To paraphrase Roky Erickson, whose lyrics would later be rather fittingly covered by the Swedish heavy metal band Ghost, “If you bust ghosts, you have everything. You can bust any ghost you want, and you can do anything you want to do. If you bust ghosts, you have everything.” If that intro didn’t give it away, the original Ghostbusters is one of my favorite films of all time.

You might naturally think Ghostbusters would spawn at least one video game tie-in due to its status as a cult classic. It has indeed done that not once, not twice, but a whopping twenty-two times according to Wikipedia. Well, that is if you stretch the term “video game tie-in” so that it includes a bunch of mobile spin-offs and a couple of pachinko machines.

I did briefly play the original Ghostbusters game on the Nintendo Entertainment System, but given that it was much more convoluted and more severely mistranslated than, say, Super Mario Bros. or Punch-Out!!, I never exactly figured out how to get very far in that title. However, that’s not the Ghostbusters game I’m here to discuss today, which is probably for the best. We would most likely be here all day while I tried to figure out what makes that 1988 version of the game tick.

Today’s spotlight is centered on the tie-in from 2009, simply-titled Ghostbusters: The Video Game. To begin, you might be surprised to find that all four of the titular Ghostbusters in this title are voiced by the actors who originally portrayed them in the first film. That certainly came as a bit of a shock to me, though I can’t quite put my finger on why I feel that way. Given that Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, and the late Harold Ramis are all part of the voice cast, you might reasonably wonder which of them you control within the game.

In that case, I’m afraid I have some unfortunate news for you. You don’t actually get to play as any of the quartet of professional spectre-exterminators. Instead, you play as a nameless, voiceless, fifth Ghostbuster to whom the original four refer by a variety of slightly condescending nicknames, including “cadet” and “junior.” This is the case because Dr. Peter Venkman (aka Bill Murray) outright forbids you from telling the rest of the team your name. Dr. Venkman attempts to justify this by stating that he “doesn’t want to get too attached to this kid. You know, just in case.”

You’ll soon find that this is just the first instance of Dr. Venkman being more than a bit of a jerk to you, but that’s beside the point. What does this title’s gameplay actually entail, then? Well, most of its gameplay other than basic movement is mouse-controlled. That’s because the core mechanics largely consist of holding left-click to fire a ray of energy at your currently-targeted ghost and moving the mouse around to make sure that energy beam actually hits the ghost as it flies around.

I’ve forgotten the technical terms the Ghostbusters use for that ray of energy and the effect it has on apparitions. However, what you need to know is that the longer any ghost is subjected to that ray of energy, the weaker the ghost becomes. Think of it as draining their health meter in a sense. That’s basically what it is since you can see something resembling a health meter on each ghost you target.

Once a spectre is weak enough, you can switch to using what’s called your “Capture Stream” and begin pulling your target toward a containment trap that you or one of the other Ghostbusters will have to strategically place in the area before you can apprehend said apparition. Your Proton Pack, the nuclear-powered deathtrap waiting to happen that you wear like a backpack, may automatically switch to your Capture Stream for you if a ghost’s health is low enough. When a ghost is close enough to a trap, it’ll start getting sucked down toward the containment unit.

When this happens, you need to make sure the spectre doesn’t escape the trap’s suction by moving your mouse in the opposite direction that the nearly-captured ghost is attempting to move. To help speed this process up and temporarily daze any ghosts you’ve caught in your Capture Stream, you can periodically press your right mouse button to slam them into the ground or any nearby walls. Once the ghost has been fully contained in the trap, you’re expected to retrieve the unit by walking up to it and pressing E.

Whenever you’re just looking for ghosts instead of fighting to capture them, you can employ the use of something called your “PKE meter” by pressing X. This is basically just this game’s less-cool version of Detective Mode from the Batman: Arkham series. Based on what this meter displays, you’ll pretty much always know whether or not you’re headed in the right direction and/or near any hidden spectres.

If it is intensely flashing green, you’re near a ghost that isn’t hidden, while its display will turn red if you’re close to a spirit that’s attempting to conceal itself. Your Proton Pack also displays your health meter, though not as prominently as I would prefer. You don’t automatically reach a “game over” should your health meter be fully depleted, so long as there’s at least one fellow Ghostbuster still standing who can revive you.

If this is not the case, whether because you’re separated from your comrades when you’re downed or because everyone else has also been rendered out of commission, that’s when you’ll fail and have to restart from a checkpoint. This is basically everything you’ll need to know to get by in Ghostbusters: The Video Game. With all of that explained, now I can start discussing more of my actual thoughts on this title. For once, I’ve actually got a fair amount to complain about, and I’m genuinely relishing the opportunity to do so.

There’s honestly not a lot I like about this game, much to my disappointment. For starters, it’s a game based on a film that I personally find hilarious, and yet I think most of this tie-in’s humor is either flat, dry at best, or awkward and downright unsettling at worst. Most of Peter Venkman’s jokes revolve around him either being a creep toward any woman in his vicinity or a condescending jerk to you for no readily-discernible reason. That doesn’t sit well with me for various reasons.

I would ask how it’s possible to so severely screw up the humor in a Ghostbusters game that even features the original voice cast, but considering the general public response to the various reboots of the film franchise that have come forth since this game was first released, I guess it’s not that difficult to do. Admittedly, there were a few lines here and there that got a laugh out of me. However, given the circumstances, I was equally surprised and disappointed that these were so few and far between.

The levels are all fairly linear and start to feel increasingly repetitive the more you play. It feels to me like no matter how far you are in the game, you’ll perpetually have to battle and capture several lesser apparitions before eventually tracking down and trapping the level’s “big baddie.” There’s not much of a sense of accomplishment or payoff from doing that as far as I’m concerned. It’s a lot of the same tedious gameplay mechanics that just happen to take place in a few different indoor locales, like certain parts of a high-class hotel or a public library.

It seems to me that the game’s AI won’t exactly be besting IBM’s Watson on any future episodes of Jeopardy! if you catch my drift. Though it appears that the AI-controlled Ghostbusters are at least trying their best, their most concerted efforts are far from good enough in my experience. It feels like I always have to do the vast majority of the heavy lifting while fighting and trapping any ghosts.

Furthermore, I don’t think my comrades appropriately prioritize reviving each other when anyone is knocked out of the fray, especially when that happens to me. I always have to go out of my way to hurry and revive them, while they take their sweet time getting around to helping me or anyone else up. That’s why I eventually stopped playing altogether at one point. I kept failing the current mission because everyone else would somehow get themselves knocked unconscious while I was already down, so I couldn’t do anything about it.

Honestly, Ghostbusters: The Video Game is a pretty significant letdown in my mind. I wonder if it’s even possible at this point for the film franchise to spawn any tie-in games that are actually worth playing. I mean, it’s had twenty-two attempts by this point, and I’m sure we’re all aware of the oft-quoted “definition of insanity.” If I want to have a much better experience in a game about catching ghosts, I may as well just go play Luigi’s Mansion.

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Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered

$24.99

5

Score

5.0/10

Pros

• Original Cast is Virtually Entirely Present
• Gameplay is Fairly Easy to Learn

Cons

• Unpleasant Humor
• Lackluster AI
• Repetitive Gameplay Mechanics and Level Design