Ghostbusters

"Bustin' makes me feel confused"

OK, the Ghostbusters theme song by Ray Parker Jr. is catchy but there is no reason to use it as the only song in the whole game! Ghostbusters for the NES is a port of the superior Commodore 64 version (yes, you read that right.) Unfortunately, Activition decided to make this a minimalists' translation and left out a lot of what made Ghostbusters fun (like upgrading your ghost busting car.)They did, however, waste about half of the game's memory by including the super-low fidelity ''GHOSTBUSTERS'' sound bit.

In the actual game, you play as 4 non-distinct Ghostbusters trying to catch the spooks that are threatening the city. Once you have bought enough quality items you head for a final showdown with Gozar the Gozarian. The gameplay is bone-numbingly boring, for the most part. In order to catch ghosts you must invest in traps, then drive for an ungodly amount time to reach the ghosts, THEN set up your traps and catch the ghosts. It gets so monotonous it almost makes filibusters on C-SPAN look good.

BUT in trying to be a more positive person, let's look at the game's goodpoints. For one, the Commodore version was quite fun and if you ignore the crappy NES graphics and redundant gameplay you might accidentally find yourself having fun. If that wasn't enough, at least Activition's superb tour-de-force THE THREE STOOGES more than makes up for this bungle of a game, right? Hello? Anyone?

GRAPHICS: 2.5/10 Lousy graphics, even for the NES. The game was clearly rushed and there was not a lot of quality assurance put into this puppy. The ghostbusters look Atari-esque and move clumsily about, especially when you are fighting your way up the high-rise buildings. The town is also bland and the cut-scenes to the driving part of the game makes me want to cringe. The best graphics in the game are the ghostusters LOGO in the beginning.

SOUND: 2.5/10 Hardly any sound effects and yes, after a while, that tinny rendition of Ghostbusters is enough to drive you batty. At times you'll find it hard to believe the effects are so bad. Better off putting in a CD and muting your TV.

STORY: 5.0/10 As a movie, Ghostbusters was a great adventure. As a game, it is a shame that it did not turn out better.

PLAYCONTROL: 1.8/10 What a mess! The driving section is a good example of how NOT to make a driving scene. Your car tends to go to the very top of the screen whenever you get any speed, rendering it near impossible to get items and ghosts (with your vaccuum.) The actual ghost capturing is even worse; your men move above stiffly with minimal animation. Bah! Blah! Yuck!

OVERALL: 3/10 A bad rendition of an otherwise fun Commodore game. no passwords mean you'll be doing the same dull tasks over and over again until you yourself are old enough to die and become a ghost, at which point you don;t want the ghostbusters to win.

BRU'S MUST GET OMETER: 2

NAY! This game is only for collectors and hardcore Ghostbusters fans ( if there are any.) For those looking for a faithful translation of the Commodore classic-- so sorry, can't help you!

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 03/29/01, Updated 03/29/01