Late in the Game Review: Ghostbusters: The Video Game
Busting Does Made Me Feel Good!
This review has been a long time coming.
Frankly, I’m ashamed of myself for taking so long to produce the one review anyone who knows me would expect me to write. Before we continue, I should warn you — I am a Ghostbusters fanatic. However, I don’t let my fandom blind me to justifiable critiques. So, when I say, “Ghostbusters: The Video Game is one of the better-licensed games out there,” you can trust that I’m being 100% unbiased. Really, it is a good game, though it surely has its highs and lows.
The Boys in Tan Are Back
Ghostbusters: The Video Game begins just two years after the ‘Busters cleansed New York of its pink slime dilemma. Franchised and under the watchful eye of the Paranormal Contracts Oversight Committee (which is headed by none other than disgraced EPA agent Walter Peck), the boys in tan are introduced to their latest rookie — you!
The nameless, voiceless character acts as your vessel through this journey. Consider yourself a possessor taking the amateur Ghostbusters’ body for a spin. Of course, the Rookie’s first day on the job is met with some hefty action when a Gozerian exhibit at the Natural History Museum is tapped into, releasing the Big Apples' most dangerous ethereal inhabitants.
The story is cute and really fits into the continued Ghostbusters’ universe, though its inclusion of Stay Puft, Slimer, the Grey Lady, and Gozerian lore causes it to be borderline repetitive and familiar. This wasn’t a huge problem back in 2009, but you can imagine why some fans were a little tired of the Gozer-centric plot of Afterlife.
Thankfully, the video game doesn’t just rehash events from the film series (though it does spend several earlier levels stuck in nostalgia land). It expands more on Ivo Shandor, the Gozer worshipper and architect of Dana Barret’s building. Sadly, in a post-Afterlife world, this is where the game breaks canon from the film series, all for a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it J. K. Simmons cameo.
The original quartet delivers the bulk of the game’s dialogue, with Bill Murray doing his best to pretend to care. Aykroyd, Ramis, and Hudson amp up the energy with enthusiastic performances that are really fun to listen to. Some may consider the voiceless Rookie a lazy decision, but I think it was the right choice for a franchised game that depends so much on the banter between its original protagonists.
Two in the Box!
Ghostbusters: The Video Game’s biggest surprise is its gameplay. Having been jaded by the countless broken licensed games of the PS2 generation, it was easy to imagine a game completely marred by awkward mechanics. Though there may be plenty of hiccups within the game’s friendly AI and unfair spikes in difficulty, throwing a particle beam toward a crafty, spiritual nemesis more than makes up for any shortcomings.
Combat is a fun but basic step and repeat of chipping down a ghost’s health enough to snare them in your capture beam. Once wrangled, it's a literal tug of war as the frantic specter fights to escape while you slam it against the environment. Finally comes the most satisfying step - the trapping. Throw down your trap and keep the ghost steady as it gets sucked into its new home before it regains strength and you have to repeat the process again. On paper, it sounds complicated. The implementation is quite simplistic, but not so much so that it’s repetitive. In fact, Egon has a few tricks up his sleeve to keep things fresh the deeper into Spook Central you go.
As part of your role as the Rookie, Egon will provide prototype attachments that, true to Ghostbusters humor, no one’s quite confident about. A slime blower lets you neutralize black slime or weaken ghosts, while a particle blaster acts as the game’s shotgun. Each weapon has its own secondary function, such as a stasis beam, slime tether, or highly concentrated blast of particle energy. While each piece serves a different purpose, none matches the joy that comes with the standard neutrona wand.
Who Ya Gonna Call?
Ghostbusters: The Video Game is far from perfect and admittedly, a good chunk of the appeal is nostalgia. Its earlier levels (which include a return to the Sedgwick and the New York Public Library) are entertaining enough to warrant replaying several times over, especially since they expand on encounters with Slimer and the Librarian with plenty of other ghostly activity.
There’s a certain charm to the franchise that Atari touched on, and it was exactly what was needed to make this a worthwhile experience.