Early Ghostbustering Impressions (Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying About Xbox Live Outages And Love My Childhood)

Ahh.

You ever get one of those?

That "Ahh" feeling? Like right after the first time a girl tells you she loves you (that isn't your mom?), or you finished your last exam for the semester?

That's Ghostbusters.

At least for me.

So rare is it that a licensed game actually manages to be something more than it's an abortion of it's own making.

See the recent Terminator Salvation game, a game that by all rights SHOULD have been cool, but it's overly poor designs, cheap deaths, and steep difficulty curve made it terribly unfun.

Not so with Ghostbusters.

This game is like delicious candy for my brain. I keep getting that "Ahh" feeling when I play it that I fear will not be there if and when I finish the game.

So far I've managed to finish the first level in it's entirety. The game runs you through a rudimentary training mission to go recapture a familiar ghost who's recently escaped. After that you proceed onto an even more familiar setting from the first film.

Going through all this, you can see that there's been a great deal of care given to making this seem as real as possible.

Capcom. Fuck you for delivering Bionic Commando in that state. I heard what you did with that dreck, and given that it's from Grin, who also did Terminator Salvation, it makes sense I suppose.

Atari on the other hand, I'm proud of you guys. Terminal Reality nailed the look, the feel, the sound, and everything of what a Ghostbusters game should be. I might actually pick this up for the Wii after I beat it on the 360 so I can try that version out. This particular version has phenomenal visuals, excellent voice acting, and really well done audio.

If only it could be totally perfect.

You see, I went out and bought the PS3 version today at lunch. You know, the same version that's going to be the only version available in Europe for months due to Sony's dickishness?

Well, Terminal Reality apparently fell asleep at the development wheel and the PS3 version apparently looks like ass.

It was enough to put me off my baloney sammich at lunch. So, after work, I went and swapped out my copy for the 360 version. I know people diss on one system or the other, but after years of RROD, I've grown reticent of picking up multi-platform titles on the 360. So, an opportunity to pick up a Sony-based licensed game on it's own console, when it's got full 1080p support seemed like a good thing. And now it's not.

So, whatever. If you've got a 360, you owe it to yourself and your older siblings (who were alive during the 1980's) to check out Ghostbusters. It's as close as you can get to a 3rd Ghostbusters movie, and should one ever get made, Ghostbusters: The Video Game is going to stand alongside the others as it's own right.