Ghostbusters: The Video Game

Over the course of my life I’ve spent a staggering amount of time quoting movies and one of the main sources for me is Ghostbusters. So when the new Ghostbusters game finally came out I loaded it up with a youthful excitement thinking that I was going to take a merry romp through my childhood. Unfortunately that excitement only lasted for about 10 minutes. Once the Ray Parker Jr. classic had finished playing and the fan boy joy of hearing Akroyd and company banter back and forth had faded I was left trudging through a boring and repetitive game.

There really isn’t much to say about this game because there really isn’t much to this game. The graphics are pretty routine and nothing special compared to other games that are out there. The camera work will make you want to pull your hair out since because you’re busting ghosts you’re always tilting your camera up which gives you no real bearing to your surroundings and I personally found myself stuck on more than one piece of environment. The first few levels are throwbacks to locales from the first movie and are fun on a fan level to explore but they get stale fast and once your past the familiar locales and move on to the newly created stages you’ll find yourself missing the monotony of the hotel hallways since the later levels feel oddly out of place in the Ghostbusters world, and seem like they would fit better in a mad scientist film from the 60’s.

As for the game play, I have to admit that firing off a proton pack made me a little giddy and using the happy slime from the second movie was a nice reference as well but at the end of the game all 4 variations of your proton pack essentially do the same thing and there are only rare occasions where you have to use a specific weapon for a specific ghost. The game play is a serious weak point in this game. Once you’ve busted one ghost, you’ve busted them all since nothing ever seems to change from start to finish and if you weren’t interested in the story I’d suggest to just play the first level. On the topic of the story, that’s the real reason anyone is playing this game, you’re a fan of the Ghostbusters and want to see what the original creative team has come up with.

The story isn’t bad but in the end it just seems to reference a lot from the first movie and comes off somewhat uninspired and forced. The voice acting is good and it’s great to hear the ol’ team chatting away but there’s only so many times you can hear Bill Murray saying “little help here” or Harold Ramis telling you to stop crossing the streams before you want to call it quits and hang up your proton pack.

All in all I’d say it’s a rental at best and only if you’re a diehard Ghostbusters fan.

By Ryan S - Systemlink Blog