*days may or may not be concurrent.

Lets face it over the years there have been a lot, and I mean a lot of crappy games based on movies. however I found with my experience there where a lot of really good games based on movies on the Gameboy. A few I'll go more into detail about later but for now I just got one question I need to ask you? Who you gonna call?



I remember when I first got this game, my family went on a trip to a major town south of where I lived called Albany, I can't recall why we went there, but we did. Must have been something major as when I was down there we stopped by the local Toy World (or was it K-Mart) and they got me this game. They also got my brother later in the day from a second hand store a copy of Metroid II (more on that later).



There had been a few Ghostbusters games prior to this one, I enjoyed Ghostbusters 1 on the C64, never finished the thing but I found it to be fun. Ghostbusters 2 on the C64 I also enjoyed a lot but maybe that was just my child like eyes enjoying anything with the Ghostbuster logo. However they both pale in comparison to the greatness of Ghostbusters 2 on Gameboy. The game was made by HAL and came out in 1990. You can almost tell right away looking at the game it was unlike the previous Ghostbusters game not made by an American company. Has that distinct Chibi look and just oozes the usual charm a lot of HAL's games seem to have.



So you start the game by choosing 2 of your fav Ghostbusters. I always choose Ray & Peter, Peter cause its Bill freaken Murray and even to my young 10 year old mind he was awesome and Ray cause he wore those kick ass little Ghostbusting goggles I would of killed someone for. The game more or less follows the movie plot in the same way a lot of movie tie games seemed to (I would always imagine in my mind that this stuff did happen in the movie it was just in between the scenes they showed you), you go from various areas catching ghosts trying not to be slimed, boss battles at the end of each area and then on to the next place. You start in the Court House, head done to the Sewers and the River of Slime and then finally onto the Art Gallery where Vigo is waiting for the final battle.



As you go through the game you fight several different types of ghosts, from your standard running man ghost, to Slimers, the Mink Fur Coats and so on. Each with its own annoying little trait to make you stumble, for example Slimers will appear out of no where and try and get you. There are the Spinning Whirling Dervish type ghosts that follow the basic video game rule of not being able to be beaten while they spin. Whats annoying is that some Ghosts (ie Slimers) won't appear until you walk near a certain area & to clear each stage you have to get all the ghosts under a time limit. It can get rather annoying when you have 30 seconds left and one more ghost to catch and are trying to find out where the little bastard is hiding.



As I said you control 2 Ghostbusters at a time, one zapper one trapper. I say control 2 but its more you control the zapper and the trapper follows you around. Once you've stunned a ghost with the zapper, the trapper will (most of the time) move into position for you to activate the trap and get the ghost. It starts of easy but the ghosts get harder and harder, having said that the difficulty curve feels just right, like in a lot of HAL's games. As you go through the game other Ghostbusters will be around to offer help such as giving you extra health or power ups such as the Slimer gum which for a limited time auto kills ghosts or a Pick axe to break down walls. Once you get to your boss battles its more or less the zapper doing all the work until the boss is dead and then onto the next area.


Get Him!!!!!

I like this game, its not a game that I change your world, but its a fun little game and one I still enjoy playing to this day. There was also a NES version made by HAL that only came out in Japan and Europe, which more or less plays the same just with the advantage of colour and so on. Plus like all good Ghostbuster games it has the single greatest song of the 80's playing on the start up screen and who doesn't love that.


He slimed me