Ghostbusters

"Needs more leggy schoolgirls."

On a dark stormy night, I’m always cowering in fear under my bed’s covers. Could it be from some sort of supernatural creature such as a vampire or werewolf? No way, man! I’m afraid that something even worse is going to gobble me up. It’s that dreaded and evil object ripped right out of the most vile part of Hell itself. It’s my damned Ghostbusters game cartridge on the NES. Just setting one’s gaze for even a second on that cursed plastic abomination will make a silly schoolgirl out of the manliest of men (and that includes Zigfried!). But what made this seemingly harmless game the repugnant hell-spawn it is today? Well, gather round, kiddies. It’s story time.

After pressing the start button, you’ll hear the game’s muffled speech saying ROAST LUSTERS, and it only goes downhill from there. Taking control of the three white Ghostbusters (apparently the black guy either was sucked into another dimension or eaten by a some enormous Twinkie) you’ll have to guide these supernatural entrepreneurs through the main goal of the movie: save New York City from the demon named Gozer. But for whatever reason, you can’t go into the Zuul building just yet. For logic’s sake, we’ll just say that there’s a magical barrier that will only dematerialize until you’ve captured enough ghosts. But how does one apprehend the vaporous undead?

Only a woman would know what to do: spend excessive amounts of cash. Once you’ve been flung on to the city’s map, you’ll have to drive the Ecto-1 over to the Ghost Busting shop. Okay, I’ll buy that there’s a shop that sells tools for hunting spirits and apparitions, but I refuse to believe they stay in business with products such as “Sound Generator” selling for $100,000! Anyway, you’ll need to purchase several items in order to have your busting prove successful. Once you’ve acquired the proper gadgets, you can hit the streets in search of those damned spooks. Back on the map, buildings will begin to flash red (if you have a ghost alarm - get one to prevent pure rage) in order to alert you of a ghost in the area. You’ll choose a destination and then be put into an overhead driving game where you must dodge oncoming traffic. If you smash into another vehicle, our heroes will be forced to pay a hefty insurance bill, and unlike the real world, you can’t hire a lawyer from one of those hokey TV commercials (that’s AMERICA, baby!).

Eventually our protagonists will pull up to one of the many identical curbs containing four ghosts in all their 8-bit glory. The game then shifts to a side view of the outside of the building (so I guess that means the ghosts were more of loitering than haunting). You control two of the Ghostbusters (someone had to make sure those no good street punks don‘t rip off your car stereo!) as they whip out their manly beams, pump them straight into the air, and fling it about with hope that they’ll reach one of the ghosts. Attempting to get one of these spooks entangled with your smooth shaft can prove frustrating. Basically these yellow smiley-faced phantoms aimlessly float atop the screen, and your proton pack is just too short to reach them most of the time. It must be very depressing to have a short beam (I wouldn’t know what that‘s like at all!). However randomly these spirits will droop down in reach of your magical rays of light. Then you can walk over to the trap and send those babies to their new home. Incidentally with a push of a button, you can switch to your partner, so you can grab anything nearby him as well.

While it might not seem so terrible at first, busting heads (in a spiritual sense) quickly proves to be quite monotonous. The biggest problem is you’re put into a dull pattern right from the start. You’ll have to bag ghosts, empty your traps at the HQ, seize more ghost, and empty your traps again until you’ve accumulated enough money for new and better equipment. In addition, your repetitive pattern has the tangent of stopping off for gas thrown in, which only causes more frustration. Once you’ve obtained the new equipment, you’ll have longer beams and a trap that can hold unlimited ghosts. Hooray! You’ll probably even get the message, “Enter Zuul Building” meaning you can go and finish the game. Ha! Yeah right! Venturing into that dusty and decrepit structure now will result in a Game Over real fast. Thus it’ll be time for you to follow a modified pattern for an even longer interval of time only to buy a bunch of junk that may help you. Just bust ghosts about ten times, then refill on gas, and repeat about a gazillion times until you’ve bought every single one of the most expensive items.

Up until this point, you’ve spent anywhere from one to three hours doing nothing but those damn tedious errands. Now it’s time to gather your courage and enter the Zuul building. In this new area, the game will take a side view of the three Ghostbusters walking up the slew of stairs. And guess who’s there to greet you: tons and tons of undead souls, who are a little ticked at you for incarcerating their creepy buddies. By mashing the A button and pushing forward on the d-pad, our heroes will snail their way to the top of the Zuul building while walking straight into these baddies. Without any of those fancy doodads you just bought, you’ll immediately take three hits on the second floor and die. Now with all the pricey widgets, you’ll just delay the time of your death. You’ll take more hits, slow down the spooks, and even be able to throw some food to distract each specter, but it’s not enough to save you from your own impending final splat to the ground. The hit detection, AI, slow speed of the Ghostbusters, and strain on your thumb from tons of mashing will just take such a toll on you that there’s no way to win. Zuul is just impossible without cheating. WOW! YOU LOSE!

And did I mention that during this entire ordeal, the same pathetic one minute long version of the Ghostbuster’s theme plays? If the gameplay hasn’t shattered your sanity, the music will.

This is just putrid excuse for a video game. I hope that somewhere the designers are having difficulty getting jobs because this bomb is on their resume. Now that you know why to fear Ghostbusters, we should all band together and banish every single gruesome cartridge off the face of the Earth. Think of it as if we’re all coming together in order to purify and cleanse the gaming world. I’ll get the pitchforks! You get the torches!

Reviewer's Score: 1/10, Originally Posted: 04/17/04