Forgotten Game Greats: "Ghostbusters" (2009)

- by Ninja Ross, 15 January 2015

Ghostbusters is one of the greatest movies of all time. I don’t even care about your Citizen Kane, Shawkshank Redemption or whatever you consider to be the greatest movies of all time. All of those should be replaced by Ghostbusters. It’s a pity they never made a video game! Oh wait... THEY DID! 

Way way wayyy back in 2009 [… - Ed.], Atari released Ghostbusters: The Video Game, developed by Terminal Reality. The game stars the majority of the original cast, including Max Von Sydow, and, most importantly, all of the original Ghostbusters. Dan Akroyd even did a little bit of work on the script.

It’s 1991 and the Ghostbusters are now official contractors, with Walter Peck acting as a glorified Nanny, preventing the Ghostbusters from causing too much damage. The Ghostbusters are still famous and loved by the majority of New Yorkers, but they still have to play by the rules!

You play as a new recruit, whom the Ghostbusters refuse to name. During training, things go horribly wrong when lots of Gozer and Ivo Shandor related nastiness begins to happen, including the return of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and Slimer.

And things only get worse from there, with plenty of new and old enemies making an appearance in some way (Vigo the Carpathian being among the best).

From a plot summary alone, it’s easy to believe that this is just a rehash of the first two movies. In fact, a lot of people thought just that while playing the first part.

The team!

That assumption, however, is incorrect. While there are plenty of elements from the movies in this game, it’s far from a rehash. Instead, the game makes the most of the Ghostbusters lore and expands it, giving us more history on a lot of different elements. One of the greatest examples of how the game makes the movies even better is an encounter with the Librarian. This game gives a back story to the first ghosts our heroes ever encountered and even made her an interesting character.

But, as great as the story is, it’d be nothing without excellent gameplay. Good thing it has excellent gameplay, isn’t it?!?

It’s a third person shooter, for the most part, with occasional puzzle solving sections. You’ll have to weaken ghosts with the proton pack, before trapping them. And this never gets boring! As the new recruit, you’re “volunteered” by your teammates to test out new proton pack upgrades, including the shock blast and meson collider. All of which have different firing modes, with a variety of effects.

And when you’re not capturing ghosts, you can switch to first person view and locate hidden artefacts and ghosts using the goggles and PKE meter. This is a surprisingly fun activity, if not too rewarding.

Zap 'em!

And, if you don’t want to be fighting ghosts or picking up old stuff, you can just shoot everything. You build up a bill from the city with every bit of damage you cause. There’s no point in this, but you’ll do it anyway. Who wouldn’t?

As you progress through the game, you’ll also earn money to spend on upgrades, reducing Proton Pack cool down time, Improve accuracy, and do more damage.

Once you get past the initial déjà vu feel from the first part, it becomes a very fun addition to the franchise. One of the best, outside of the original movies. It’s also a lot of fun in general, so you don’t need to be a Ghostbusters fan (?!?) to enjoy it.


Pick the game up and shoot things with a proton pack. A PROTON PACK. How can that not be awesome?

Tagged: video games, Forgotten Game Greats.

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