Ghostbusters: The Videogame PC Review

Posted by Sergiu Petrisor in PC Reviews on Jul 15th, 2009 | one response

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Ghostbusters: The Video Game is played from a third person perspective so that you can see all of the work the developers did making a “realistic” proton pack. The pack itself shows your health and ammo level, since you have to reload every once in a while (a nonsensical and tired gimmick that introduces no tactical element). You are given four variations on the proton pack, and each weapon has primary and secondary fire modes.

The weapons are surprisingly conventional: the proton stream is your rifle with grenade attachment, the slime blower is the bio-rifle from Unreal Tournament and the gravity gun from Half-Life 2, the shock blast is a shotgun and freeze gun, and the meson collider is a sniper rifle and guided missile launcher. Of course, all of these weapons have been morphed into the Ghostbusters canon, but the lack of true originality is notable. There can be some strategy when you unlock everything, alternating between weapons, but it’s not enough to be considered a deep experience, mainly because most ghosts can only be affected by a specific weapon, so it’s a matter of simply memorizing the correct counters. You can purchase two upgrades for each firing mode, about the only strategic choice regarding weapons in the game.

Capturing ghosts involves a four-step process. The first step is admitting the problem. No, wait, the first step is to use your PKE meter to detect the specific locations where ghosts are or have been; these places are quite scripted and the game won’t advance until you Ghostbusters Screenshot properly use the meter, even if you know where the ghost is. The second step is using your weapon of choice to decrease the health of the ghost. This simply involves holding down the fire button and following the ghosts with your mouse until their health turns “red” as indicated by the targeting reticule. Thirdly, you switch to your capture stream by holding shift (this is also done automatically) and slam the ghost around by pressing the right mouse button. Finally, guide the ghost over to a trap and suck it down. The controls are not as precise as I would have wanted, though I suspect this is partly by design to introduce some element of challenge to the game. Being a PC gamer, I obviously turned off any help, as auto-targeting is for people who are playing on an inferior gaming system. For whatever reason (either my system or the game engine itself), aiming is made more difficult because the game has inconsistent frame rates as you pan around each room. In any event, combat in Ghostbusters is devoid of sense of tactics: more advanced weapons are intended for specific ghosts, and enemies have too much health, requiring you to hold down the mouse button for two minutes while following them around like you are doing a maze.