Ghostbusters

Copyright : Activision | Reviewed by : Patrick Furlong

Ghosts have started appearing in New York City. It all started with a librarian discovering one in the New York Public Library and then Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) saw Hell in her fridge. Disgruntled university professors Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Raymond Stantz (Dan Aykroyd) and Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis) set up Ghostbusters to bust the ghosts using nuclear acclerators and sticking them in a containment unit. The game is based on that premesis, you guide your car and Ghostbusters throughout New York City to a building is flashing red. When at the building and you can see your ghost, you need to set the trap, get your Ghostbusters into position, open fire and try to get the ghost - the more you catch, the more money you make. If you don?t succeed, one of your Ghostbusters will get slimed and you fail. When you run out of traps or two Ghostbusters gets slimed, you have to go back to Ghostbusters HQ to recover and get more traps. Before the game starts, you have the choice to start a new franchise or use an existing account number from a previous game (to get the money you made from it). From there, you select one of four cars and your equipment. At times, there will be a Marshmellow alert so you have to press B very quickly otherwise a building will be crushed and you will have to pay for it. At the end of the game, you have to goto Zuul, get two men past the Marshmellow Man (not too easy) and defeat Gozor by crossing the streams (which will normally vaporise you).

Graphics

The graphics look basic but remember, this is 1985. Despite this, they are still good and haven?t aged much. There are a few graphical bugs at times like your ghost tends to turn invisible and have to take pot luck when using the trap. When you?ve been slimed, a ghost?s arm can go from one side of the screen to another. As I said above, buildings flash red when a ghost is attacking it and when a building might have a ghost, it turns purple as you drive past it. Buildings turn white if the Marshmellow Man is about to attack it.

Sound

A digitized voice saying Ghostbusters play at the beginning of the game and when you bust a ghost. When you get slimed, there is a digitized laugh. Throughout the game, a version of the Ghostbusters theme plays and this and the digitized effects are good. For a laugh, after the game finishes loading, it plays the theme and there is a bouncing ball and the words to the Ghostbusters song so you can have an attempt at singing it!

Gameplay

It?s easy to get into, but can get boring after a while after you?ve busted your 10th ghost. It can also get boring waiting for something to happen but towards the end of the game everything starts to happen - lots of ghosts start attacking and there are also marshmellow alerts until finally you get to attack Zull to destroy Gozor. Activision have done a good job with this licence, considering there wasn?t much in the very good film to adapt into game (unlike Ghostbusters II).