A surprisingly good nod to fans of the cult classic 80's films.
With a script written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis who wrote the movies and starring all the original cast as voice actors, Ghostbusters is the ultimate tribute to those born in the 80's. The story takes many elements from the films such as the Sedgewick hotel, the stay puff marshmallow man and Shandor while keeping a fresh feel in carving out its own path. Set 2 years after the events of the second film in 1991, The Ghostbusters have hired a 5th buster to test out all the dangerous new equipment, you. As a mute bystander the player gets to watch all the banter between the original cast which is a nice touch, especially considering the humour is a perfect match for the movies, with some excellent lines from Bill Murray especially standing out.
As great as the nod of the head to the franchise is, the gameplay is really what's important here and thankfully it's surprisingly good. The game is essentially a 3rd person shooter in which more often or not there will be 1 to 4 other ghostbusters in support. like in the films the player gets to use the proton pack to weaken ghosts before throwing out a trap to capture them but there are plenty of other weapons available. The slime gun is used to neutralize black slime as well as tether enemies to the floor or traps, the stasis gun slows down enemies till they stop as well as fires a heavy blast and the mession collider fires rapid shots that can also home in on a target. All these weapons are actually part of the same Proton pack and can be swapped in and out ready for the right situation.
But how do you know the right situation? The ghostbusters also have a Psycho-Kinetic Energy meter (PKE) which can be used to measure spirit activity, find cursed artifacts and scan ghosts giving their history and weaknesses to use the right weapon for any given situation. Scanning, finding hidden cursed objects and capturing or defeating enemies gets the ghostbusters money from the city which can be used to upgrade the proton pack and in turn all the weapons and even the trap.
The multi-player mode is surprisingly good fun fun and can be played either ranked or unranked in 4 player co-op, though it isn't through the main storyline. There are several modes across half a dozen levels including survivor, thief and containment all with different objectives and occasional bosses like the stay puff marshmallow man to fight together.
For all the positive aspects of nailing the feel of the game down right Ghostbusters does have a couple of low pints. For a start the single player campaign is short at about 7 hours with only maybe 6 or 7 levels. Secondly its also incredibly linear playing out more like a cinematic experience, which while that is what it is i would have liked a bit more freedom in some areas.
Visually Ghostbusters the video game does it's job well though it hardly stands up to a lot of other next gen titles, most importantly though it captures the feel of the movies with some nice proton stream effects, some nicely designed ghosts and obvious detail like the accuracy of the Ecto 1 which while you can't drive it does come along with you on certain levels.
Sound, what needs to be said? The instant the game is put in the PS3 and the Ray Parker Jr theme of Ghostbusters kicks in, any fan can't help but smile. The voice acting is all done by the original cast as mentioned including Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson and even Annie Potts as Janine.
The simple fact is this, if you grew up in the 80's, loved the Ghostbusters movies there will be something in this game for you. This is the Ghostbusters tribute that all fans have waited for, it's funny, has surprisingly solid gameplay and stays true to the ridiculous plot lines of the movies making it a great success. At the very least i recommend renting it, what have you got to lose?
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+ Captures the feel of the movies perfectly.
+ Great dialogue, voice acting and sound effects.
+ Fairly decent multiplayer mode.
- No co-op in story mode.
- Visuals are so so.