Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Review of Ghostbusters: The Video Game
I remember playing the original Ghostbusters Activision game for the Atari 800 back in 1984. Repetitive, clunky, and featuring an out-of-place driving mini-game, my brother and I actually enjoyed playing it. After that game, it was all downhill for the Ghostbusters gaming franchise. Until now.
This new Ghostbusters game is an instructive way of immersing a player in the movie experience. The majority of the voice actors are back. The plot is directly tied to the first two movies. You get to play a rookie Ghostbuster and the proton packs are accurately replicated down to the slightest detail – the music is straight from the film, the sound effects are exactly the same, and the special effects of the twisty, winding proton streams are perfectly captured. Ghostbusters even features a nod to modern gaming tropes, like "venting" weapons so that they cool down before firing. That's the good news.
Setting aside the Ghostbusters content, the game comes up a short. Playing Ghostbusters is like playing on a movie soundstage: you can only go where the set is built. Although there's the illusion of freedom from the first- or third-person perspective, there's really not much to actually do. The characters have a shiny, plastic look and the lip-syncing is awful. There are half-hearted attempts to round out the content: collectible artifacts that echo creepy noises, equipment upgrades, and the bizarre ability to drink from water fountains. But none of this really affects game play – the artifacts are set dressing, you will be able to afford every equipment upgrade by the end of the game, and drinking from water fountains nets you an achievement.
Least forgivable is the lack of a co-op mode for the campaign. I was fooled by the advertising indicating that Ghostbusters has a "campaign mode." To be clear, campaign mode is NOT the same as co-op mode. One would think that a game that features all four Ghostbusters in play would be a natural fit for a co-op mode allowing four players. One would be wrong.
Looking back on the concept art, a lot seems to have been cut from Ghostbusters, and that's a shame. The game is short, with a very linear plot and not much in the way of side missions. Walking around with a PKE meter in first-person mode washes everything in a green lens, which is great for finding artifacts but not so great for enjoying the game's beautiful backdrops and foes. In fact, sometimes there's so much going on that the game's rendering can't really be appreciated. Ghostbusters feels cramped and busy.
The experience of running around the Ghostbusters' firehouse encapsulates much of what's wrong and right with the game: you can talk to the portrait of Vigo the Carpathian, stand in front of a game of Q-bert (but not actually, ya know, play it in-game), slide down the fire pole, listen to Janine Melnitz answer the phone, and be stalked by disembodied disco jeans you picked up earlier in the game…but once you've walked around a few times there's not much else to do.
But my two-year-old now chants "ghost-BUSTAHS!" whenever someone asks him who he's gonna call…so Terminal Reality must be doing something right.
This new Ghostbusters game is an instructive way of immersing a player in the movie experience. The majority of the voice actors are back. The plot is directly tied to the first two movies. You get to play a rookie Ghostbuster and the proton packs are accurately replicated down to the slightest detail – the music is straight from the film, the sound effects are exactly the same, and the special effects of the twisty, winding proton streams are perfectly captured. Ghostbusters even features a nod to modern gaming tropes, like "venting" weapons so that they cool down before firing. That's the good news.
Setting aside the Ghostbusters content, the game comes up a short. Playing Ghostbusters is like playing on a movie soundstage: you can only go where the set is built. Although there's the illusion of freedom from the first- or third-person perspective, there's really not much to actually do. The characters have a shiny, plastic look and the lip-syncing is awful. There are half-hearted attempts to round out the content: collectible artifacts that echo creepy noises, equipment upgrades, and the bizarre ability to drink from water fountains. But none of this really affects game play – the artifacts are set dressing, you will be able to afford every equipment upgrade by the end of the game, and drinking from water fountains nets you an achievement.
Least forgivable is the lack of a co-op mode for the campaign. I was fooled by the advertising indicating that Ghostbusters has a "campaign mode." To be clear, campaign mode is NOT the same as co-op mode. One would think that a game that features all four Ghostbusters in play would be a natural fit for a co-op mode allowing four players. One would be wrong.
Looking back on the concept art, a lot seems to have been cut from Ghostbusters, and that's a shame. The game is short, with a very linear plot and not much in the way of side missions. Walking around with a PKE meter in first-person mode washes everything in a green lens, which is great for finding artifacts but not so great for enjoying the game's beautiful backdrops and foes. In fact, sometimes there's so much going on that the game's rendering can't really be appreciated. Ghostbusters feels cramped and busy.
The experience of running around the Ghostbusters' firehouse encapsulates much of what's wrong and right with the game: you can talk to the portrait of Vigo the Carpathian, stand in front of a game of Q-bert (but not actually, ya know, play it in-game), slide down the fire pole, listen to Janine Melnitz answer the phone, and be stalked by disembodied disco jeans you picked up earlier in the game…but once you've walked around a few times there's not much else to do.
But my two-year-old now chants "ghost-BUSTAHS!" whenever someone asks him who he's gonna call…so Terminal Reality must be doing something right.
Labels: Ghost Games
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