"Lets show this prehistoric Bitch how we do things downtown!"

The Charge:
Get slimed in this haunting new adventure!

Opening Statement:
A few years back, an indie developer named ZootFly rocked the web when it leaked early footage of a Ghostbusters video game onto Youtube. The game was promptly stepped on by Sony’s legal department, but one positive did come out of it, there was massive interest in a new Ghostbusters video game, and fortunately for us, the guys at Terminal Reality (makers of Bloodrayne) were already at work. Tossing aside the 21st century high tech approach of ZootFly (their concept art featured high tech gear and a re-tooled Dodge Magnum/Chrysler 300 Hemi as the new Ecto-1), Terminal Reality chose the more familiar path, and have crafted a game that follows hot on the heels of the films. Truth be told, I couldn’t have asked for anything better.

Facts of the Case:
It’s 1991. The events of the last Ghostbusters film are a distant memory, and business is booming. You take the role of a new hire at Ghostbusters HQ, taken on to ease the workload and test out all of Egon’s experimental toys. It’s not long before something big goes down at the Museum of Natural History’s new Gozer exhibit, and your training quickly switches to that of the on the job variety. Over the next 8 or 9 hours you’ll strap on a proton pack and go to war against the supernatural alongside the cast of the classic film. The windmill tour will take you to places both familiar and new, and you’ll meet a colorful cast of characters, or see them again in some cases, and bust more than a few ghosts.

"So, where you from? Originally?"

The Evidence:
We shouldn’t be playing this game. After being dumped unceremoniously by Activision following their merger with Vivendi, then legal woes and the search for publishers, it’s a miracle this game is on the market. We have Atari (after paying out a generous sum to Activision) to thank for ultimately getting the Guys in Grey to market. For the most part, Atari’s efforts were well worth it, as Ghostbusters is a game that succeeds at breaking the mold as far as typical movie licenses go.

The gameplay may, at first glance, look like pretty straightforward third person shooter fare. You get the now standard “over the right shoulder” third person perspective, you move through large cavernous areas and blast ghosts until they weaken sufficiently enough for you to drop a ghost tap and bust their asses. This is where everything changes. You aren’t just shooting machine guns or rockets, you’ve got the trademarked Ghostbusters Proton-pack here, and the game uses it to the fullest. There’s nothing conventional about the feel of the shooting mechanics at all, and fans of the films will be smiling with glee. If there’s one thing the developers did right, they certainly nailed the feeling of being a Ghostbuster.

Going one further, the game was partially written by Ghostbusters brainchild Dan Akroyd with Harold “Egon” Raimis in tow. The dialogue is every bit as sharp as the films, and the tone is pitch perfect. The main cast is back, from Bill Murray as Dr. Peter Venkman to lowly secretary Janine Melnitz as portrayed by Annie Potts. Also along for the ride is everyone’s favorite scumbag, Walter Peck, and Bill Murray’s brother Brian even pops up as the Slick new “Ghostbusters-friendly” mayor of New York. The combination of familiar faces and excellent dialogue coupled with a Ghostbusters-style plot that fits the feel of the films perfectly, gives players a metric ton of fan service to latch onto. Most of the levels feature a familiar face or location from the classics, you get to bust Slimer in one of the ballrooms at the Sedgewick Hotel, after Venkman’s been slimed again of course, and you get to make s’mores out of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. You’ll see the Grey Lady from the opening of the first film in action again, and you’ll even get to hear from Vigo, the Scourge of Carpathia, the Sorrow of Moldavia, if you wander around the firehouse. Missing from the game are Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis, but the game doesn’t suffer for it.

The contributions of so many of the original talents add a huge amount of charm to the whole production, and this charm will burrow deep into any diehard fan of the original Ghostbusters film. This charm will probably be nigh impossible to resist. Little nods appear visually all over the place (I found myself laughing out loud the first time we see Slimer in a clear containment cell) and the audio treatment is perfect. Hearing Egon and Ray in the opening scene to the first time you hear Ecto-1’s sirens, and right on down to the proton pack’s signature blast of power, this game is top drawer for audio. The voice actors all know their characters well, and everyone knocks it out of the park. It’s comparable to the audio work that’s been done in the past on Lucasarts Star Wars titles. It endears itself, and every lover of the films will be hard pressed to put the controller down once the story picks up and takes them on a ride. This is how you do justice to a film license!

"We got the tools! We got the talent!"

