Ghostbusters: The Video Game is a 2009 action-adventure third-person shooter video game based on the Ghostbusters media franchise. Terminal Reality developed the Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 versions, while Red Fly Studio developed the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and Wii versions. The game was released after several delays in development and multiple publisher changes. In North America, all versions of the game were published by Atari Interactive, while in Europe, the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and PlayStation 3 versions were published by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. A separate game for the Nintendo DS with the same title was developed by Zen Studios and released at the same time, albeit with substantial differences in the gameplay and story.
The game follows the player's character as a recruit in the Ghostbusters, a team of parapsychologists who pursue and capture ghosts. The game features elements of typical third-person shooters, but instead of a traditional gun, each player is equipped with a Proton Pack, and other technological means of fighting and capturing ghosts. The game's plot is set in 1991, two years after the events of Ghostbusters II, with the Ghostbusters team training the player's character while investigating paranormal activities in New York City.
Many of the principal cast members from the films were involved in the game's production. Each of the actors who portrayed the Ghostbusters in the films (Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, and Ernie Hudson) lent their voices and likenesses to the in-game characters. It is also Ramis's final portrayal as Egon Spengler in the Ghostbusters franchise before his death in 2014, and the game's remastered edition was posthumously dedicated to him. Aykroyd and Ramis, who wrote the films, also aided in script doctoring for the game. Other film cast members to reprise their roles were William Atherton, and Annie Potts. Ghostbusters: The Video Game contains the soundtrack from the original Ghostbusters film, along with various characters, locations, and props featured in the films. Aykroyd later described the game as being "essentially the third movie.""The 'Real' Ghostbusters." Game Informer, 81. Aykroyd:"I've seen work on the video game, I've watched it progress, my rap now to people is 'This is essentially the third movie.'"
The game received generally favorable reviews from critics, and more than three million copies were sold. A remastered version for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, developed by Saber Interactive and published by Mad Dog Games, was released on October 4, 2019.
Gameplay The single-player campaign is the same for the PlayStation 3, Windows, and Xbox 360 versions of the game. The PS2 and Wii versions have a significantly different campaign, but the stories are mostly identical.
The game is a third-person shooter, placing players in the role of a new recruit to the Ghostbusters team known as "the Rookie". Players control the Rookie's movements as he explores the environments of each level, seeking out paranormal activities and ghosts, either alone or in conjunction with the other Ghostbusters. Players can switch to a first-person perspective by equipping the Rookie with a PKE Meter and goggles. In this mode, paranormal items are highlighted and the PKE Meter helps direct players to ghosts or haunted artifacts.
Players can aim and fire a Proton Stream to weaken ghosts, before switching to a capture stream to manoeuvre them into a ghost trap. Continuous use of the Proton Pack causes it to overheat, and players are momentarily unable to use the pack's weapons until vented. The Capture Stream can also be used to "slam" ghosts, and move objects in the environment.
Over the course of the game, the Proton Pack can be upgraded to include additional firing modes such as the Shock Blast, Slime Blower (positively charged), and a Meson Collider, each with an alternate firing mode (a Boson Dart, Stasis Stream, Slime Tether and Overload Pulse). Upgrades are earned by capturing ghosts, and identifying cursed artifacts and new species of ghost. The game also tallies monetary destruction caused by the player, with PlayStation 3 Trophies and Xbox 360 Achievements awarded for either minimizing damage done, or for causing a high amount of damage.
Many of the achievements' names come from quotes in the films, such as the "You Gotta Try This Pole" achievement.
In place of a traditional heads-up display, the player's health and weapon status are represented as meters on the back of the Proton Pack. The player's health regenerates over time if they do not take further damage, and that can be revived if knocked down by any Ghostbusters still standing. Similarly, the player can help revive fallen team members. If all of the active Ghostbusters fall, including the player, the player will have to restart at the last checkpoint.
Other versions The PlayStation 2, PSP, and Wii versions differ slightly from the PlayStation 3, Windows, and Xbox 360 versions. In addition to the cartoon-like graphics and the E10+ rating, the Wii version uses the Wii Remote for gameplay. Visual aspects of the interface are relocated, such as placing the Proton Pack's temperature meter as a HUD element instead of on the backpack. In the PlayStation 2, PSP, and Wii versions, the player "slams" a ghost by initiating a Simon Says-type game with the ghost, and the player is given the option to play as a man or woman.
The DS version shares the same plot, but its gameplay differs in that it is in a squad-based tactical style, with driving sections and RPG elements. The player controls the original cast rather than an unnamed rookie.
