When I was three or four years old, I was determined to run away from home. I don’t remember why I was so upset, but I do remember weighing my options and eventually deciding that the only possible way to move forward was to pack my bags and start fresh on my own. It was already dark outside and raining when I grabbed my plastic suitcase and began to stuff it full of socks and underwear, but I figured I could still make it to my grandmother’s house and crash at her place while I plotted my next move.
I had just slammed the case shut when my mother walked into the room. She didn’t try to stop me, but something in her calm voice and slightly amused demeanor told me that she wasn’t taking my threats seriously. She smiled and asked if there was anything she could do to change my mind.
Now, I was young, but I was smart enough to know that she was pandering to me. I suppose it could have simply enraged me further, but instead, the fact that she was approaching the situation with such a lack of genuine concern made me reevaluate my position. Perhaps I wasn’t being so rational after all.
Still, Mom had just asked me if she could do anything to make me want to stay. She was offering me a blank check, and I wasn’t about to let an opportunity like that pass me by. I could have asked to order pizza, or to go to the store and pick out a new toy, but I didn’t want to press my luck.
Suddenly, an idea dawned. “Can we watch Ghostbusters?” I asked. If my request surprised her, she hid it well. Any other time, my mother probably would have told me that it was too scary, but without hesitation, she smiled and said, “Sure. Let me help you unpack that suitcase”.
So, we’ve learned two things from this trip into my peculiar recollections. First, I was a manipulative little puppet master. But, more to the point, I’ve been a Ghostbusters fan for as long as I can remember.
When I was a kid, I enjoyed the films on a base level, reveling in the silly ghosts and the spectacular effects; but as I grew older, I gained an appreciation for the brilliantly ludicrous scripts and the films’ classic performances. I know every scene in both films by heart, and I’ve been known to quote whole passages of dialogue at dinner parties. Awkward, awkward dinner parties. My wife is so very proud.
The new Ghostbusters game for Playstation 3 and X- Box 360 is a brilliantly executed and tenderly delivered love letter to the series’ fans. I tried to remain objective and review the game based solely on its merits as an interactive form of entertainment, but I have to be honest: the whole thing could have been rendered with primitive stick figures and as long as it still featured Bill Murray in voiceover, I would have given it a ringing endorsement.
Thankfully, I can wholeheartedly recommend Ghostbusters: The Video Game with a clear conscience and my integrity intact. While it’s not the absolute best licensed game I’ve ever played - it’s too short and far too repetitive to reach that lofty mark – Ghostbusters: The Video Game features a fine blend of nostalgia and wish fulfillment that expertly channels the spirit of the films and puts you squarely in the trenches with the boys in gray.
I loved this game, and if you loved the movies, you will too. Unfortunately, it’s not for everyone. If you were bothered by the films’ cavalier treatment of a hodgepodge of pseudo-spiritual mumbo jumbo, then you do well to steer clear since this title is knee deep in more of the same.
The game opens in 1991, two years after the events of the second film. The Ghostbusters are enjoying a resurgence of popularity after having saved New York City from Vigo the Carpathian and his river of evil slime.
Burdened with a greater case load, Peter, Ray, Egon, and Winston decided to bring a new team member onboard. The player takes up the mantle of this fresh-faced recruit, known simply as “Rookie” (a move intended to help you place yourself in the role and cleverly explained by Peter’s reluctance to learn your name should you meet your untimely demise while serving as a guinea pig for Egon’s experimental equipment).
But, there’s more in store for your first day on the job than run-of-the-mill spooks and specters. A new exhibit called “The World of Gozer” (the “moldy Babylonian god” that attacked the city in the form of a giant marshmallow man in the first film) has just opened at the Museum of Natural History and before long, a wave of ghostly psychic energy blasts from the exhibit and washes over all of Manhattan.
