Ghostbusters: The Video Game

Atari

Perhaps the highest compliment that one can bestow upon this video-game adaptation of the Ghostbusters saga is that it feels like the original films. It’s set two years after Ghostbusters 2, so the dialogue and story, written by Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd, rely heavily on the events in the films, simultaneously falling back on and building upon the previous stories. The campaign mode lets players encounter classic ghouls like the librarian and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man but adds depth to the confrontations so it doesn’t feel like a tired rehash of a movie we’ve seen dozens of times. The voices of Ramis and Aykroyd, along with those of Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson and Annie Potts, do a lot for maintaining the spirit of the franchise, and the game is worth playing just to hear them argue among themselves in the cut scenes. Occasionally clunky controls (there’s a jump button—why?) and unnecessary weapons (added to mix things up) are forgivable next to nice graphics and the ability to see the cast back together. Beyond running through single player once just to battle Stay Puft atop a rooftop (seriously, how cool is that?) you’ll spend most of your time playing with friends online proving you ain’t afraid of no ghosts and thanking Gozer that the trend of crappy Ghostbuster games has finally been broken.