Multiplayer The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions feature an online multiplayer mode. Players can play online with up to three others in a variety of missions outside of the main storyline. These missions include capturing as many ghosts as possible in a limited period of time or attempting to defend ghost disruptors as they are charged up. The Wii version is the only platform to feature offline multiplayer, with the entire single-player mission playable by two players in a split-screen mode. An adversarial multiplayer suite was advertised for the Wii version as well, but it is not in the final release. In December 2012, after three years of online gameplay, Atari shut the PlayStation 3 servers down for the online modes. Atari cited the declining online gameplay as the main reason for shutting down the servers.
Synopsis Setting and characters
Ghostbusters: The Video Game is set in November 1991 during the Thanksgiving celebrations, two years after the events of the 1989 supernatural comedy film Ghostbusters II. The primary characters are Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Raymond Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), and Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis), a trio of eccentric parapsychologists who start a ghost-catching business in New York City known as the Ghostbusters. In the original film Ghostbusters, the team combat a rising paranormal threat in the city, hiring a fourth member, Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson) to cope with demand. It is revealed that this threat was the result of machinations by long-dead cult leader Ivo Shandor to bring about catastrophe using his building, 55 Central Park West, to summon the demi-god Gozer the Gozerian. Ghostbusters II follows the team after they have been put out of business due to the damage caused by defeating Gozer. They re-form as a new threat arises in the form of Vigo the Carpathian, a 16th-century tyrant reborn in a painting. In Ghostbusters: The Video Game, the Ghostbusters have become city contractors, authorized and insured to capture ghosts.
The player character is a new recruit dubbed the "Rookie". He is tasked with testing the Ghostbusters' experimental and dangerous devices. Returning characters from the films include the team's receptionist Janine Melnitz (Annie Potts), Walter Peck (William Atherton), who heads the Paranormal Contracts Oversight Commission (PCOC), which oversees the Ghostbusters' operations,Mayor: Well, that's where your old friend Peck comes in. He's annoying, a stickler for the rules, the perfect "Peck" for the job. He's our new head of P-COC! / Stantz: P-COC? / Peck: P-C-O-C. Paranormal Contracts Oversight Commission. And my first official act is going to be suspending you clowns' operating license. Vigo the Carpathian (Max von Sydow), the ghost Slimer, and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, which is the Destructor form of Gozer. The game introduces Mesopotamian professor and Gozerian expert Ilyssa Selwyn, (Alyssa Milano) Jock Mulligan (Brian Doyle-Murray), who succeeded Lenny Clotch as the mayor of New York City, and the Ghostbusters recruit (the game's associate editor Ryan French). The events of the game are set in motion by the machinations of Shandor, who, in death, has become powerful and elevated to the level of a deity, known as a Node Guardian, alongside their accomplices, as well as Edmund Hoover, Cornelius Wellesly, and Evelyn Lewis, who are identified in-game as Azetlor the Destroyer, the Chairman, and the Spider-Witch, respectively. The Ghostbusters find themselves battling them and other spirits of Gozerian cultists, along with their restless murdered victims and random ghosts that are lured by the cult's mandala.
Plot A psi energy pulse emanates from the Gozer exhibit at the Museum of Natural History, engulfing New York City and increasing supernatural activity. The pulse frees Slimer from the Ghostbusters' headquarters, and the Ghostbusters and the Rookie pursue it to the Sedgewick Hotel, where Slimer was first captured. They find that the hotel is haunted by dozens of ghosts and that the Destructor Form of Gozer, the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, has returned and is wreaking havoc throughout the city. Under Ray's guidance, the Rookie destroys Stay-Puft, with the Ghostbusters noting that he was pursuing Sumerian expert Dr. Ilyssa Selwyn.
Another haunting at the New York Public Library draws the team into a confrontation with the restless spirit of the librarian, Dr. Eleanor Twitty (the first ghost encountered by the Ghostbusters in the first film). They learn that Dr. Twitty had been murdered by the philologist Edmund Hoover (a Gozerian cult leader known as the Collector) over a rare book, the Gozerian Codex. After capturing Dr. Twitty, a portal opens to an afterlife dimension referred to by the Ghostbusters as the Ghost World. The Ghostbusters travel through the portal and encounter the spirits of Gozerian cultists. These spirits include Hoover, reborn as Sumerian demi-god Azetlor the Destroyer, whom the Ghostbusters defeat. A recurring symbol the team sees in these haunted locations is revealed to be a mandala representing a spiritual labyrinth running throughout the city, with major nodes positioned toward the library, museum, hotel, and in the Hudson River. The mandala is powered by the ghosts that are drawn into it, increasing in power as they pass through each node, before being fed into the core to power a Destructor Form like Gozer's. The energy merges the Ghost World into the mortal realm, which could result in a disaster of apocalyptic proportions.