Suddenly, New York is alive with the dead, and ghosts are everywhere, even infecting places the Ghostbusters had previously exorcised. With mass panic and, more importantly, a holiday weekend approaching, it’s up to you and your four legendary coworkers to round up the ghosts and avert a disaster of “biblical proportions”.
This is certainly one of the most cinematic games I’ve ever played and it definitely captures the spirit of the films. I can’t tell you what a thrill it was for a fan like me to chase the ghost of the infamous Librarian with Ray, rescue Venkman from another sliming, play with the possessed toaster, fight a Sloar, listen to Janine answer the phone in her signature deadpan, or check in with the imprisoned, but still very angry, Vigo.
For better or worse, the script by Ramis and Akroyd draws heavily from the ideas, characters, and themes of the first film. It’s one thing to be self-referential and nostalgic, but much of the early game does feel like a simple rehash of old material in a new and shiny skin. Thankfully, Ghostbusters: The Video Game finds its stride somewhere in the second act and finishes like a champ.
The game certainly sounds right, with the classic soundtrack following your every move and the voice talents of Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Dan Akroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, and William Atherton, all reprising their iconic roles. Brian Doyle-Murray, Max von Sydow, and Alyssa Milano offer able assists. This is more of an ensemble piece than the films ever were, with Ray and Egon taking a much more prominent role and Venkman drawing a bit into the background.
While the game could serve as a worthy, albeit, unofficial sequels of sorts, a number of the performances (especially Murray’s) sometimes seem oddly lifeless, or just a bit off - though I’m inclined to believe this is more the fault of the medium than the actors themselves.
A number of scenes could have been greatly improved if the developers had simply tightened the editing and eliminated the frequent lapses between lines of dialogue. A huge part of comedy is timing, and these moments of silence do some damage to the game’s sense of comic rhythm. It’s the electronic equivalent of an awkward pause in conversation. These minor missteps threaten to make the game feel like a poor facsimile of the films, but they’re never enough to take you out of the experience, and the developers did so much right that it seems trivial to complain that they didn’t get it absolutely perfect. But still – they didn’t. I’m just saying.
Back in the positive column, though, this game looks fantastic. The firehouse, Ecto-1, Slimer, the proton packs and the capture streams, Stay Puft’s marshmallow minions – everything in Ghostbusters: The Video Game, including the Ghostbusters themselves, looks just the way it should. I am simply amazed at how well the developers rendered the actors as they looked way back in 1992.
The level design is likewise inspired and the destruction and damage effects are top notch. Familiar arenas like the Sedgwick Hotel and the New York Public Library match their film counterparts and new environments, like Central Park and the Natural History Museum (full of ancient Egyptian golems and the ghosts of Civil War soldiers) bring a lot to the table. Truly, the whole look of the game is nothing short of brilliant.
Ghostbusters: The Video Game uses a control scheme and a combat mechanic that should be familiar to anyone who has played a third person shooter like Gears of War. Using your proton pack, you can access four different weapons, each with an alternate firing mode.
The trusty blast and capture streams serve as your primary piece, and can fire a powerful “boson dart” that deals a heavy dose of damage to just about any ghost in its path. The Shock Blast is basically an all purpose ghost-busting shotgun, and its alternate stasis stream can freeze some ghouls in place. The rather nifty Meson Collider fires a tracking dart that then draws all your subsequent blasts toward that first mark. This is a great weapon for taking down the game’s many agile and frenzied specters.
The last weapon, the Slimer Blower and its alternate mode, the Slime Tether, get a lot of play, particularly toward the end of the game. Taking its cue from the second film, the Slime Blower allows you to soak a target with positively charged, happiness-inducing ectoplasm. It’s great for neutralizing black (angry) slime traps, disintegrating slime goblins, and exorcising possess citizens (and teammates).
The Slime Tether is an elastic band that you can fire to connect platforms, open doors, and remove obstacles. It utilizes a rather primitive, but still quite fun, physics engine, but, unfortunately, the developers require you to use the tether far too much toward the end of the title.
