International Center for Ethereal Containment and Control

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.

Labels: Ghost Games

Download Price:$6.45
Print Price: $13.95 $11.86 In Stock
Pages: 56
Size: 3.02 MB
Format: Landscape (screen viewing), Portrait (for printing)
Writer: Mike "Talien" Tresca
Cover:
SKU: RPO3013
ISBN: 978-1-935432-24-1
Game Lines: Modern System
Systems: Modern d20
Product Type: Supplement
Media Type: print, PDF

Do you want to make more money hunting ghosts?

Sure, we all do! With our easy to read Ghost Hunter's Guide, you too can become a Ghost Hunter in just under one hour. That's right, one hour!

Armed with the Ghost Hunter's Guide, you can learn such professions as antiques dealer, circus performer, escape artist, fortuneteller, ghost hunter driver, ghost hunter president, ghost hunter secretary, ghost hunter tactical leader, ghost hunter technician, ghost hunter treasurer, ghost hunter vice-president, journalist, mystic, psychic, psychic investigator, or stage magician. You can also earn your degree by taking one of our advanced classes, including arcanist, clairvoyant, exorcist, geomancer, ghost hunter, medium, parapsychologist, and skeptic.

Everywhere, people are dying and rising up as ghosts. These ghosts are in desperate need of capturing and only you can help. Thanks to the International Center for Ethereal Containment and Control (ICECC), we now have the technology to trap ghosts and can lend it to you for a very low fee. With your purchase of the Ghost Hunter's Guide, you can rent our amazing electron packs for just five dollars an hour and start hunting ghosts in no time!

Blood and Spooks: The Ghost Hunter's Guide is a d20 Modern supplement that includes:

• five new allegiances
• a new organization, the International Center for Ethereal Containment and Control (ICECC)
• 16 new occupations
• 10 different ghost hunter backgrounds
• the joy of playing a victim
• 8 new advanced classes
• over 50 psionic powers
• five ghost types and the spirit advanced class, just for ghosts!
• and of course, lots and lots of equipment to capture ghosts

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!

Buy a copy of the Ghost Hunter's Guide and we'll also include a ghost container. With ghost containers, ghosts check in, but they can't check out.

Ghosts are the enemy that we all must fight. So please, call and buy your copy of the Ghost Hunter's Guide today!

Labels: Ghost Games

Download: ICECC
Authors: Michael Tresca, Matthew D. Riddle, Fritz Baugh
Type: Role-Playing Game (D20 Modern Supplement)
Suggested Retail Price: FREE
Format: .pdf
Pages: 51
Description:

What if ghosts aren't really supernatural concepts, but creatures with their own biology? And if ghosts have their own biology, then using scientific principals, they can be thwarted - if not destroyed, at least captured. And if ghosts can be captured...well, then somebody can get rich doing it. Enter the Ghostbusters. Hobbled together by a group of misfit scientists, they attempted to use parapsychology for profit and, at least some of the time, succeeded.

In the 80s, Ghostbusting was a novelty. The end of the world brought on a lot of supernatural phenomena and, thanks to a lot of strange science and the Ghostbusters, was narrowly averted. By the end of the 80s, Ghostbusters were dealing less with the supernatural and more with problems like New York "not giving off a good vibe." The Ghostbusters were called upon again to do something about it and they moved pieces of NY's monuments to do it.

Life as a Ghostbuster is never predictable. The wax and wane of supernatural activity seems to vary without rhyme or reason - the 80s was rife with supernatural phenomena but there were entire years that were actually quite boring. At least, for a Ghostbuster.

As the world changed, so too did the nature of Ghostbusting. With a heightened awareness for global terrorism, the psychic energy matrix of the Earth is boiling with anger, fear, and hate - ghosts are more common than ever before. And what do you need when the world is gripped in fear and suspicious of everything that moves? You need a Ghostbuster: a man or woman who, backed by nuclear weapons, blasts a stream of barely harnessed energy at whatever you're afraid of, and do it with a smile and a small service fee.

Ghostbusters: Who Ya Gonna Call? is a d20 Modern RPG supplement that contains: 5 new allegiances, 7 new occupations, one advanced class (the elite Ghostbuster), new uses for old skills, 2 new feats, a bevy of new weapons and equipment (including proton packs and ghost traps), action point rules, planar travel, and monster classification.

Labels: Ghost Games