Ghostbusters 2

Copyright : Activision | Reviewed by : Patrick Furlong

Five years after freeing New York City from the forces of Zull, Gozor and the Marshmallow Man, the Ghostbusters are back. They are brought out of retirement by Peter Venkman?s (Bill Murray) former love intrest Dana (Sigourney Weaver) whose son was driven to the middle of the road when his pram was taken over. They find ?mood slime? which feeds on emotions and a river of slime in the sewers leads back to the Manhatten Museum of Art where a painting of Vigo the Carpathian, an evil man from hundreds of years ago is planning his resurrection with the help of Dana?s son and posessed museum curator Dr. Janosz Poha (Peter MacNicol - best known for his role as John Cage in Ally McBeal).

In this game, you play three levels with a crippling multi-load for tape owners. Level 1 has you as Ray Stanz (Dan Aykroyd) who is going down into the sewers to find out what?s going on. Level 2 has the Ghostbusters in the Statue of Liberty on their way to the museum and the final level has you in the museum to destroy Vigo once and for all. A surprise for this game was the fact the game was coded by the Oliver Twins, coding for another company besides Codemasters. Will their full price debut be a hit or a miss?

Graphics

The main talking point is the inbetween digitized graphics from the film. Level One has a shot from the scenewhere Dana?s son is taken to the middle of the road, a later scene between Dana and Spengler (Harold Ramis) and finally from the scene where the Ghostbusters are digging the road. Level 2?s shots are a picture of Vigo, a shot of the museum and the Statue of Liberty. Level 3?s shot . After you win the game, you get a shot of Venkman, Dana and her baby. Level 1 + 2 are done in very colourful MODE 0 and there is hardly any blockiness. Level 3 is MODE 1 or 2 and makes use of two colours. It features digitized pictures of the four Ghostbusters along with Janosz and Vigo. These graphics are nice and detailed. All the in-game graphics are nice and fast.

Sound

Each level has a tune - the first two are versions of the Ghostbusters theme while level 3 has a version of Higher, which features in the film. These are well done and the in-game sound effects are just fine and serve the purpose fine.

Gameplay

There is a different style of gameplay in each level and the difficulty level is just right. Every time you complete a level, your lives are replenished. The game is easy to get into. Sadly, it has a crippling multi-load on tape - it takes approx 15 minutes to load level 1 and around 5 - 10 mins to load the other levels. But the quality of the gameplay makes it worth it.

Activision has done a good job with this licence but sadly, the tape multi-load loses the game a point.