Developer: Saber Interactive
Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4 (Reviewed), Switch ,Xbox One
Genre: Action
Publisher: Mad Dog Games
“A supernatural energy pulse emanates from the Gozer exhibit at the Museum of Natural History, engulfing New York City and increasing supernatural activity. The pulse liberates a captive ghost in the Ghostbusters’ headquarters, and they and their rookie pursue it to the Sedgewick Hotel. They find that the hotel is now 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, noting that it was weaker than their previous encounter with it and that it was pursuing a young woman, Dr. Ilyssa Selwyn.”
The plot is pretty like the plot on the movies, stuff happens in a random way connecting everything to one plot at the end. This game’s story connects the first and the second movie (which is cool since they did a great job).
You play the game as the fifth ghostbuster known only as the “Rookie”. The newcomer is a way that they found for you to feel like one of the Ghostbusters without making you choose between one of them and I must say… it works very well! The game gives you the exact sensation of being a Ghostbuster, especially because you get to use all those awesome movie gadgets and more
The game was written and directed by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis (Two of the original cast) so the game follows the same touch of the movies.
The graphics on the remaster are ok but as I already have seen before in other remastered games, they didn’t give any treatment to the cutscenes, for the game itself they only did a very smooth treatment on the graphics, I played The Ghostbusters game on the PS3 before… and I must say that unfortunately, it looks exactly the same… the remaster is almost unnoticeable in my opinion.
The controls are easy to catch up but controlling the stream is not an easy task at the beginning (Just like in the movies where the beans behave randomly) but you do have a quick tutorial mission that sets you on the right direction. A cool detail is that the trapped and scanned ghosts have a background that you can access to find weaknesses and to know about his history.
The Boss fights aren’t difficult but the AI gets a lot on your way, so be prepared to “die” a lot. Every time you get too much damage your character falls on the ground and you need to wait until someone comes to “revive” you, the same works for you when a team-mate falls you also have to aid him and that happens a LOT.
Even with the remaster you will suffer a little bit with the controls and characters stiffness, you have to keep in mind that this is a PlayStation 3 game… So, you have to cut some slack here.
The mission objectives are well set. So no need to wander around the map (Which for me is a petty because I love wandering around the map just to see the entire scenario that was built).No need to say that there are thousands of references to the first 2 movies (Since this game is a direct continuation to the movies), the Jokes (mostly from Bill Murray) match up with the same level of the movies.
Every time you miss a target and destroy something a “Fee” appears on the left top corner of the screen, as far as I could notice, that “fee” only leads to a trophy at the end of the game… so it’s up to you to destroy A LOT OF STUFF or avoid destroying anything as much as possible.
The PKE meter is one of your best buddies and it goes with you the entire game, this device helps you to find supernatural signals as well as tracking them. Keep in mind that it can get spooky going after ghosts with a tracker that gets louder and louder every inch that you get closer to the ghost.
And now the best thing about this game! The proton pack!!! The backpack has a few perks to add to it, every feature has a few updates for you to purchase and improve your gun (not just for your gun but for all your gadgets), they are all very straightforward to understand its use and there is a detail that I loved, that is the animation on the backpack for every type of laser bean you choose to use, so keep your eye on it. To trap a Ghost there are 3 easy steps.
1 Fire at him until his health gets low (Than you can SLAM his a@$ on the walls to get him dizzy)
2 Release the Trap
3 Center the ghost on the trap to lock him up
TIP: The ECO-1 has a insta-trap device on the top of it! Pretty useful.
Since they use the same music from the movies that can have two reactions from you, nostalgic or repetitive (after a few loops) but in general it fits the game’s atmosphere very well, the sounds of the game are exactly the same as the ones we heard in the movies.
The voice acting… oh man… that was what most bothered me… Even though the voices are from the actors, it sounds like they did it just to get it done… there is no effort on it, most of the time the voices don’t match the situation… like the characters weren’t there but at some studio recording everything. Still, on the voice actors I did a “Rank” on the performances:
1st Place: Ernie Hudson – He is just brilliant! No complaints at all on his work here, he did a great job on every scene he is in.
2nd Place: Dan Aykroyd – For someone so connected to the game I did expect more… But he does a good job.
3rd Place: Harold Ramis – Same as Dan Akroyd, good job on in but with something missing…
4th Place: Bill Murray – Totally lack of commitment… His voice sounds like he doesn’t want to be there… No emotion no nothing… terrible job.
Nostalgic! This is the word for this game, during the whole game you are surrounded by thousands and thousands of references all the time so you get a great feeling during the entire game! Like you were reviving all those awesome moments from the movies at the same time that you are now playing a different story. I loved to see new ghosts to fight against the ghosts in the game are awesome and they keep you entertained they entire game with a plus of the old main ghosts that you will recognize from the movie.
Graphically speaking there is no real remaster on this case, the game is the same it just looks like they add a blur to it or that they just smoothed some areas here and there… nothing noticeable. But it was AWESOME to play it again! As a HUGE fan of the Ghostbusters, playing it again on the PS4 and going through once again was great.
My hopes for the new movie are high! Maybe soon enough I’ll be writing about a new Ghostbusters game.
Judging this game as a remaster I, unfortunately, will have to take some points off because they could have done a very incredible job here… I mean… it’s a PS4 guys common.
Ps: For the long-time fans, here is another tip: Do explore the firehouse! There are some fine Easter eggs there.
“I ain’t afraid of no ghost”
Overall: 6/10
Writer
Photography enthusiastic and a diehard games fan (Thanks to FF7 )! And I´m from Brazil btw \o ahhahaha
