Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Ghostbusters: Making a game work out of a movie

RATING: 7/ 10
PLATFORM: PS3, XBOX 360, Wii
GENRE: Movie based Adventure Game
RATED: Teen
PURCHASE RECOMMENDATION: Rent

SUMMARY: Ghostbusters is a successful Movie franchise that has been made into a successful game. Gameplay though slow at first does pick up to an entertaining paced half way through the game. If you have never seen the movies you probably will not know whats going on but the game's story is really not that important. Capture ghost and save the day is basically all you need to know. Ghostbusters had some flaws in it but the very cool looking characters and environments (sorry wii players you miss out on this) make up for a lot.

GAMEPLAY: Ghostbusters takes a small portion of the movie, the actual use of the guns, and creates a whole gameplay around it which is very impressive. At the beginning you only have one option for your type of gun stream which leads to very slow pace gaming (Its like fishing action is slow). However the gameplay grows on you as you have encounter more enemies and earn different choices for attacks. At the end though the game designer just punted and you quickly learn only two of the four types of gun streams are really necessary. Also the clue searching tool, basically a hot and cold game for finding stuff, often leads to you missing the action or getting ambushed by a ghost. Why use a tool that makes life more annoying and harder to reach your goal. To sum it up overall decent success but much room for improvement.

STORY: So Ghostbusters brilliantly does not try to redo any of the movies but simply continues on with the same IP. All the important characters are their and you as the new recruit makes sense. Ghostbuster however makes two major mistakes with the story. First a lot of the story is done in boring talking cut scenes where you have lost all game control. Second the plot is never really explained there are names, people and places your suppose to know about but really have no clue and just go along on the ride. In short your unattached. The dialogue all tends to drag the game down more character interaction is needed.

CONTENT: Ghostbusters does the now traditional amount of content (Story mode, Achievements, online play, video footage and gallery). Story mode is what it is and is the expected length of about 15 hours. Achievements are your standard group with a few chuckles here and there. Online play is entertaining for friends but lacks the competition on competitiveness to really shine on its own. Video footage is a given as this game has about 12 cut scenes you might want to replay. Gallery is probably the most interesting as it gives hardcore fan lots of collectible to find and funny haha moments.

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