Ghostbusters was, for the better part of my childhood, my entire life. I owned everything I could get my hands on that they put out. I had my own proton pack, with the little goofy foam stream thing, I had my own trap. I even had the Ecto-3. Not The Ecto-1, the Ghostbusters ubiquitous ambulance, not the Ecto-2, the helicopter that came out of the back in the cartoon, but the Ecto-3. It was never seen in the cartoon probably becuase it was so stupid. It had long, dual fly swatters attached to the front of a go-kart. I'm guessing that this was to catch that could out run massive laser beams, but not the incredible speed of a single cylinder vehicle with two full grown adults riding on it. So when I heard that there was going to be another product to spend my money on with the Ghostbusters name attached, I immediatly began saving. Maybe it's this same childlike facination with stupid things that has forced me to become a 23 year old who still needs to save for weeks on end and hope for birthday presents to purchase a 60 dollar videogame. Anyway, I got the game, and long story short, it's pretty great. Pretty really great.
First off, the story. The overall plot is entertaining and funny, but falls flat fairly often. The jokes never really take off, and I think its because we're not looking at the actual actors. They're great models, but they can't really convey a sense of personality, especially when we've already seen two movies of the source material. With most movie based games, this isn't a problem, as we either havn't seen the movie yet or just skip the scenes because they're stupid. But with this one, the movie's have left an image in our heads that CG characters just can't compete with. The missions are all set up well, and I feel like the ending of the game even gives some vindication to the second movie, and nicely ties the whole thing in as a trilogy.
Gameplay wise, they couldn't have done it any better. Everything feels just right, and exactly as I would have imagined it as a child, with a few caveats; mainly, ghosts don't appear nearly often enough, but this is remedied with the multiplayer, which I'll talk about more later. There are basically 5 enemy types. There are small little crawlers that die with a few blasts, there are zombie things that run at you and/or throw limbs, there are flying stone monsters that can only be defeated by slamming them into something, the golems that you've got to wear down, and then there are the ghosts. There are a bunch of different looks for each of these enemies, but they change how they look from level to level, always fitting the theme of whatever goofy ghost dimension you've been thrust into. I say there aren't enough ghosts because for all of the enemies aside from the ghosts, you just have to defeat them, rather than trap them. I'm glad they're there, becuause just catching ghosts over and over would get repetitve, but it seems like the balance is shifted more towards defeating enemies rather than catching ghosts.
Aiding you in your quest to defeat the ghosts are several upgrades to the proton pack. As the newest Ghostbuster, you're tasked with trying out the new equipment so that it doesn't blow the real busters into New Jersey, and having been to New Jersey, I don't blame them for avoiding it. The weapon you'll use the most is the standard proton stream from the movies. It's essentially a machine gun, and its alternate fire is the "boson dart", or for the un-initiated, "Grenade". Next is basiacally a shotgun, with a cool alternate fire that freezes enemies in place. After that, its the slime blower, a lot like a flame thrower, which clears dangerous black slime from the ground, and its alternate fire is a very cool and interesting tether that pulls two objects together. The last weapon is a perplexing one. The Mouon blaster does nothing. It's supposed to be more powerful, but it doesn't seem to do anything. Its slow, it overheats, and it doesn't do enough extra damage. With the other basic weapons accounted for; Machine gun, Shotgun, Flamethrower, it puzzles me as to why they wouldn't include something like a sniper rife, especially since the game could really use one.
Multiplayer is really fun, and fairly easy to get into. You catch more ghosts here than any other mode, and the more you play, the more you unlock. Playing as the full team to take down the Staypuffed marshmellow man is something you just have to experience. Plus, the first time you kill everyone by crossing the streams, you'll understand how right they got the game.
Graphically, it looks nice, but not spectacular. The ghostbusters models are amazing to watch in action, and the packs are wonderfully animated, but a lot of the later enviroments are bland, like the game developers didn't know exactly what to do, so they ran through the generic stuff. Early in the game, they take the sedgwick hotel and turn it into both a haunted ghostship and a spider lair, then they turn the library into a MC Escher painting. But then its off to the haunted castle! Wooo! Scary! Weird! then, a GRAVEYARD! It's lacking in the creativity of the earlier levels, and it hurts the game.
Overall the game is an awesome experience, and anyone who even passingly liked the movies should play it. It's long enough to warrent a purchase, plus its multi-player component and the promise of DLC can keep the game going for a long long time. It's really exciting that a company can create a game that lives up to a hardcore fans expectations after all this time. Now if only the Ninja Turtles could do the same.
