Ghostbusters: The Video Game previews

Movie themed games are notorious for being terribly bad. Previous Ghostbuster games were no exception. This title has had a lot of time and love put into it, and it shows, however it still could have done more in some key areas.

The ghost wranging mechanic is great, (although personally I would like a bit more rumble and feedback), the main story immersive and slightly scary in places (And just a little frustrating in one or two spots due to difficulty). The new weapons are interesting, but not too far fetched, and the pke meter is well built into the gameplay. The voice dialogue and script are great, and its fantastic to feel the team back together again. (I wont say any more to avoid spoilers). Replayability on the campaign isnt fantastic, due to the scripted story, but its worth a second run at least. The firehouse has some cool features and items, but feels like it could have been much more. An example is a lot of the textures being low res. There are momento newspaper cuttings as seen in the original film on the wall, but they are blurry and unreadable. I dont know if this is due to the tie in with playstation home restrictions as screenshots look very similar, so perhaps they use the same map/textures and had to limit detail to fit.

Multiplayer is really fun, but it could have used more depth. When a game ends, all players are instantly booted back to the menu, there is no option to play again with the same group, party chat is reccomended to keep track of friends rather then being dumped out of game chat when the session ends. Finding a game that someone has started is also more hassle then it should be. It would be great to have more of a “Freestyle” mode, where players can play without a time limit to muck around and catch ghosts and generally blow things up. The proton stream also seems very weak when compaired to the movies against ghosts. The Ranked online mode counts the cash you earn in multiplayer and uses this to advance your rank. It also unlocks cool costumes that appear to be based on the toy lines over the years.

The Bottom line? A great single player experiance to relive the Ghostbusters memory. Multiplayer is great if you have friends with the game and you use party chat to keep organised.

Quite a good game. Had to laugh when Ray Went " Enough with the shhing! " to the Library Ghost. just up 2 level 3. Lots of new gadgets buy Egon. + Walter J Peck is back 2. And you get to run round the fire house. If you type in 10 north moore st. In google maps. you can seen the Fire house from the Ghostbusters moves in street view

Ghostbusters: The Video Game is a true sequel that is set after the 2 previous movies and as such, there are repeated references to characters, locations and events from those 2 movies which will keep fans very happy

The game is essentially a 3rd person shooter involving travelling to various locations to destroy or capture ghosts. To capture a ghost first you must weaken it with your proton beam which then allows you to ‘capture’ or hold the ghost in that beam. Now drag the struggling ghost over a trap that you've laid down and hold it there while the trap slowly swallows it up. Of course it's not quite as simple as that and while this makes up the bulk of the gameplay (weaken ghost, capture ghost) your proton pack does have alternate firing modes to add a little bit of variety to the game including solving some very basic puzzles. Capturing ghosts and solving puzzles propels the story forward through numerous cut scenes and because the game was scripted by Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd, the cut scenes consist of a lot of genuinely amusing dialogue between the characters.

The entire presentation of the game just drips with authenticity from the iconic Ghostbusters theme and snippets of incidental music, sound effects and voices of the original actors to the graphical representations of familiar characters, ghosts and locations. I really can't think of too many games that have so comprehensively captured the feel of a particular license before. Fans of the movies are just gonna love it.

Now for the negatives. Ghostbusters is very tightly scripted with little room for exploration. Trapping ghosts is fun (for a while) and although the alternate firing modes of your proton pack does provide some variety, trapping ghost after ghost after ghost can become a little tedious. Difficulty is not consistent, case in point being the Stay Puft man. There is a fight sequence involving some smaller creatures just prior to taking on Mr Stay Puft that I found frustratingly difficult yet a short time later, the boss creature fight with Mr Stay Puft himself was incredibly easy.

In conclusion, Ghostbusters: The Video Game is a truly authentic feeling Ghostbusters experience that makes great use of the license. Fans of the movies will easily forgive the negatives because the look and feel of the game is otherwise, just so spot on.