Ghostbusters: The Video Game review

Ghostbusters: The Video Game box art

In 1984, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis helped to create what is considered one of the best comedy films of all time: Ghostbusters. Starring Aykroyd and Ramis themselves, along with Bill Murray, Sigourney Weaver, Rick Moranis and Ernie Hudson, the film followed a team of parapsychologists that took their expertise into the extermination field, dubbing themselves the Ghostbusters and assisting the citizens of New York City with their ghostly infestations. The film was so successful that it spawned a sequel, two television series, two fan-made sequels and, of course, several video games.

Indeed, there are probably very few people in this day and age that don’t recognize the signature theme song, the Ecto-1 Ghostbusters car, or the gigantic Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. The franchise was successful enough to live on in the hearts and minds of people who grew up with the Ghostbusters, influencing them to pass their love onto their children and other family members. Now, 25 years after the original film, Aykroyd and Ramis have decided to revitalize the franchise with a new story.

The original four Ghostbusters

Set two years after Ghostbusters II, Ghostbusters: The Video Game puts the player into the team as a new recruit to the Ghostbusters, an experimental weapons specialist. Sadly, this means you will not be playing as one of the original four, but the game does well enough to make the player feel like a part of the team. To avoid an identity issue, the new recruit is simply deemed “Rookie,” although is often called other nicknames, depending on which member of the team is speaking to them (a personal favorite is “Scooter” from Aykroyd).

The game is set up as a third-person shooter, with the player controlling the Rookie from behind and aiming their proton pack in an over-the-shoulder fashion. The way to defeat many enemies is, as Aykroyd’s character Ray puts it, “Zap ‘em, cap ‘em and trap ‘em.” The main weapon is the proton pack, firing a proton stream that weakens ghosts (noted by a life bar shown while aiming at them) until they can be grabbed by the “capture stream” and literally slammed into walls and the like. After a player slams the ghost, they are temporarily incapacitated, allowing the player to throw out a ghost trap and drag them into it, harkening back to Luigi’s Mansion for Nintendo’s GameCube. Naturally, the ghost will put up quite a fight while being drawn into the trap, so the player must do their best to hold the ghost in place until the trap closes.

Other enemies possess household items such as groups of books, candelabras, and kitchen appliances, and can be dealt with simply by pelting them with the proton stream until their corporeal bodies fall apart. But don’t think for a second that the proton stream is the only thing the Ghostbusters have up their sleeves. You ARE the experimental weapons specialist after all. This means that Ramis’s character Egon will be providing you with several new weapons as the story mode progresses, each with a specific purpose.

Egon first adds the boson dart, a secondary fire mode for the proton stream that sends a concentrated ball of protons at the enemy, doing more damage than the proton stream but heating up your proton pack very quickly. He also provides you with the shock blast, which basically functions as the game’s shotgun, and its secondary fire the stasis stream, which will freeze enemies in place; the slime blower, which covers enemies with green slime and negates damaging black slime, and its alternate fire the slime tether, which can be attached to enemies and walls to launch them into the wall and instantly incapacitate them; and the meson collider, which does decent damage, but also acts as a temporary beacon for the secondary fire, the overload pulse, which is like a rapid fire homing missile.

Ray and the Rookie wrangle a ghost

Now, all of these weapons may make it seem all too easy to capture or destroy anything that comes at you with no trouble, but it must also be considered that the proton pack can overheat quickly, causing a long pause in your attack that may just be enough for a ghost to gain the upper hand. Luckily, it is possible to manually vent the pack, which should be done whenever possible as it basically serves as a reload function.

But overheating is not the only thing that stands in the way of capturing all the ghosts you see. Don’t forget that they are ghosts, and can pass through walls and objects at will, become invisible, and use psychokinetic energy to pick up and launch anything from suitcases to table to bookcases. You’ll be lucky to get through this game unscathed, even on the easiest difficulty, because some of the enemies you will face are downright huge.

You will usually be traveling with at least one or two other Ghostbusters, who can provide not only combat aid, but can also revive you should ghosts take you down. Naturally, they’ll expect you to return the favor if they get taken out before you do, but unlike you, they revive automatically after a set period of time. But, if you cannot reach your teammates in time to revive them before being incapacitated yourself, or vice versa, the game will end and you will be forced to pick at the last checkpoint.

The game also offers a nice assortment of collectibles in the form of enemy scans and cursed objects, both of which are found on the PKE (psychokinetic energy) meter attached to the character’s hip. With the press of a button, the point of view goes from third to first-person, allowing the player to look through the Ecto-Goggles of a Ghostbuster and pick up energy spikes. The meter reads in three different colors: blue for cursed objects, red for enemies, and green for environmental anomalies. This all sounds confusing at first, but your teammates and/or a sound cue will let you know when to don the goggles and go searching, often enough that it becomes second nature to go through certain rooms until every section has been searched in this way.

The Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions of the game have forgone the usual HUD of a third- or first-person-shooter in favor of having all the character’s statistics on their proton pack. There is a meter detailing the character’s current health, the heat level of the proton pack, and which weapon is currently equipped. The PKE meter is also visible from the view, allowing the player to catch a glimpse of when the meter may unexpectedly glow blue or red to indicate something that needs further investigation. Unfortunately, the meters are sometimes small enough that they can be hard to read, and even possible to ignore completely on smaller screens, meaning that some may find it hard to figure out why they are being incapacitated so quickly or stop firing so suddenly.

The story behind the game is not too horribly complex. It references both movies enough to keep fans happy, all the while exuding the same feel one would get if they were watching one of the movies. In fact, Aykroyd has gone so far as to say that the game functions as the third film, building up to the now-announced third film currently in the works.

The voice-acting is alright overall; Murray, Aykroyd, Hudson and Ramis do amazing work bringing their characters’ youth and personality to the screen, although Murray can sometimes be a little on the quiet side. On the other hand, the supporting cast leaves something to be desired. The mayor and the stereotypical damsel in distress Ilyssa, played by Alyssa Milano, rarely have the proper expression in their voice to make their characters really stand out in such a star-studded production.

The difficulty level in the game overall is paced well, with even the easiest mode providing enough of a challenge for players looking for a movie-reference-filled run through the story. Medium and hard mode add some level of strategy to the mix, making sure that you don’t just trap ghosts willy-nilly and plan out your attacks so that you and your teammates don’t end up biting the slime. Some of the bosses will really test your mettle, and your controller’s structural integrity, on the higher difficulties.

Screenshot of online "Slime Dunk" game

The game also provides an online multiplayer mode that has you doing anything from protecting relics to capturing Slimer to surviving a ghost onslaught as long as you can. You have a choice from any of the five Ghostbusters, and of which weapon to start with, but you can pick up a limited version any of the other weapons in the map, as well as some online-exclusive power-ups. Players can choose to go through one of several “campaigns” consisting of three levels, each of which is based on a location from the game’s story mode, or to simply tackle one level. After each online game, the player earns money that allows them to rank up, granting them new uniforms that their Ghostbuster of choice automatically wears during future games. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to find an appropriate online game, as the community for this game seems to be relatively limited, and those who do play are already very good at the game.

All in all, Ghostbusters: The Video Game should provide fun for fans and newbies alike, with enough comedy and intrigue to keep players interested throughout most of the story. It is very fun to track down ghosts and specters and cursed items to capture and collect, and is challenging enough to keep these experiences varied throughout the game. However, it is relatively short, has very little replay value, and considering the limited amount of online play, is probably best to be rented rather than bought.

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