You can also use your PKE meter to track sneaky spirits, locate hidden paths, and discover collectable ghostly artifacts. On the whole, the game’s controls are easy to use, but it can be difficult to get a handle on all the different buttons when you first start out. By the time you finish the game, however, it will feel like second nature.
The mechanics of wrangling a ghost and leading him into a trap work just like they do in the films. It’s a fun and well-designed system, but many of the ghost speed around the screen like a house fly on steroids, making it a daunting task to reel them in. On the medium and high difficulty settings, this makes it feel like quite a chore, but it is much more manageable if you play with the difficulty set to “casual”.
Path-finding is generally not a problem, and if you’re stumped about where to go or what to do, your AI teammates offer helpful and, often, humorous advice. The artificial intelligence is pretty capable in a fight, although I did notice a few hiccups here and there.
This is a slick game with sky-high production values, but there are some bumps along the road. I’m still not convinced it’s ultimately a flaw, but the most obvious shortcoming – as it were- is the game’s relative brevity. The single player campaign will keep you occupied for roughly five to seven hours, depending on whether you are as obsessive as I am about collecting every possible artifact hidden in the game.
Of course, the title’s length helps it disguise its other major shortcoming: its repetitive gameplay. As I said, the central mechanics are good, but by the end, they’ve been run into the ground. I’m not exactly sure where the root of the problem lies. The enemies are a pretty varied lot, so perhaps it would have helped to have access to a wider array of weapons, or to have had more options for dispatching the army of ghosts.
I was also disappointed that no local (or split screen) multiplayer was included in the package. One of my friends is as big a Ghostbusters fan as I am, and it would have been great to suit up with him. Thankfully, the title does support an online cooperative mode for up to four players, if that’s your bag. Personally, I’d rather play with someone right next to me so we can throw out random quotes from the movies and eat marshmallows in honor of Stay Puft.
Rounding out the negative category, the game relies a bit too much on “rag doll physics” for my tastes. Nothing takes away your sense of immersion like getting tossed around like a broken GI Joe. I also noticed a minor sound bug and a significant frame rate drop in one section of the library level. Finally, I would have also liked it if the procedure for reviving a teammate was more involved that simply touching them on the shoulder and somehow magically healing them.
But who am I kidding? I would suffer through much, much worse for the chance to hang out with Peter, Ray, Winston, and Egon. These are minor issues compared to the joy of living, however briefly, the life of a Ghostbuster.
I realize, of course, this is a joy that all of you won’t necessarily share. Like the films, Ghostbusters: The Video Game revolves around a convoluted mess of half-baked spirituality. Sumerian deities, ghost worlds, parallel dimensions, demonic possession – the gang’s all here - but, it’s also all played for laughs. While I can certainly understand why some parents would be wary of exposing themselves and their children to these themes, it’s all so deliberately ridiculous that is really impossible to take any of it seriously.
The Ghostbusters put some serious hurt on nefarious spirits with laser beams and slime blasts, but nothing in the game is particularly graphic. There’s no blood or gore, but there is a bit of sexual innuendo and a dash of bad language.
There are couple of scares and a few eerie moments, but, like the films that inspired it, Ghostbusters: The Video Game has a greater affinity for comedy than for horror. In the same vein, while some of the ghosts look a bit nasty, they are all in keeping with the cartoon-look of the specters in the films. Watch out, though, for the team’s (sometimes overly detailed) descriptions of the grisly murders and macabre rituals that inspired much of the paranormal activity in certain areas of the game. Some of these monologues are a bit chilling and generally pretty grim.
Ghostbusters: The Video Game will surely appeal to fans, but it has enough charm and class to reel in newcomers as well. I haven’t had this much fun playing a video game in a long time. If you’re in the mood for a good game filled with iconic characters and fueled by a great story, you know who to call. (Come on – you knew I had to throw that in somewhere!)
Caution Rating: 6
