A mediocre game that is elevated by it's content
Ghostbusters --The Video Game--, succeeds in combining a fun story, entertaining voice acting, and third person shooty gameplay. While it does all of these things adequately, it does none of them exceptionally, and for this Ghostbusters suffers. Overall the game lacks polish. The in-game cut-scenes animate janky, as do many of the "ghost wrangling" sequences where the collision detection, and physics appear to go awry.
The story of Ghostbusters The Video Game, set in 1991, plays like a piece of, well intentioned, fan-fiction. It digs up the villains and much of the mythology from the first one and goes as far as to try to connect the mythology of the first two films together. The whole narrative feels like a constant rehashing of old material. If you're a fan of the original film, you'll get all those fun references, call backs, and rehashes; but, you may also find yourself questioning characters apparent cluelessness in certain circumstances given you know, that they know, what should be going on.
On terrific example is the opening of the game. In the introductory cinematic we find the new "Gozer Exhibit" at the museum a few days from opening, many of it's artifacts provided by "Ivo Shandor". Why don't the Ghostbusters know this is going on, and why aren't they alarmed? Why, when a massive outbreak of ghost activity occurs, do the Ghostbusters find themselves pontificating on its cause when they are aware of what the cause must be.
The story builds to a predictable end, with roadblocks we've seen before. Even Peck makes a return and it's not long before you'll be able to predict the inevitable outcome. With all this plodding plot you may find yourself wondering "where is the humor"? While the lines recited, most faithfully by the original cast, stir up the occasional chuckle, there is rarely a genuinely funny moment.
For the most part the cut-scenes play out well, with familiar music cues calling back to the films. There seems to be a bit of an uncanny valley thing going on with the polygonal versions of your favorite actors. The facial animations are a little janky, and come off under-pronounced. When Venkman is spitting one of his clever quips, or Ray is reciting some technobabble, their facial expressions seem stilted. The sequences, while still enjoyable, will leave you wondering if they could have used just a little more polish.
While we're on the subject of the voice acting, as you'd expect, from Dan Aykroyd shines. The enthusiasm he has for the material is clear. Ernie Hudson remains true to his character as well; but, Harold Ramis, and Bill Murray come off as forced. Ramis especially sounds drastically different, clearly age has affected his voice more than the others, which makes it all the stranger coming from a polygon model designed after he appeared in 1991.
The gameplay is your standard fare. A third person shooter with the slight twist of having to "wrangle" and trap your targets. At first capturing ghosts is fun, and has a genuinely authentic feel. After about the 30th ghost or so you'll begin to tire of repeating the "wear down, wrangle, slam, trap, repeat" gameplay. That is not to say it doesn't get switched up, every now and again you'll fight endless hordes of creatures that simply explode when hammered on enough, and each ghost has a particular weakness to one of your 4 weapon types.
Puzzles vary from the simple, to the unnecessarily mind boggling. At times you'll have far too much information, your ghost busting partners having spelled out what to do next, and others will have you wondering aimlessly wondering what to do next. Mix in that you will some times have to use the "capture beam" to manipulate objects, an imprecise tool, and you'll find some puzzles utterly frustrating.
All together Ghostbusters plays like one of those games whose hole is clearly greater than it's parts. Each individual aspect clearly needs more polish, but the game pulls them off just well enough to make it a somewhat enjoyable experience. Factor in the elements of nostalgia and the game ends of being somewhat enjoyable; but, with a few tweaks and polish it could have been really outstanding. In that sense it's a bit of a disappointment.
