Ghostbusters

"Boring and Tedious... What a Disgraceful Game!"

The Ghostbusters were mega-popular back in the day. After the movie, there was Ghostbuster stuff everywhere. There was a cartoon show based on the Ghostbusters. There was Ghostbusters merchandise. So if something is this popular, you can obviously expect it to become a videogame. What a sad reality.

The game starts with the Ghostbusters logo, and you just simply press the Start button to begin. Though once your fingertip lands on that little button, the problems of this game starts right away. When you press the button, you hear an awful voice shouting out "Ghostbusters." Yes, it is the NES, so you can't expect much from voice quality. Though if it sucks this bad, then why would you put it in? Then again, why would you make a game this bad with the name "Ghostbusters" on it?

You begin the game on a map controlling a small Ghostbusters logo. You will see little yellow happy ghosts wandering over to the building in the middle, the Zuul building. When they reach it, the PK bar in the bottom right corner of your screen goes up. When it reaches max, then something bad happens. So you just go around and tag the ghosts to stop them. You will also need to go to the Shop to buy some equipment. A lot of the stuff there is pointless or too expensive. After tagging the ghosts, you go around and find a building in which you can enter. It's completely spontaneous, so it will just require some guess work.

When you do find a building in which you can enter, you go into a driving scene. Here, you just go around avoiding seemingly drunk drivers and occasionally catching ghosts. You also have to pay attention to the gas. This little part is annoying, and seems rather pointless. I was not kidding when I said "drunk drivers." You have to do this stage everytime you want to enter a building. It might seem enjoyable at first, though it gets very tedious very quickly.

When you reach the building, two of the Ghostbusters come out and try to capture the ghosts on the screen. You simply lay out a little device, control the two Ghostbusters who are using vacuums, trap the ghosts, let the device shoot out a beam, and hope that the beam traps the ghosts. When you get more ghosts, you get more money. After you collect all the ghosts on the screen, you leave, go to the Ghostbusters building, and deposit them.

There, I just described to you basically 90% of the game. That is honestly almost all that you do. Go to the shop, purchase your equipment, tag up the ghosts, find a building that you can enter, drive to it, capture the ghosts, deposit them. That's honestly it. You do it over and over and over and over and over again. It's tedious beyond words. You can get extremely bored extremely quickly. So, for how long do you keep doing this? Until a message at the bottom of the map screen says, "Enter the Zuul Building." How long is that? I honestly have no idea. Though why is the message right at the bottom of the screen? Seriously, sometimes you might miss it. If you do, tough luck buddy. That message only appears for a short while. If you miss, you have to go for another long while capturing ghosts.

When you do enter the Zuul building, get ready for the most annoying and hardest part of the whole game. You have to climb an extremely long staircase while avoiding ghosts. If a ghost touches you, you go down for a bit, and then you get back up. If you get hit a few times, game over, you have to start all over again. During this stage, you have to control three Ghostbusters. All three of them move like turtles. You can't use any beams or whatsoever to protect yourself or get rid of the ghosts. All you may have is some ghost bait which can only be useful for a few seconds. You're honestly better of using a Game Genie. I really don't know anybody who would have the patience to go through this stage without cheating.

When you reach the top, you then engage in a final battle with Ghozer. This is by far the best part of the entire game. It actually feels like an enjoyable videogame for once! You simply dodge the little fireballs that the two dogs on the sides shoot at you and dodge the beams Ghozer fires at you. Then you shoot your beams whenever you get a chance to at Ghozer. Oh thank you, finally something that's not boring and tedious like the rest of this game is! The annoying of this battle however is if you get too close to the bottom of the screen, you end up on a screen below, and you have to go back up. If you go there too much, then you're screwed. So basically, the best part of this whole game is the final battle. Sure, it's fun, but there is no way it makes up for the rest of this garbage.

Once you have defeated Ghozer, you're finished! You have just completed one of the most tedious games in history! Congratulations! Unfortunately, you are rewarded with the most awful ending screen I have ever seen. Here it is: "Conglaturations!!! You have just completed a great game. You have prooved the justice of our culture. Now go and rest our heroes!" Okay, I really would like to know who in the world came up with this abomination of an ending screen. If you have seen a worse ending screen, please let me be aware of it. This seriously an infernal way of rewarding somebody who had the patience to beat this terrible garbage.

The controls of this game are decent. Well, I can't say decent for the driving scene. Also, the stairway and ghost catching parts are just so tedious, you won't worry wether or not the controls are bad. Though I have seen games with far worse controls. The graphics of this game are lame. Everything is just so dull. Also, the Ghostbusters don't even look human and the ghosts look way too generic. Meanwhile, the sound is also terrible. As mentioned above, the sound at the title screen is atrocious. As for the music of the game, it is basically the Ghostbusters theme song. However, it's just a continuous loop throughout the entire game, and you'll quickly become very annoyed of it. Overall, the mechanics of this game aren't too bad, though they could've been much better.

Even if you are a Ghostbusters fan, stay away from this awful game. If you really want to play it, get yourself a Sega Master System and play it's version, because it is far superior (though it too isn't that great). This is one of the most tedious and boring games in videogaming history. Out of the entire game, only that small final stage can be considered anywhere near fun. Then to rub rum on the wounds, the game ends with an abysmal ending screen. This game is real test of patience. If you don't have, never play this game. If you have it, still never play this game. It's just not worth it. Go play Super Mario Bros or something like that. Don't waste your time on some moron's vomit. The only way to have fun with this game is with either a sledgehammer, a flamethrower, or both.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 05/21/07