Ghostbusters The Video Game

"Bustin' makes me feel good"

I'm just going to come right out and say it: Ghostbusters is one of the best movie tie-in games ever made. Never have I played a game that felt more like I was actually in the movie. The atmosphere is recreated almost perfectly. It's spooky and creepy, but never right out terrifying. There's a certain campiness to the game's scariness but in a good way. And the humor is right on par with the movie. However, it is by no means a perfect game.

GRAPHICS 8/10

This is a fairly good looking game. The characters look like the actor's they're based on. Ray/Dan Akroyd is a little off, though, and the player looks basically like a younger Dan Akroyd with a buzzcut. The effects for the proton pack are spot-on. The ghosts look great, too, with some interesting designs. The level designs are varied, ranging from areas straight from the movies (like the Sedgewick Hotel and New York Public Library) to completely new, almost Lovecraftian environments. Everything looks good and creepy, and there's a lot of attention paid to detail.

SOUND 10/10

Excellent. Really, everything about the sound in this game is nearly perfect. Clearly, the voice acting is fantastic because it's the actual actors who are doing the voice actors. No sound-alikes here. The only actors missing from the original movies are Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis, but we can do without them. They all put in real effort, too. None of the performances were phoned-in. Hearing Dan Akroyd tell you how to catch ghosts is truly a magnificent thing.

The music and sound effects are just as good as the voice acting. Everything sounds right. The proton packs in particular bring back all sorts of memories, from the sound of them powering up to the sound of the actual proton beam itself. The sounds really adds to the creepy effect of the game, too. You often hear the ghosts before you can see them, and there are plenty of touches such as whispering, disembodied voices. The music sounds just like the movie. A lot of it sounds like it would be at home in a 50's B-horror movie; there's a lot more theremin here than in any other game I've ever played. However, the music also ranges from light-hearted to epic, and almost always fits the situation perfectly.

GAMEPLAY 8/10

Simply put, catching ghosts is lots of fun. Most of the ghosts in the game are beaten by just damaging them until they run out of health, but there are still a lot that require good ol' ghost traps. The process of wearing down these larger ghosts and dragging them into traps is incredibly satisfying. There's a decent variety of weapons aside from the basic proton stream, including a slime thrower and the really fun slime tether, which latches between two objects and draws them together, a play mechanic I found vaguely reminiscent of Half-Life 2's Gravity Gun. You also come equipped with a PKE meter, which lets you get information about your environment and ghosts, much like the Scan Visor in Metroid Prime. All this equipment can be upgrade with money earned by catching, defeating, and scanning ghosts, as well as by finding collectibles throughout the game.

My one complaint with the overall gameplay is that the game is extremely linear. This works best with the overall presentation, which is very much like the movies, but I can't help but wonder what a more open-ended game with these same mechanics would be like. However, for what it is, it plays really well. The controls are intuitive and not too complicated, and most importantly, it's just fun.

STORY 9/10

This area is a little trickier to rate. The actual plot of the game is merely decent. After all, it seemed to me that the movies were less plot oriented and more premise and character driven. The game is similar. The story is more just something to give you a reason to go places and catch ghosts. It does connect well to the movies and focuses on Gozer again. The aspect of the story that I thought was really well done was how the player was integrated. You play as the "rookie" Ghostbuster, who's been brought in to help test their experimental equipment. The player character never speaks, so he works well as a place-holder character. He's not a big part of the story, but at the same time, the other characters do a good job acknowleding his presence, and it really draws the player in, making you feel like you're part of the team.

The real strength of the game is in the general writing of the script. It was written by Dan Akroyd and Harold Ramis, who wrote the original movie. As such, it's appropriately hilarious in a way few other games have achieved. The writing makes you feel like you're actually playing the third Ghostbusters movie. Even the in-game chatter is well-written and far less repetitive than in most games (though you'll still end up hearing a few phrases over and over). This is the only game I can think of where I was actually disappointed that the action got in the way of the dialogue.

So, if everything so far is so good, then why would I give the game just a 7 out of 10? Well, that questions brings us to...

REPLAY 4/10

And this is where the game really lacks. It's short. Very short. I started it around noon and by about midnight the same day I was already done. Probably a good five or six hours or so for a single playthrough. In someways this is a good thing. I'm not sure the story could have sustained itself for a whole lot longer without getting stale. However, it feels like just as you're getting the hang of the gameplay, it's suddenly over. There are plenty of play mechanics that could have been fleshed out further. There are three difficulties, which in theory could encourage additional play-throughs, as well as collectibles throughout the game which are easily missed the first time through. But there aren't even that many of those, and beyond getting them for completion's sake, they serve no real purpose aside from extra money, which you really won't need, since you get more than you need just playing through the game. I've heard good things about the multiplayer in the console versions of the game, but unfortunately, the PC version has no multiplayer.

Even at only $30, it's hard to say whether or not you're getting enough bang for your buck. I would recommend a rental, but that's not possible on the PC. Ultimately, it really comes down to how much you love Ghostbusters. Hardcore fans probably would not regret buying this game. It really does feel like a third movie. If you're not that big of a Ghostbusters fan, though, you'll be disappointed in how little game there is here.

OVERALL 7/10

This game makes you feel like your a Ghostbuster. It draws you into the world of the movies lets you play along. But as a game, it leaves something to be desired. It's just so bloody short. The story concludes before gameplay ideas can become fully developed. I really did enjoy almost every moment of the game, but it's hard for the experience not to be tainted be the premature ending. Basically, like I said before, if you're a hardcore fan, don't miss this, but otherwise, you probably want to wait for the price to drop.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 07/01/09

Game Release: Ghostbusters The Video Game (US, 06/16/09)