Bustin' makes me feel good.
I feel I need to be up front and honest with you guys here: Bustin’ makes me feel good. Real good. Innuendo aside, there wasn’t an elementary school recess that went by that my friends and I didn’t spend catching invisible ghosts with a pretend proton pack. I watched the movies constantly, the cartoon was on a short list with the X-Men and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles of shows that I simply could not miss on Saturday morning, little league practice be damned. I had action figures (they’re not dolls!) of the whole crew, the Ghostbusters firehouse (the pole still works!) and of course, Ecto-1. I had the Halloween costume, complete with proton pack AND trap. I liked Ghostbusters. A lot.
At first, I attempted to approach this review without allowing my obvious love for the Ghostbusters franchise get in the way. But hearing that familiar theme music kick in and seeing Stantz, Spengler, Venkman, and Zeddemore appear on screen with the voices of Akroyd, Ramis, Murray and Hudson attached, it just brought a smile to my face that I wore for the majority of my time with the game.
Ghostbusters: The Video Game puts you in the shoes of The Rookie, a newly hired trainee given the unfortunate role of “Experimental Equipment Technician”. The game wastes no time in throwing familiar references your way, as you’ll begin the game in the firehouse, free to explore and interact with everything from the containment unit to the dancing toaster from Ghostbusters II. Annie Potts returns as Janine Melnitz, who is still tethered to her desk, listlessly answering calls from all the various New Yorkers that have had a feeling of dread in their basement or attic, perhaps even seen a spook, specter, or ghost. Seated next to Janine is the always charming Vigo the Carpathian, still trapped in his painting, and still more than willing to taunt you with cryptic phrases should you venture close enough. But perhaps my favorite returning character is everyone’s favorite dickless junior EPA administrator, Walter Peck, lovingly reprised by William Atherton. Unsurprisingly, Peck serves as a secondary villain, spending the majority of the game trying to find ways to shut the Ghostbusters down.
Eventually though, you’ll probably want to leave the firehouse and you know, actually bust some ghosts. For the first few levels of the game, you’ll travel to several locations familiar to fans of the movies. In fact, your first task is to travel to the Sedgewick Hotel to recapture the escaped Slimer. You’ll do battle with The Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man in Times Square, and return to the main branch of the New York Public Library for a confrontation with the Grey Lady. The familiarity of these early levels will likely have any fan of the movies swept up in nostalgia.
As mentioned before, your character The Rookie has been hired on as an “Experimental Equipment Technician“. This job title is really nothing more than an excuse to add modifications to your proton pack throughout the course of the game. These periodic additions to your arsenal are introduced by Stanz and Spengler, who use their best scientific mumbo jumbo to explain what each of your new toys does, but for the most part these new weapons are simply “Ghosbusterized” versions of typical shooter weapons like a shotgun or automatic rifle, modified just enough to feel unique and fresh. Unfortunately, the game too often becomes just a typical shooter. For all the wonderful moments in which you must wrangle and trap a ghost, there are far too many times in which you’re tasked with dispatching waves of non-ghost enemies that simply vaporize once their health is taken down. While it serves to break up the gameplay a bit, I still would’ve preferred more actual ghost busting and less shooting of demonized candlesticks and possessed gargoyles.
On most missions, you’ll be paired up with at least one other Ghosbuster, allowing for liberal use of voice work, and there is a ton of dialogue here. You’ll still run into the occasional repeated lines, but those are usually confined to when one of your teammates takes damage or is knocked out. And they’ll get knocked out a lot. Perhaps my biggest gripe with the game is how much time you’ll spend reviving your incapacitated companions. While the AI Ghostbusters are genuinely helpful in destroying enemies and assisting you with the trapping of ghosts, they really have no sense of self-preservation. This problem becomes most apparent during boss fights, where you’ll often times spend just as much time racing over to your downed comrades as you will fighting the bad guy. It can cause an extreme amount of frustration, especially when you end up dying in your attempt to save your reckless fellow Ghostbusters.
If you do find yourself growing tired of your needy AI teammates in the single player, you can always taken the game online. Ghostbusters features several multiplayer modes, mostly just variants on competitive co-op modes like Gears of War 2’s Horde. These modes can be played individually, or complied into a small standalone “campaign“. As you play these modes, you’ll earn money and rank up, which can yield access to new uniforms, some of which are reminiscent of those seen in the Real Ghostbusters cartoon series. There’s also a list a of “Most Wanted” spooks that can appear randomly during the campaigns, which ads some interesting replay value and can net you some achievements (or trophies). Unfortunately, the PC version of the game is head-scratchingly devoid of these multiplayer modes, a fact that is sure to catch the ire of those who prefer to bust ghosts with a keyboard and mouse.
While Ghostbusters: The Video Game may lack a certain amount of depth, it makes up for it with pure and unadulterated fan service, and your enjoyment of the game will most certainly hinge on your love of the source material.
