Ghostbusters: The Video Game has been rescued from video game limbo and is back on track. Originally to be published by Sierra/Vivendi but scuttled due to the Activision/Blizzard merger Terminal Reality, with Atari on board to publish, is now crafting the game. Built on Terminal Reality's proprietary Infernal Engine, which is capable of super-intricate amounts of detail. The game's screenshots and trailers look dazzling; with every possible techno bell and whistle needed to faithfully capture the sights and sounds of the Ghostbusters world. But the question on every gamers’ mind is the same: can this game deliver an experience that lives up to the bar set high by original movie (and subsequently found impossible to achieve by every game that followed it -- not to mention the sub par sequel film)?
You probably already know that Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis have written the script for the game. And it's likely you know that all four main actors (and several side players like actors William Atherton and Annie Potts) are lending their voices to the game. Sadly, there's no Sigourney Weaver or Rick Moranis, but Alyssa Milano joins the cast as a museum curator named Dr. Ilyssa Selwyn, a love interest for Bill Murray's Peter Venkman. With so many original members of the team back for what everyone seems to be treating as Ghostbusters III, Terminal Reality is clearly going for authenticity in the game's story, hoping to recapture the blend of humor and horror that the first film is still remembered for. It's widely known that Aykroyd in particular has been pining to do a third movie in the series for decades; this game gives him the chance to tell a new Ghostbusters story as a real sequel to the films, rewinding the clock to when the cast was young enough to still pull it off.
As for the story, it puts you on the Ghostbusters team as a nondescript new fifth member some two years after the second movie. Once again, New York is being overrun by the supernatural, this time with elements of their spiritual dimension bleeding into our reality. But this time, things are radically different for our heroes: unlike the beginning of Ghostbusters II, when the team was disgraced and disbanded, now the people of New York City adore the Ghostbusters, and the city itself has even contracted the team as its official experts on Paranormal Investigation and Elimination. This new recruit you'll play as, watching everything over his shoulder third-person style, won't wisecrack his way onto the team.
He'll be silent throughout the game, letting the player watch and enjoy the interaction between the established characters from right on the sidelines. But you'll have a lot more to do than just watch -- you'll be an integral part of the team, helping this familiar cast of characters capture ghosts and "bust some heads, in a spiritual sense." And you'll be assigned the fun-sounding job of field-testing new equipment for the company, a conceit that allows the game designers to introduce lots of powerful new gadgets for players to wield. Remember, the key to making Ghostbusters: The Video Game work is faithfulness to the source material. Remember how in the movies, the streams from the proton packs would destroy nearly everything in sight while the guys were trying to capture ghosts? Appropriately, almost everything in the game is destructible, and your proton packs will scorch or obliterate nearly all you can see.
