Reviews// Ghostbusters: The Video Game

I don't dislike the development crew who, when faced with Ghostbusters and angry marketing folk yelling about deadlines for the anniversary, had to come up with a game based on films in which the most interesting things that happened were:

1) Putting ghosts into boxes.
2) Chatting up and/or fighting Sigourney Weaver.
3) Driving around New York City a bit.
4) A single end of the game boss.

It can't be easy to have to insert long, dull, corridor explorations while maintaining your own interest let alone that of gamers and ancient hacks like me. Fair play to them for trying.

On the upside... the controls for putting ghosts in boxes work adequately. The colours and the backdrops are not horrible. The theme music can be turned off once the nostalgia for Ray Parker Jr (Junior!) has riddled your cochlea with past-cancer. The fact that things like jumping, walking fast and turning around are deemed not relevant is dealable; why would you want to. The headset that tells you about all things demonic or plain shady comes on and off with alacrity. Even the method of upgrading abilities and kit isn't anything to scream about.

Again, even criticising such a completely adequate game seems churlish. I feel rather more like jabbing it slightly at times and saying, “A game can't be a movie yet. No matter how hard you try to be the third GB movie, you're not. Now, please can we stop being as linear as a movie and start being a game?”

But the game simply shrugs a little and, without wanting to hurt my feelings, responds, “But I'm an FPS with no annoying HUD and I've got some multi-player... and Bill Murray saying one liners in that ironic, passive aggressive way he has, you know the one that Jack Black turned up to 11 when he used to make watchable movies”.

Speaking of which, god help Brutal Legend... and there I go again, thinking about something other than GB:TVG.

The fact is that you can't simply wrap a game in a nostalgic full-body suit, and expect proton packs, a PKE and some slightly witty lines to make up for mediocrity. The fact is that since game time immemorial that's exactly what has been happening. Still, even I've got to admit that the music business makes its bucks from rehashing old songs, the movie business does the same with remaking movies; comics keep churing out old stories with new characters or vice versa... and the best book I've read in a while is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. So, GB:TVG proves that at least we're now firmly in the mainstream of culture.

SPOnG Score: 75%
Utterly, utterly adequate for a linear FPS. Don't shoot the person who gives it to you. Don't feel ashamed to pick it up as a two-for-one deal. Some witty banter. Some exploration. You get to capture ghosts and shoot up buildings.