Ghostbusters: The Video Game Review

1984 saw the release of one of the funniest films of all time and a film that has become a classic. I’m talking about the first Ghostbusters movie. The combination of the acting, comedy and effects brought about a movie that fans have loved for 25 years. Fast forward to 2009 and the gang is back together in what many people, including the actors are calling the third Ghostbusters movie. Ghostbusters: The Video Game combines many elements from the first two movies, with much of the cast, minus a couple high profile characters, to bring the busting back to life, so to speak.

The Wii version of Ghostbusters: The Video Game was developed by Red Fly Studios and published by Atari. They decided to forgo the realistic look of the Xbox and PS3 versions of the game in favor of a more cartoonish look, similar to Team Fortress 2 and it pays off. The visual style of the game really shines on Wii. The exaggerated look to the characters features, such as oversized hands and feet, and the caricatures of the faces gives you the impression you’re looking at what an animated version of the movies would have been. All the characters are instantly recognizable, but don’t have uncanny valley look of the higher powered systems. The facial animations bring the characters to life. Jenine has this blank, uninterested look and Ray is overly excited about every encounter. The only real odd part to the characters is Venkman’s, dog like nose. The ghosts of the game are able to be wildly animated and have stringy hair and clothing, like you would expect an undead being to have without taking a hit to performance. Environments are completely destructable and leave debris littered all over the place, which is something that is more rare in Wii games and a welcome feature to have.

The familiar sounds of the Ghostbusters franchise are of course present. The game opens to the familiar “Who Ya’ Gonna Call?” theme, proton packs have that all too welcome whine when they start up. Glass shattering, pots rattling, ghosts howling; it’s all there. The voice work by the characters is wonderfully done and you get the feeling they really wanted to make this feel like a cinema experience. There are no sounds out of place, oddly synced or just plain wrong. It all feels like Ghostbusters.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game takes place in November of 1991, two years after the events of Ghostbusters II. You’ve been recruited by the team to be their experimental weapons tester. That way if anything goes wrong, they don’t get blown to New Jersey, as Egon would say. A large PKE shockwave hits New York setting loose ghosts all over the city. You discover a man named Ivo Shandor, the architect behind many of the famous landmarks of the city, has attempted to bring forth the Destructor, possibly even Gozer himself. You traverse the different locations, such as the New York Public Library or the Museum of Natural Science ridding the city of ghosts and trying to stop the Destructor. You’ll fight a number of familiar faces as well as a host of new ones.

The game is essentially a third person shooter, similar to games like Gears of War. The Wii Remote is used to point your proton pack at the various supernatural entities and you fire the weapon with the B button. Once you’ve targeted a ghost, you’ll know you’ve hit them due to a small burst of ectoplasm spewing from them. They all have a life bar that diminishes as your reduce their energy. Once their weak enough your pack locks onto them and you have a quick time like event to reduce their remaining energy to nothing. A quick press of the Z button and you launch the ghost trap. Wrangle them over the trap, they get captured and you can proceed with your investigations. Most areas do not have a lot of ghosts you’ll be fighting at one time, so the pace can feel a bit slow at times. The times in combat, on the other hand, really ratchet up the action, Ghosts are flying around, sliming characters, and throwing objects at you. If you get slimed you slow down a bit, but a quick shake of the Nunchuk will get the slime off and put you back in the action. There are a number of upgrades that you will be tasked with testing and they do a variety of things. One upgrade will allow you to shoot large amounts of energy down your proton stream, another will clear away masses of negative energy, and help revive team members who’ve been possessed. All of the destruction you cause to the environment will be billed to the city, but other than sheer fun and annoyance to our friend Walter Peck it doesn’t do anything in terms of gameplay on the Wii. If you have a younger gamer who can't get into controlling the character or find it too difficult, this version of the game sports a multi-player mode where a second person can join in as a friend and capture ghosts without having to worry about controls.

There aren’t many things that I felt were wrong with the game. The biggest probably is that your character only has two speeds, stopped and moving at a trot. The Wii has an analog stick, but it is not used. If you move it’s always at a sort of slow jog, you can’t walk, or sprint. The shooting feels solid, and the aiming is quite nice. There is no adjusting of the shooting elements so you are stuck with the default settings. These felt really good though and the slower pace of the game means you don’t have to make a large number of quick movements. The turning is done at a quick enough pace that you never get lost or turned around at the wrong moment.

This title does a lot to revive fans of the Ghostbusters franchise and if you have kids who’ve never seen the movies, first of all shame on you, but it’s a great introduction to those characters in a way that is fun. The familiar faces make you feel like you’ve entered their version of New York City. This is a great ghost hunting game and if you like the Ghostbusters and/or Luigi’s Mansion you should give this game a try.

Final Score: 4/5