So be good, for goodness’ sake! Wooooaaaaahhh ohhhhh. Somebody’s coming! Let me be the first to tell you that even watching the new Ghostbusters game leads to uncontrollable quoting. During 61FPS’ visit with Sierra last Wednesday, we got to wash the taste of 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand out of our mouth with a demonstration of the sequel that’s been twenty years coming. About a month back, I talked about the momentousness of Ghostbusters: The Game’s development as a collaboration between developers Terminal Reality and franchise creators Dan Ackroyd and Harold Ramis. From the brief look we got, I can say wholeheartedly that the collaboration is a success. Whether or not Ghostbusters turns out to be an excellent game start to finish, its look and tone are pitch perfect, in many ways a more recognizable follow-up to the original film than Ghostbusters 2 was. Of course, the Library of New York setting in this demo, and the appearance of its resident ghoul librarian, helped reinforce the association. The voiceovers here were final (Bill Murray’s Pete Venkman was conspicuously absent) and while the dialogue was largely comprised of incidental quips and instructions made during play, it gave the impression that Ackroyd and Ramis still have a keen sense of their characters. The gameplay itself is an interesting take on the over-the-shoulder 3D shooting that’s become the genre standard since Resident Evil 4. Small ghosts are destroyed by shots but bosses are lassoed and wrestled as they are in the films, recalling GameRepublic’s Folklore in action. While Derrick and Pete thought Ghostbusters visuals weren’t too hot at this point, I thought it looked great. Then again, as you might have been able to tell, I’m a little biased.
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Film to Games: Ghostbusters is the Beginning of a (Hopefully) Beautiful Friendship