Ghostbusters: The Video Game

Ghostbusters: The Video Game

Some of you have been waiting 25 years for the feel good opportunity to join the original Ghostbusters. It’s as cool as you imagined, pretty much.

We’re usually among the Luddites who’ll tell you that great graphics don’t make a great game, nodding toward Wii and DS as ultimate proof. Sony would disagree of course, and has secured quite the scoop here by offering Atari’s Ghostbusters as a timed exclusive on PlayStation 3. Why? Because any Ghostbusters fan who sees the iconic Proton Packs in action on PS3 will hand over the money in record time.

It’s not just the hardware you’ll encounter as a new recruit at Ghostbusters. Actors Ernie Hudson, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis reprise their roles as the maverick spook pest control outfit. Aykroyd and Ramis have also contributed to the scriptwriting and this brings heart as well as humour to what would otherwise have been merely a shallow Ghostbusters spin-off. Instead, this is the real deal – almost as good as having a third movie to enjoy, but you’re in it!

As far as voice-acting married with realistic videogame marionettes is concerned, Ghostbusters ranks among the best we’ve encountered. The big plus is that some of the lines are truly rib tickling, even without that twinkle in Venkman’s eyes to carry it off. Nothing you can do about the current ‘state-of-the-art’ console technology in visually showing off human emotion. However the comedy dialogue is delivered with expert timing. You’ll laugh, guaranteed.

When it boils down to the action you’ll find yourself up against a fairly staunch first-person-shooter challenge. It’s not too full of surprises in terms of gameplay, but is literally transformed by the kooky Ghostbusters theme – inter-dimensional portals leading to Dhali-esque realms, hotels are flooded by seawater summoned by a pirate spectre. Your enemies include everything from candelabras to stacks of books, as well as the ghosts of opera singers, museum visitors, gargoyles and hell hounds.

At times the game could succeed almost just as well if it were ‘on rails’ as there is very little exploration required. However this would remove some of the finer set-pieces in the adventure, such as where fleet of foot is required to survive collapsing floors, but above all the fun of using the Psycho-Kinetic Energy (PKE) meter used to track down ghosts.

Being a rookie Ghostbuster is pure sensational fun. You’re the guinea pig for every new piece of technology that Egon introduces for each mission - Blast Stream projectiles, Slime Blower, Meson Collider homing missiles, Ghost-immobilising Stasis Stream and more. You also bear the brunt of Venkman’s cruellest jibes to begin with but later on earn his sincere congratulations.

Perhaps the game could’ve made more of the puzzle-solving options available to different types of Proton tool. The one-player campaign soon feels routine like all the best jobs in the world. But you’ve more free-form ’busting opportunities in the multiplayer modes where elusive Most Wanted Ghosts appear at random.

If you’re not a Ghostbusters fan you’ll find fault with the repetitive missions and sometimes rough-looking visuals. There are better sci-fi FPS out there, although none of them are at all funny - not intentionally anyway. But if that theme tune makes you want to climb aboard the Ecto-1 and head off to battle Mr Stay Puft, you’ll got all that to come - and then some - and we imagine you'll be telling all your friends.

4 out of 5