Ghostbusters: The Video Game

A third film in the Ghostbusters series has been a long time coming, but no one really expected it to end up in the form of a videogame. Alas, Ghostbusters: The Video Game is very much the next chapter in the trilogy according to Dan Aykroyd who, along with Harold Ramis, reprised his role as lead writer. This dynamic creative duo is joined by their ghostbustin' brethren (Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson) as well as the original voice actors for supporting roles such as the team's acerbic receptionist (Annie Potts) and vile nemesis, Walter Peck (William Atherton).

High quality voice work and spot-on actor likeness lends a great deal of credibility to the game and authenticity to the experience, immediately elevating Ghostbusters above the vast majority of movie games which publishers are notorious for unloading onto unsuspecting parents and eager fans alongside the film's theatrical release. Like GoldenEye and Chronicles Of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, Ghostbusters: The Video Game does not succumb to any such greedy, corporate pitfalls.

Taking place two years after the events of the second film and seven years since the team first crossed the streams, players will jump into the shoes of the nameless, speechless rookie, brought on as an experimental weapons technician that Egon uses as a lab rat to test his latest Proton Pack modifications. This offers the writers/developers a twin advantage in creating an intriguing new chapter in the Ghostbusters universe while still delivering all the humour and classic characters that made it so popular to begin with. First, the soulless player character is essentially a camera from which the player views the game. Not talking (at all) allows Egon, Venkman, Stantz, and Zeddmore to banter back and forth naturally while occassionally using the rookie as a means for exposition and gameplay tutorials. Thankfully the voice acting and writing is clever enough to recapture the charming spirit of the movies, so being what basically amounts to a virtual tourist strapped to a Proton Pack isn't necessarily a bad thing, even if it is something of a lazy choice.

Second, the introduction of new technology greatly augments what would have otherwise been a particularly bland adventure; the Proton Packs may be cool when used sparingly throughout a 90-minute movie, but when they're being used almost constantly in an eight to ten hour game, it gets old very quickly. Over the course of the game the rookie will get equipped with three experimental attachments for his man-portable particle accelerator system. Aside from the Proton Stream, the Shock Blaster, Boson Dart, and a Slime Blower also become available. These alternative weapons, each with a secondary fire mode built in, add much-needed variety to the standard Ghostbuster arsenal, and ingeniously work shooter paradigms such as shotgun-type weapons into the mix.
Many ghosts need to be weakened by the Proton Pack and then pulled into an active Ghost Trap, while lesser enemies can just be blasted into oblivion. Swarms of possessed Book Bats and Candelabrum Crawlers (animated light fixtures) are all dispersible with a little brute force, but full-roaming phantoms such as the Opera Diva Ghost and bi-dimensional attractors like the Kitchen Golem will need a bit of protonic finesse. Equipment upgrades can be purchased through the game's arbitrary financial rewards system to increase the efficiency of your weaponry and gadgets, and to unlock a few nice tricks such as Slam Dunk Trapping which allows a ghost to be instantly captured if the player slams them directly into a Ghost Trap.

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