Not long ago, I mentioned that I was really looking forward to the new Ghostbusters game. As you can probably guess from the title of this post, I now have the game and if you have been paying attention to my gamerscore, then you will know that I have completed the singleplayer campaign.
In other words, no better time than now to give my impressions of the singleplayer game!
Stuff I liked!
Fan service - This game is probably the ultimate in fan service and is what changes this from an okay action game into a fun experience for ghostbusters fans. The developers have done a fantastic job of capturing the spirit and essence of the movie. At every turn, you find subtle and not-so-subtle pointers to the original movies. The sound of the proton pack charging up, the reappearance of Stay Puft, the use of direct quotes as achievements - I could go on, but I would be here all day!
All of these touches help transport you back 25 years to when the movie was first released. All of the reviews seem to have picked up on this but it really does bear mentioning again - if you are a ghostbusters fan, you will enjoy this game.
Characters - Although linked to the fan service point above, this point is so cool that its worth repeating on its own. The original writers (Dan Akroyd and Harold Ramis) were involved in the script and it shows as the characterisation of the ghostbusters is spot on. Venkman is still the smooth talking "game show host" that he is in the movies, Stantz is still spouting off technobabble with boyish eagerness, Spengler is still the verbose scientist and Zeddemore is still the straight talking ordinary Joe. Seeing these characters interact with each other the way that you would expect them to makes a huge difference.
Creepy - One of the things which the developers managed to do was make the game really creepy. There are quite a few areas where you are wandering around with your goggles equipped and your PKE meter out. Naturally, in this kind of situation, you can't fire your proton pack so you are on edge a little bit anyway. Throw in some dark corridors, creepy ghost noises, flying bookshelves and the steadily increasing beep-beep-beep of your PKE meter as you get closer to the ghost and you can easily understand why the game is scary. Naturally, I played in the dark with the lights off as well.
Bustin' ghosts - Some reviews actually dinged the game for the repetitive nature of capturing ghosts which is one of the areas where I disagree with reviewers. In my opinion, the game actually does a good job of mixing up the types of ghosts you face - some of them need to be captured while others need to be obliterated (I believe neutronised is the technical term). In fact, according to the end of game stats, there are actually more ghosts that need to be obliterated than there are ghosts that need to be captured although this number will be skewed slightly by the fact that some of the minor ghosts can be obliterated quite easily.
And this doesn't even take into account the boss fights. In any event, the key point is that I never got bored with grappling ghosts into the trap.
Dislikes!
AI - I know its very easy to bash AI and that all of the reviews have already done so - but its just not possible to comment on this game without mentioning the AI. In short, the AI of your squadmates really is atrociously bad.
There are a couple of areas near the end of the campaign where you literally spend more time running around trying to heal the other ghostbusters than you do shooting at ghosts. In fact, there were a couple of times when all I did was run around healing ghostbusters (eventually the ghosts knocked me down and I had to reload as, without me healing them, everybody else died within 2-3 seconds). This just shouldn't happen - not even if you are playing on the hardest difficulty setting.
PS If you have watched Yahtzee's review of the game, his description of "retard roundup" is absolutely spot on.
Rookie - The other thing I disliked was the fact that you played a nameless mute. Throughout the entire game, you never speak and are only ever referred to as rookie, intern, new guy etc etc. I've heard all the reasons why this was done (eg to not taint the original ghostbusters, to let people be the rookie without breaking their immersion and, based on the end credits, to set up possible game sequels where the "rookie" sets up a new ghostbusters franchise in a different city) but really, what a cop-out. It really made the cutscenes and story feel weaker for having them jump around the 5th mute ghostbuster.
No coop - This isn't really a dislike per se. However, I really think they missed an opportunity here as I think this would have made a great co-op game.
Overall, a thumbs up from the Meister and a recommendation for you to play this game - but only if you can identify who made the below quotes!
"Yes, its true. This man has no dick."
"Listen ... do you smell something?"
"I'm terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought"
"when someone asks you if you're a God, you say YES!"
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