She glides into the room, as you run your hands up your proton pack, onto your proton gun…then she flies into you, leaving you covered in sticky slime. Now you blast her with a large Boson Dart and cover her in slime with your slime blower, just before throwing a trap and slam dunking her ghostly behind into it. Bustin’ makes you feel good!
WHAT YOU’LL LIKE:
Bustin’ Makes You Feel Good!
Bustin’ ghosts feels extremely rewarding! At times you can be wrasslin’ with multiple ghosts at the same time, possibly with the four other Ghostbusters, and trapping the final one of the group always makes you feel like you just accomplished the impossible, letting you take a well deserved sigh of relief. It is especially rewarding when you beat a difficult boss, such as Stay Puft.
Slimer, the Hotel, and the Proton Beam are back, and better than ever!
Everything Old Is New Again
The original cast of the Ghostbusters films return to voice their characters. You also return to familiar locations, like the Firehouse, the Public Library, Times Square, Central Park and the Hotel Sedgewick, as well as some new locations. The original musical score and theme song are still back and as catchy as ever. Ghosts from the movies make return appearances, such as Slimer and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. While all of these elements sound like they could be in a remake of the films, they actually end up feeling fresh, due to the way they are used. For instance, even though you are with Raymond Stantz (Dan Akroyd) in the Library tracking the Librarian ghost, it’s a completely fresh story and layout of the Library with completely new enemies and all new voice acting.
Books, Ghosts, and Librarians are all laid to waste
Weapons of Ghost…er…Everything Destruction
The proton pack can kick some ghostly butt, but it also can obliterate nearly everything on screen. Blasting walls leaves large burn trails and destroys tables, chairs, cars, books and pretty much everything else that gets in the way. While the Proton Pack still has its old school beam, it now features new upgrades, such as the Stasis (ice) beam, Slime Blower, and Meson Collider (homing shots), that are all pretty useful, and certain enemies have a weakness to certain Proton Pack modes.
Akroyd, Murray, the whole gang is back!
Comedy/Horror Gold Mine
With all the original cast back, and all new voice work, you will find yourself laughing throughout the entire game. The bantering between the Ghostbusters never feels old. Not only will you be laughing, but also jumping out of your seat when you have the bejeebus scared out of you by ghosts popping up in front of you out of household objects. Then you will laugh at yourself for getting scared by something so unscary.
Peter loves the ladies and Bustin' makes him feel good!
CSI: New York: Ghostbusters
Throughout the game you will have to track down hidden ghosts with your PKE Meter that detects psycho-kinetic energy, aka: ghosts, ectoplasm, hidden doors and cursed artifacts. The PKE Meter works similar to some of the tools in the Xbox 360 launch title, Condemned; the closer you get to one of the for mentioned objects, the bigger the signal gets. The PKE Meter is also used to scan ghosts and cursed artifacts into a database and finding them all will net you some achievements, of course. The PKE Meter adds another layer of depth to an already great game.
WHAT YOU WON’T LIKE:
Multiplayer Differences
While multiplayer is a welcome attraction, for some reason the developers of the multiplayer portion, Threewave Interactive, decided to change some things for the worse. For instance, when you deplete enough of a ghost’s energy in single player, the capture beam will automatically be activated, allowing you to easily capture the ghost. Not so in multiplayer: you must hold the left bumper and then fire. This wouldn’t be such a big deal if a majority of the gametypes required that you trap ghosts. They also add a new weapon with no real explanation.
Egon's a real pro at this
Plain, Mute, New Character
In single player, you play as a new recruit on the Ghostbusters team who is a bland, boring and mute, unlike the rest of the colorful cast. I felt that the developers did this as a way to have him act as a camera of sorts to the rest of the Ghostbusters and let the real stars shine instead of hiring a horrible voice actor. Playing as one of the “real” Ghostbusters would have been nice in single player, but at least you can in multiplayer.
Cool ghost, bland Ghostbuster
RECOMMENDATION:
Ghostbusters is one of my favorite, if not favorite, games so far this year. It is a must buy for fans of the films and a must play for everyone. The game only takes around seven hours to complete and that’s on the hardest difficulty while collecting all the artifacts without a guide, so for most this may only be a rental. The game feels like a third movie in the series, and I can assure you, Bustin’ will make you feel good!
Ghostbusters
System: PS2, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360, DS
Developer: Terminal Reality
Publisher: Atari
Find: Amazon, Gamefly, Goozex
All reviews are based on final retail code unless otherwise noted.
Want to know more about the game? Just ask! We love to hear ourselves type, and might even say something vaguely resembling an answer to your question(s)…
July 1st, 2009 at 11:00 pm
I have the PC version. Right off, I really appreciate the work that went into capturing the look of the Ghostbusters movies. The actors faces. The Ghostbusters mobile. The proton packs. It’s pretty much what we all wanted a Ghostbusters game to look like.
Game play wise. Well I’m not enjoying it as much as I thought I would. The controls feel a bit awkward and the levels feel confined and capturing Ghost seems more like work than fun, although when you do capture one. I’ll admit you get a feeling of satisfaction. If only because it was a pain in the ass.
The dialogue is your typical monotone sounding voice acting you find in most games. Which is sad when you consider these are film actors. Dan Aykroyd is a little above average though. I just wish that when someone does voice acting for a game. They realize it’s more than just reading lines. You have to act out the performance to give it a natural feel, Bill Murray!
July 23rd, 2009 at 6:23 pm
I was really excited for this game as well and I loved the dialogue, the graphics and the music but the actual game play seemed to fall a little short. For instance, the boss fights seems uneventful and repetitive.