I know, I know, don't cross the streams.
While some kids may have aspired to be firemen, astronauts, doctors, scientists, or even archaeologists, I spent the majority of my life childhood with a toy Proton Pack strapped to my back, pushing around the Ecto-1 car piled high with Ghostbusters action figures.
And my Shrink wonders why I don’t get laid.
I’ve been watching the Ghostbusters video game with a keen eye for the past couple of months. On one hand, I really hate it when intellectual properties of my childhood are bastardized for sales and profit (see also the Transformers movies, Watchmen, GI Joe), destroying what little sanity and happiness I have held on to these past years. On the other hand, I’m a huge Ghostbusters fan, and the prospect of bustin’ ghosts along side Peter, Ray, Egon, and Winston is something that gets me giddy with excitement. But anyone who plays video games knows how licensed games tend to turn out…
The animations on Murray's character are awesome.
Now, keep in mind, Ghostbusters: The Video Game uses the voices from the entire cast of the original movies (aside from Sigourney Weaver, whose character is replaced by Alyssa Milano) – and to great effect. The script was approved and minor changes were made by both Aykroyd and Ramis, and the game is presented as a movie, right down to the vintage Columbia Pictures shot at the start of the game. It goes a long way to increasing the awesome factor of the game. The game is set in 1991, two years after the end of the second flick, some bad shit happens and the Ghostbusters start to get really busy again.
You play as “The Rookie” – a new recruit to the Ghostbusters, the proverbial bitch of the crew, who ends up using and wearing all Egon’s experimental weapons. The character never talks, but its for the best – the entire game, Murray, Aykroyd, Ramis, and Hudson all find time to fit in hilarious one liners pertaining to the situation. I mean, you actually feel like you’re fighting with the Ghostbusters. Oh, and they don’t ignore you, either. You’re the bitch of the squad, and are treated as such – usually only referred to as “The Rookie”, or “Kid”.
Its fine - the city has insurance for this type of thing.
One of the best features of Ghostbusters is the level of physics – good god, are they impressive. Everything is destructible – chairs, tables, cars, everything. Lets face it – in the process of busting ghosts, shit is going to get damaged. You lose money for everything you break and gain money for catching ghosts, and money can be used for equipment upgrades, but being the reckless fuck I am, I tend to try to cause as much destruction as possible.
Which is good, because causing the destruction is fun. The basic proton pack works exactly how you would expect it to – wildly inaccurate, but extremely satisfying when you capture a ghost. It has a couple of modes – regular damage mode, and a second “Capture” mode (used by clicking shift), and a “throw” mode, which lets you right click to toss a ghost at great force from one side to another. There are also other experimental packs – stuff like a explosion charge, and some other packs I’ve yet to get to, like a pack that shoots ectoplasm. No ammo, either – the proton pack uses an overheat mechanic. Hell, the pack is pretty much the entire HUD – it shows your health and the overheat status, keeping the screen free of any shitty UI elements that don’t need to be there. You also get to strap on the PKE goggles and go looking for traces of ghosts and paranormal activity.
Doritos sound good right about now.
Ghosts will struggle – which is cool. It makes fighting and capturing ghosts a hectic and chaotic experience – proton beams flying every which way while the team bats off one liners. The ghosts are strong, too – you need to weaken them before you can pull them into a trap with the proton packs. The ghosts I’ve been fighting usually come a couple at a time – one especially hilarious encounter happened with the ghosts of “The Hindenberg: The Musical” opera, during which the team ragged on Peter for supposedly dating a chick who looked like the big viking woman ghost.
Visually, the game looks great. Its not the ultra-realism type of look found in Crysis, and it isn’t the greengreybrown color scheme of Metal Gear Solid 4 or Killzone 2. The art style is cartoony – but at the same time not cartoony. It works well. Everything is super detailed – right down to the proton pack you’ll be staring at most of the game.
Getting hotter!
The game isn’t without a couple of flaws, none of them too major, though.
Whilst busting ghosts, team members are bound to get hurt. Health regenerates, which is nice, but you can get knocked down if you take too much damage. When this happens, a team member has to rush over and help you up (revive you, I guess), and this system works both ways. Its nice, but kind of annoying at times, because the team AI can be pretty retarded. When a member is knocked down, their portrait appears at the top right of the screen with a little arrow directing you to their location. Other team members can help a fallen member up, but I found that most of the time I was the one doing the reviving.
A point of extreme frustration to me was the checkpoint system Ghostbusters uses. After every cinematic, the game saves your progress, and if you and the crew happen to get overrun by ghosts and paranormal enteties, you’re transported back to that checkpoint. The problem with this is that the game won’t do this for ingame cut scenes – only pre rendered cinematics. In one part, I entered the top room of a hotel, watched a nice little cinematic, and then continued on. Killed a bunch of ghosts, and after about ten minutes of play, was shown a major ghost make his move to another room through an in game cut scene. After this, I managed to die, and it sent me back ten or fifteen minutes to the last cinematic, not the cut scene.
The version I’m playing is the PC version, which shipped with no multiplayer. Not a huge deal, I guess if I really wanted to bust ghosts cooperatively, I could get the PS3 version, and considering the PC version is $30, its not a bad deal. Hopefully we’ll see some DLC or some downloads to add this functionality, but I’m not holding my breath.
These flaws shouldn’t stop you from enjoying the game, though. It’s probably the most cinematic and engrossing experience I’ve played in recent memory, probably because I’m such a huge Ghostbusters fan, but also because it feels like you’re playing a movie. If you have a PC capable of playing it, grab that version, especially if multiplayer is of no concern to you. Otherwise, I’m sure the console versions are just as good.
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