Buy Ghostbusters: The Videogame

Ghostbusters: The Video Game may very well be the only thing we will ever see resembling a (real) third movie for the series. The story picks up where the second movie left off with an all new disturbance that sets off a chain of events requiring the ghostbusters to spring into action once again, this time with a new recruit (you) in charge of testing new and extremely dangerous equipment. You also spend some time re-visiting locations from the previous movies as well as a few familiar faces and specters.

Gameplay is similar to any over-the-shoulder style shooter and your character handles pretty well, especially when he dodges. Ghosts operate on a sort of pokemon logic where you have to damage them until their health meter dips into the red before wrangling them with the capture beam into your ghost trap. You get a variety of different weapons and purchasable upgrades that all add some sort of utility in addition to being a different style of damage (slowing monsters, tethering things, slamming objects, etc). Most of the weapons are actually useful for specific situations and I didn’t find myself using only one type of attack for the majority of the game, which was a welcome bit of variety since in a lot of games with multiple weapon types it’s typical for a good chunk of them to be totally unused or ignored.

The game throws a few boss battles at you here and there and they’re generally a bit challenging, but what is unfortunately more challenging is the absolutely lackluster AI. I probably spent 1/3 of the game reviving my teammates and if you play on any higher level difficulty you will likely be doing the same. The other ghostbusters have a bad habit of getting knocked down when out of sight or in the middle of a swarm and while they can raise each other, you will absolutely need to pitch in once the second one drops or it will start a chain reaction of repeat incapacitation and reviving, ending in you being the only one left alive. Once you’re all down it’s back to the last checkpoint and this can be particularly frustrating if you were near the end of an encounter or boss fight. I hear the original release of this game on console had multiplayer and I really wish they hadn’t stripped it out of the PC version because this game would be loads of fun to play with friends instead of barely-functional AI.

Despite the flawed AI, and a few performance issues with the final battle (massive FPS drop), I have absolutely no other criticisms of this game. The characters are acted out perfectly by their original actors, something unheard of in most movie-video game adaptations. The combat is actually fun and challenging, and once you figure out how to babysit the AI they become less of a hindrance and more of a “get out of incap free” card. The graphics are pretty decent for a game released in 2009 and you can tweak a settings file to put in some anti-aliasing if you feel like it. Considering the fact that you can pick up this game for less than $5 during sales, you’d be doing yourself a real disservice if you were to pass up on such an underrated gem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YQ2eqzjC64

If you're a fan of the classic Ghostbusters, especially the first movie with Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harlod Ramis, and Ernie Hudson, the you WILL be a fan of this game.

The dialogue is SO spot on that it's amazing and makes you feel like you're part of Ghostbusters III.

The graphics have aged well, especially considering this game is almost a decade old. The faces move nearly perfectly with their lines in custscenes and it's not hard to look at.

There were only a couple parts that have frustrated me:
1) The aiming can be a bit wonky. With a mouse, it feels like the aiming up close goes way too slowly and far away is way too quick. Using a controller makes that smoother, but you lose fine motor control, which can make putting ghosts in the traps a pain if you're alone (meaning sans Egon, Ray, etc.).
2) Sometimes the game can use the same exact elements for totally different situations, leading to confusion and death. For example, there's a spot where these weak book ghosts are flying in swarms, but you have to run up some crumbling stairs and are rushed by Egon and Ray. This led me to believe that I needed to sprint through past the enemies. I died. Then I tried fighting them and got nowehere (they kept respawning). I realized then it was a PUZZLE. There had been puzzles before, but not like that. I got past it easily enough, but be ready for things to shift up on you.

That aside, if you love Ghostbusters or feel the 2016 movie wasn't good enough for you, PLAY THIS.

better than the new moive also i have nothing agianst the female actors it was the lines that sucked it could have been a good moive if the moive producers thought and put time into it. also feminist people go to hell this is about our child hoods stop makeing it about you fu#k u ur like alex a stupid fu@king nig#ers all alike.

I own this on Xbox 360 as well, and I bought it when it came out for 360 and enjoyed it a lot which is why I eventually bought it here as well. It's a fantastic game, and like Dan Aykroyd said, this is rightfully the third Ghostbusters movie. Cannot recommend this enough.

This is really the only GB game to give the Ghostbusters experiance.

This makes me feel like in the 3 movie and it already beats the new movie.

The real Ghostbusters 3!

Le véritable Ghostbusters 3 !

Any fan of Ghostbusters owes it to themselves to play through this action packed adventure. The graphics still manage to capture 1984 New York and the franchise itself fantastically well, the music is taken straight from the movies, and the "gunplay" (or rather, protonplay) is incredibly unique and engaging, if a tad floaty when using a mouse versus a controller.

Most importantly, however, is the fantastic script and perfect voice acting from the original writers and actors Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, and Annie Potts. The nuances of the movie's genius was perfectly captivated here, making this practically a full scale Ghostbusters 3 (and far better than the preceding Ghostbusters 2, I might add).

If you're not a Ghostbusters fan, you'd be missing a decent, but not mind-blowingly fantastic, single player fps by skipping this game. For a real junkie, this will be exactly what you need to scratch that ecto-itch and fill that Slimer shaped hole in your heart.

This is basically the actual 3rd movie with the original cast that never happened.

The best Ghostbusters game made, basically the third movie.