User Review : Ghostbusters : The Video Game

Bustin' makes me feel good.....

Man, it’s great to get back to ‘Ghostbusters’. I was caught up in the fever when I was a kid, I remember running around with my friends pretending to be Ghostbusters and taking on imaginary ghosts that were causing trouble in our neighbourhood. I also played the games on NES, had a couple of toys – including three figurines where, when you squeezed down on their arms, they’d do something quirky with their faces – and I loved watching the cartoon series. They were fun times. So you can see why I was ecstatic when I heard they were making a game, but I couldn’t shake that troubled part in the back of my mind.

This was a movie game, and it’s basically second nature to approach it with caution. With all the main stars attached, including the creators, it certainly lent it credibility. I mean what would Venkman or Ray be without Bill Murray and Dan Akroyd, the life and blood of these characters, behind the wheel? I don’t dare to speculate. Plus, it wasn’t plagued with a lot of the pressures that come with making a movie game, like time constraints so it can coincide with a cinema release. So, in a lot of ways, this felt different.

Putting Resident Evil 5 aside – playing it over and over again just to ogle Sheva in her skimpy tribal outfit does get tedious – I slipped ‘Ghostbusters’ into the PS3 and, before long, I couldn’t pull myself away from it. Despite some set backs, ‘Ghostbusters’ is a stellar movie-game that embodies the same spirit of the movies rather than being a soulless cash-in to empty wallets. This baby was carefully cultivated for the fans and the result is incredibly fun.

You play the new guy, hired by the Ghostbusters as an ‘experimental equipment technician’, a fancy name for guinea pig. This means you get to try out all the new equipment for the team, and hope you’re not vaporised the moment you flick on the switch; better get your affairs in order. There’s something strange in the neighbourhood, and when attacks by malevolent spirits are on the rise, you get to join the A-team as they work to stop yet another supernatural threat, of biblical proportions, against the world; funny how they always choose New York as a starting point. But it’s all in a days work for the Ghostbusters.

First up, the good; in essence, this is Ghostbusters 3, and the game was penned by Dan Akroyd and Harold Ramis, the original creators and writers of the movies, and they know what the fans have come to love of the series. Everything in the game was made to cater to the fans, from the charm of each character, the references to past movies and the crazy ghost battles. With a game, I guess Akroyd and Ramis were able to stretch their imaginations a bit and they took full advantage, there are some spectacular and creative set pieces in the game.

And a game with ghosts wouldn’t be fun without a couple of creepy set ups. The stage in the New York public library is a perfect example; you’re walking through the hallways and the maze of book shelves in the dark, not knowing when something was going to jump out of the dark. You’re only stable source of light is a torch that barely pierces the darkness. Lights flicker on and off at times and imagine seeing nothing in one instance and then being surrounded by pillars of stacked books the next. With these ghosts always manipulating the environment in front of your eyes, it keeps you on your toes.

But luckily, you’re not alone….most of the time. You have the A-team busting transparent skulls right beside you. Venkman and co. are there to help you through and a lot of the times, you’re taking your cues from them. When I couldn’t figure out which weapon to use against which type of ghost, I just checked out what was coming out of the end of their wands. When I was stuck on what to do next, Egon or Ray were usually there with a suggestion, so there was a good balance of hand-holding and letting you figure out some things for yourself, although I admit I could’ve used a bit more of a helping hand in some parts.

Like your character, your team mates are also vulnerable to enemy attack and when they go down, you need to help them back on their feet and vice versa, and you’ll want too because taking on a hoard of ghosts, who throw tables and chairs at you, by yourself isn’t easy. They can even be possessed, leaving you the fun job of hosing them down with gunky green slime to exorcise their demons; beats holy water.

Which brings me to the next attraction; the tools of the trade. The Proton pack is your main weapon to capture the ghosts with. There are four different types of modifications – mapped out on the D-pad for easy access – each with a specific use against the different supernatural beings that attack you, not to mention environmental manipulation, like getting that pesky boulder out of the way. In the later levels, you’ll find yourself constantly switching from one type to another in order to attack the different types of ghosts that appear simultaneously, so master them quick. It basically plays like a third person shooter; left stick to move around, right stick to turn the camera and get a fix on the target, when the reticule appears shoot the ghost and wear it down before going in for the kill.

Completing jobs earns you mula, which you can use to upgrade the proton packs and each type of modification has different upgrades like heat and kick-back reduction, increased damage and accuracy.

In addition to being your main weapon, the Proton packs also represent your HUD, namely your life bar and heat measures, when the heat bar fills up, the packs will stop working and will need to be cooled down. It’s all very Dead Spacey.

And what fun would the packs be without a destructible environment to demolish and vandalise? So writing swear words on the walls, smashing up tables, chairs and windows, tearing up the floors and setting the carpet on fire, and vandalising tombstones; getting in touch with your destructive side and racking up property damage to hundreds of thousands of dollars doesn’t get boring.

Apart from the Proton packs there’s also the PKE meter and the Containment traps. The PKE meter, and paragoggles, helps when you’re on a ghost chase by detecting their energy and finding any gooey material they might’ve left behind. You use it to find a trail to figure out where the ghost is headed. It also helps to scan and catalogue the different types of ghosts you’ll encounter. And the containment traps pretty much do what the name says; throw it out, capture the ghost in your capture stream, drag it to the trap and let it suck the struggling bugger into its depths.

Despite all that fun stuff, there are a couple of glaring set backs that, really, just can’t be over-looked. First of all, the voices, I mean everyone, from Bill Murray to Annie Potts and William Atherton, were great. I loved that these actors could just so easily slip back into their roles after twenty years. But the lip synching with the computer characters was, to say it in a nice way, disjointed. Even some of the conversations were strangely out of place, like no care was taken to make sure these characters were speaking like they were having a fluent conversation. Instead it sounds like they were recorded separately, and the emotional responses were a little off. It didn’t happen all the time, but it happened enough to be noticed.

I think what bothered me most was getting lost on some of the levels, and walking back and forth, trying to find the way to get back on track. The PKE can be helpful in that department; equipping it to track down supernatural activity (with the two little blinking ears moving up and down) helps you to find your way to the next checkpoint. But when nothing’s happening (no activity to track) and the level feels like a maze, trying to find a way out is more frustrating than fun.

But no game is perfect, I haven’t played one that didn’t have some bumps in the road. It doesn’t take anything away from the fact that this is an enjoyable game, made with the fans in mind. It feels different, even though a lot of the mechanics in it aren’t. I felt like I was part of a ‘Ghostbusters’ movie and not playing a game based on the movie. I had a blast with it. Take note devs, this is how to make a movie game.

Score

8.0

Graphics

8.0

Sound

9.0

Gameplay

9.0

Fun Factor

Overall

8.0