Rebuttal Witness:
Graphically speaking, Ghostbusters is certainly not a pretty game. Many of the textures are low resolution, and the lighting is as sparse as it gets without being nonexistent. Of particular mention is the texture that paints the walls of your environments when you hose them with your proton pack’s particle beam. It looks more like someone sprayed the walls with sparkly oil than burned scorch marks into it. There’s been some issue taken with the PS3 version, but in truth, neither version looks particularly attractive, and while the issues present on the PS3 version are visible to be certain, they’re not particularly discernable, even after spending several hours with the 360 version (where I spent the lion’s share of my playthrough time). On the flipside, the framerate seems to stay more stable on the PS3, while the 360 version slowed to the single digits at times when it got particularly hairy. Cutscenes also suffer from blandness, and a significant lack of decent lip synching. You do get some pretty funny facial expressions though. Graphically, no matter which of the “big two” systems you snag it on, you’re really getting the same experience.

"Smells like burnt dog..."

Difficulty is also an issue. It remains pretty uneven throughout the game, spiking at times to levels sufficient enough to induce profanity laden ranting and roaring. Setting the difficulty to the lower setting makes the game much more of a cakewalk, and the lack of a happy medium may frustrate some.

The physics system is also less than stellar, with bits n bobs bouncing around haphazardly following the typical proton-accelerator fueled carnage. It never looks particularly convincing, and only shines further light on Ghostbusters overall lack of technological merit. If you’re looking for cutting-edge, this game ain’t it.

Closing Comments:
Ghostbusters: The Game definitely does a lot more right than it does wrong. It defies the “movie license” curse and brings some solid gameplay to the table that really does justice to the source material. No, it ain’t perfect, but the great story keeps you engaged, and you’ll definitely feel like you’re busting ghosts. There’s enough fan service included here to endear this one to pretty much any fan of the films, and the gameplay certainly doesn’t hinder the enjoyment in spite of some less than stellar technical merits.

BONUS IMAGE - The game that could have been... yeesh!

The Verdict:

Platform: Sony Playstation 3/Microsoft Xbox360/Nintendo Wii/Windows PC (PS3 and Xbox360 versions reviewed)
Developer: Terminal Reality
Publisher: Atari
Release Date: June 16th, 2009
Rated: T(13+) for Teen

It’s a short and sweet podcast this week as Erich, Steve, Jon, and Dave jump right into discussions of Ghostbusters, Red Faction: Guerrilla, Assassin’s Creed, Battlefield: Bad Company, and the 1 vs. 100 Beta. Then, into this week’s Symposium Ad Nauseum topic: Favorite obscure NES games. You may be surprised by Dave’s definition of “obscure.”

Send your thoughts, questions, and outraged complaints to feedback@pixelverdict.com, add your comments below, or join in the discussion over at the DVD Verdict Jury Room forums.

You can listen to the show with the player below, download it here, or subscribe through iTunes or by adding our feed to your podcatcher of choice.

Mother pus-bucket!

Are you troubled by strange noises in the middle of the night?  Do you experience feelings of dread in your basement or attic?  Have your or your family ever seen a spook, specter or ghost?  If the answer is yes, then don’t wait another minute.  Pick up the phone and call the professionals…or know that I’ve just confirmed how big of a loser I am (my sister will love this); read on to find out if the Ghostbusters, twenty five years after the first film set the box office ablaze, FINALLY have a videogame worthy of wearing that unforgettable little logo.

