Ghostbusters: The Video GameThe game picks up where the movies left off, with the Ghostbusters as popular as ever and by extension Mayor Lenny. And the Mayor wants to keep it that way so when a huge psychic burst reanimates some old foes, he tries to keep the collateral damage to a minimum by teaming the Ghostbusters up with another old foe: Walter Peck!

In fact the whole gang is back: Venkman, Ray, Egon, Winston, and… Rookie!?

Now it’s bad enough that you have play as some nameless “Rookie” instead of one of the main characters, but he’s so peripheral that he might as well not be there. He never even speaks! This makes any emotional connection with the character impossible. Not that there much time for that anyway. The game is all of 6 hours long!

The new ghosts (even the bosses) are unimaginative & forgettable, and if it weren’t for cult icons like Slimer, the Grey Lady, and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man the city would seem dead (more so than it already is). Except for a few stages like the Times Square battle with Stay Puft & an encounter with the Grey Lady in the New York Public Library (again nothing new), it never really feels like you’re in NYC. You can’t even drive the Ecto-1, although Ray does tease you about it. Heck even the 8os NES game let you drive! If only it was an open-world environment the game could have be awesome, short but awesome.

The actual gameplay is great! Capturing ghosts feels just like you’d think it would: frantic. Ghosts thrash about as you hit them with your proton stream and try reel them in. Fortunately there’s a new innovation to help you with that called “Slam” which lets you knock the wind outta them by violently swinging the ghosts back & forth and even straight into the trap with the proper upgrade, of which there are a lot!

Any real Ghostbuster fan will want to play this regardless of any flaws, but do yourself a favor and rent it. There’s very little replay value, unless you’re big into lame achievements like scanning all the ghosts you encounter or finding utterly random artifacts (most of which you’ll get the first time around anyway).