- March 24th, 2011, 7:05 pm#311727I gave it a chance. I'm not digging it so far.
Shooting and destroying ghosts instead of trapping them really doesn't feel like Ghostbusters. As was once said, catching ghosts is like getting smoke into a bottle using a baseball bat. How many video games are there where you shoot stuff and it blows up? (That's rhetorical.) On the other hand how many games involve vanquishing the foe by lassoing it and tugging it into place, while holding it still long enough to be captured?
Apparently the trapping was removed so that it wouldn't break up the fast-paced action. Of course, they had no qualms about breaking up the "fast-paced action" with boring, wordy, comic strips that go on for ages. I tried reading them, but sitting a normal distance from my HDTV, the print was giving me a headache. Either the text went by too fast as I was squinting at it, or I couldn't skip through it fast enough once I decided I'd had enough. Why does this type of game even need such a verbose story? Really all I needed this game to say is: Here's a proton pack, go bust ghosts.
The gameplay itself, besides lacking trapping, lacks in other ways as well. It's too easy to be moved off the screen as other players move around or be shooting at something that's off the screen or hidden behind the HUD. And every time a character has something to say during the action, the speech box pops up on the side of the screen IN THE MIDDLE, often right in the way, and requiring a button press to make it go away. The game does not give me the sense that there is any power behind the proton streams. It feels like a weak streamer that you can just flick around at will. The sounds also seem "off" somehow. The music is not bad, but doesn't pull me into the game.
Sure, I've only had part of a day to spend with the game, and as it is a Ghostbusters game I do want to complete it. Right now though, as I think about playing it, it seems like a chore. I ended up paying the ten bucks for it. My kid seems to enjoy playing it with me. He's 7. Then again, he hasn't asked me about playing it at all today... perhaps he's already forgotten about it.
Don't talk to anyone. Don't touch anything, don't do anything, don't interact with anyone, and try not to look at anything.