverse previous missions but with the layout reversed, mainly to justify the player obtaining an Elemental Soul that they will need to use to get rid of elemental magic blocking off a previous area.
• MacGuffin Delivery Service: Subverted; Johnny travels to various locales to hunt down Blackheart's demons who threaten to open the gateway to Hell on Earth, only to find that the gate opens anyway, as the path the Rider took drew an evil symbol on the Earth in the flames left behind by the Rider's bike.
• Make My Monster Grow: Blackheart, the Final Boss, who turns himself into a building-sized monster that attacks Johnny. The whole fight has Johnny running along a rooftop while trying to fend off his attacks.
• Nitro Boost: Obtaining the Air Soul allows Ghost Rider to use one of these during bike missions with the boost regenerating after a few seconds. It's also useful for getting across ramps.
• One-Hit Kill: Just like in the movie, Johnny can perform an instantaneous execution on enemies by making them gaze into his eyes. The difference however is that the game allows him to do this to demons, which obliterates them on the spot. One of the cheat codes also allows you to inflict this on enemies during battle.
• Percussive Maintenance: One cutscene has Johnny trying to activate a control panel to drop a set of ladders. When it doesn't work, Johnny simply deals a flaming punch that blows up the panel, and surprisingly that works - cue descending ladder. Another has Ghost Rider try to pull a lever only to settle for tackling it once things don't pan out.
• Rank Inflation: The game has rankings from D to A, then S with V at the top. Each rank has a suitable title (such as "Damned", "Brutal"), with the highest, unsurprisingly, being "Vengeance". Ranks however aren't just for show, some enemies are protected by barriers that require a B rank to shatter, with the last few levels giving enemies V-Ranked barriers that require a Vengeance rank to shatter before you can defeat them.
• Rock Monster: The Earth Elemental boss is a larger-than-average rock monster Johnny fights in a cavern. There are lesser rock beasts as Giant Mook enemies in the mineshaft stage.
• Sequel in Another Medium: The game's plot is a sequel to the film, not an adaptation, and remarkably, it works well in its continuity, unlike the actual sequel, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance.
• Shoryuken: One of Johnny's special moves absent in his cinematic counterpart, where his fist glows with a powerful aura before he does a jumping uppercut that deals severe damage.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: Johnny retains the Hellfire Shotgun from the end of the movie, it's a quick way to deal decent damage from afar while removing a bar from your ultimate meter. You can also unlock a combo that allows Johnny to use the shotgun that not only doesn't use any meter but does MASSIVE damage. Vengeance also uses his own Hellfire Shotgun in the GBA port.
• Sphere of Power: Lilith is floating in a sphere made of electricity during her boss fight.
• Suplex Finisher: One of Johnny's special moves allows him to grab enemies the same size as himself, lift them into mid-air, and suplex them over his head to the ground for additional damage.
• Traintop Battle: The battle between Johnny and Lilith is set atop a moving train, where Lilith will hover above the ground while sending mooks to fight Johnny.
• The Unfought: Mephisto himself is never fought despite being the main instigator of the plot. Instead, it's his son Blackheart who takes the role of Final Boss for this game.