GhostBusters – There’s something strange about this review

As a child of the 80s it’s not very hard to get excited about Ghostbusters- The Video Game; back then there were not many movies that joined together multiple comedic powerhouses, or had heavy use of special effects, and certainly very few that delved into the supernatural. And yet along came The Ghostbusters and did all of these. So of course along comes a game to renew our love for the franchise and naturally it comes with major concerns; will it be another rubbish movie tie in? Will Atari use the same useless quality assurance that gave us Alone in the Dark? Will it be as funny as the movies? Will my memory of much loved icons be destroyed buy stupid greedy soulless sell-outs?

There are answers my friends and they follow shortly:

Straight off the bat you’ll notice Ghostbusters doesn’t match most recent PS3 releases, the graphics are not terrible and they won’t ruin the game, but they are average at best with detail levels barely getting above adequate. The only positives I can give are that the character models are almost perfect, the famous foursome (plus some sidekicks) are instantly recognizable, and there is liberal use of vibrant colours which is a nice change from the multitude of bland (but beautiful) FPS games out there. The proton streams give off a very satisfying bevy of lights which reminds you instantly of the movie. The ghosts are done very well with just the right amount of transparency. There is a nice range of enemies so you are not constantly battling the same looking foe over and over. But ultimately it will disappoint those who care about graphics above all else.

What can I say? I’m not sure how many times I heard the Ghostbusters theme tune during my game time but I do know that I never got sick of it. Other than the theme tune there are a few (really few) other musical entries which you’ll recognise and which get used over and over. The voice acting, quite expectedly, is the best I’ve ever experienced. I guess that’s what you get when you use real actors; lines are delivered with proper emotion and timing and naturally they are instantly recognisable adding a real sense of authentication to the whole thing. Ghosts sound menacing and there are the usual crashes, bangs and screams going on. Hearing the Proton Pack warm up will put a smile on anyone’s face.

Here we get to the real value of the game; the thing that most of us were sure would be great. How could it not be? Take the original writers Aykroyd and Ramis throw in the comedic brilliance of both of them plus Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson and what you end up with is nothing less that a very harsh lesson for the rest of the video game industry: you can make a game with a very good story containing rich and funny dialog acted brilliantly.

In one of the bonus videos Aykroyd says that he and the rest of the guys viewed the game as the third instalment of the movie franchise, and it shows. You can tell that this was their baby and they were not just palming it off for a quick buck.

Basically you are a new trainee joining the ranks, as the noob you get to wear all the new fancy and dangerous equipment. While trying to find out what the ever popular Gozer is up to you end up battling some famous old friends including the librarian, Slimer and everyone’s favourite big daddy: Stay Puft.

The story works so well simply due to the great writing and delivery, there are MANY funny moments in the game and they are not all down to simple one liners that are the mainstay of the gaming industry.

The gameplay is an area I was very worried about before playing, Atari are getting a bit of a reputation for releasing games that are buggy and after the control fiasco of Alone in the Dark my worries certainly were warranted. The good news is that I found only 1 buggy area that afflicts almost everyone and it can be passed quite painlessly. The controls are very good, movements is easy, not slow but not quick. Aiming is about as good as a jumping proton beam is going to get, and trapping ghosts just feels so good. They got it right, I can say that will great relief and satisfaction.

There are only 4 weapons in the game but thankfully they are different enough to give a different experience. The game isn’t long enough to get bored of the gameplay but any longer and it would seem monotonous, although I personally never got tired of trapping those little suckers. Boss battles are fairly intense but too easy (like most of the game), and I was severely disappointed that I didn’t get to take ECTO-1 for a spin. This would have helped break up the gameplay and added some much needed length to the game.

The engine is something I’d like to mention, as they built it from scratch, called Infernal. Normally these things cannot hold a candle to the well established and famous engines but I was surprised by how good this was. You can take the Proton Beam and cut through sections of things and those parts will break off individually, I tested it out a bit on a ladder and I was cutting off sections which made me feel really good, giving me control that I didn’t really need but still.

Tired of running around gunning your buddies down?
Tired of capturing the flag (or whatever they made it to hide the fact that it’s still CTF)?
Tired of Zones?

Well Ghostbusters has none of those, it has co-op only modes for:

Defend the artifacts (ghost come to take them and you must stop them).
Survival (defeat wave after wave of ghosts).
Slam Dunk (dunk Slimer in as many times as possible in a round).
Campaign (various jobs that need to be done).

From the little I played the online was really enjoyable, you compete with others but only as far as who can score the most. Unfortunately this is the area where Atari’s poor reputation reared it’s head. It’s very buggy, getting into a game is pure lottery and for me there was a lot of lag. There is also a bug which makes getting 2 trophies impossible so don’t come here looking for Platinum.

We all pray for a patch soon, but Atari refuse to comment at this stage.

The conclusion is simple, but from two different view points:

From an entertainment point of view I can rank this right up there with Uncharted and MGS4, I honestly didn’t take the stupid grin off my face the entire time. It’s fun and it’s funny from start to finish, who could ask for more?

From a gaming point of view it’s not technically great and falls short of most new games, the Engine is solid and controls are good but the game is too short and they needed to break the gameplay up with a different mission or maybe a few side games. The online is good but buggy.

There is no parallel to be drawn with this game, if you grew up with Ghostbusters it’s a no-brainer: go get it now. If you are too young to appreciate the Ghostbusters then try to imagine Ben Stiller and Jim Carrey getting together and making a game that they then act in.

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