We really shouldn’t have had to wait this long for a competently made Ghostbusters video game.  The movie came out in the summer of 1984, pretty much becoming a phenomenon for the rest of that decade.  This was during the period in which the video game industry was slowly rebuilding itself after the infamous crash of 1983.  Five years after the fact, Ghostbusters II is released during the summer of 1989, when Nintendo-fever was still running hot, and the 90% of gaming households hand a Nintendo Entertainment System hooked up to their TVs.  Regardless of all this, pretty much every attempt at making a passable videogame out of the Ghostbusters franchise has ended in a disaster of biblical proportions.  Dogs and cats, living together, mass hysteria!  This explains why I was a little apprehensive about Ghostbusters: The Video Game.  Despite all the good news I received, the inclusion of all 4 original actors, a script written specifically for the game by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, all the awesome looking game play videos.  None of it mattered to me as I had my doubts that after being dropped by the original publisher, Terminal Reality (the developers of such classic fare as the two BloodRayne games, and 4×4 EVO) had the chops to deliver a game that could undo the stigma of 25 years worth of pure gaming garbage.  Dear readers, I have never been so happy to be wrong.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game is an ice cold beer delivered by the creators of that movie, to everyone of us that grew up loving the adventures of New York’s only paranormal exterminator service.  The game drops players into the shoes of an unnamed new recruit to the team, who after a mornings worth of misadventures, becomes the Ghostbusters’ official Experimental Equipment Technician.  He never utters a single word of dialogue, instead serving as a silent foil to let the player feel like they are truly off saving the day with the rest of the team.
For the most part, the game plays like any post Gears of War third person shooter.  It’s when the shooting actually does start that the game becomes unique.  Instead of merely unloading ammo into enemies until they drop, Ghostbusters works with the affectionately titled Sap’Em, Cap’Em, and Trap’Em  system; which expects players to fulfill the complete ghost busting routine.  Weakening the ghost with a stream of energy from the proton pack, tiring them out with a capture stream, and finally, guiding them into the ghost trap’s cone of doom for containment.  The game controls like a dream, outside of seeming a little on the complex side (there’s a lot of aiming needed for some of the faster, flying ghosts), and despite the amount of time needed to properly vanquish these full roaming vapours, it never once got boring.  I particularly enjoyed parts of the Times Square mission, which has the player battling alongside Peter and Winston, whilst Ray and Egon drive the Ecto-1 with a giant ghost trap mounted on the roof.  The enemies attack in swarms, and it’s a real treat picking them out of the air with the capture stream and tossing them violently toward the Ecto-1.  Other stand out moments included using the slime cannon to “depossess” the arrogant Walter Peck of a hilarious dancing phantasm, a battles which for me involved using a tether of slime to slingshot an active trap into said ghost for an exciting takedown.  The entire game is comprised of moments like this, and I don’t think Ghostbusters fans could’ve asked for anything more when it comes to game play.  There are several variations of the standard ghost catching equipment used in the movies, but all are incorporated so well that there are at least a handful of memorable sections with each, even in the later stages, when the standard proton stream is upgraded enough to take out most threats.  I sat down the other night with a few friends with the intention of playing the multiplayer, and instead we just played through a large chunk of the story campaign, passing the controller back and forth like it was rolled up in a paper.  Ghostbusters is just one of those rare games that simply compels gamers to play for just a few minutes longer, until those few minutes have stretched into hours.  It’s not unlike X-Men Origins: Wolverine, however this time the levels are the perfect length and the game is interesting enough to avoid falling into the pitfalls that Wolverine unfortunately stumbled into at times.

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of Ghostbusters: The Videogame is the inclusion of the original actors.  Outside of the team, which is a given, even William Atherton and Annie Potts returned to respectively portray the unfathomably slimy Walter Peck, and the Ghostbusters beleaguered noo-yawk accented receptionist, Janine.  The voice acting is dead on, though Bill Murray plays Peter Venkman with a lot more quietly sarcastic edge this time out, not really tapping into the manic explosions that he was hilariously known for in the movies, outside of a couple outbursts.  Visually the characters all look good, but there are a few issues with the presentation that really start to drag the game down a bit.  I’m not normally one to complain about graphics when the game plays as well as Ghostbusters, but when levels begin locking up for 10 – 15 seconds at a time every time the player turns to look an a given direction; it becomes an issue.  I’ve heard several reports of the game’s graphics chugging when the action gets heavy, I myself found the library level to be the most infuriating, with my game freezing several times in one particular room.  In short, the game can be an ugly little spud when it wants to be.  Beside that, I noted several instances of texture pop-in.  Some texture effects missing from the PlayStation 3 version, shoddy textures used in the Xbox 360 version, and more than a truckload of scenes where the voices didn’t synch up with the character’s mouths.  It’d be funny…if I was watching old kung-fu movies.

Ghostbusters The Videogame is a shining example of how a licensed game should be made.  It perfectly captures the feel of the movies with game play that compliments the onscreen action quite nicely.  There are more than a few issues with the graphical presentation, some that even affect the overall quality of the game itself.  The audio is outstanding, featuring the cast, and musical score of the beloved movie. The Ghostbusters came, they saw, and they will kick your ass.

Inspired by recent additions to the Pixel Verdict family, Erich, Dave, Jon, and Tim come up with some socially inappropriate video game baby names before getting down to business with discussions about Crimson Gem Saga, Ghostbusters, Mario Kart Wii, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 for the Wii, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s Wheelie Breakers, and Prototype (sorry Steve, Dave likes it). A head-scratching news segment tackles Microsoft’s next console, EA’s marketing misstep, and why EGM subscribers need get to the mailbox before their wives and girlfriends do. To finish, this week’s Symposium Ad Nauseum topic: Pushover Robot Bad Guys.

Transmit your digital messages and bionic thoughts by electronic mail to feedback@pixelverdict.com, in our comments below, or in the DVD Verdict Jury Room forums.

You can listen to the show with the player below, download it here, or subscribe through iTunes or by adding our feed to your podcatcher of choice.