Author: Dark Mirage
Title: Ghostbusters DS
Posted: Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 11:41 pm


Ghostbusters DS

Pros:
- Story missions are fairly fun
- Presentation values are solid
- Resource management systems adds a layer of depth to the experience
- Game script has some honestly funny moments

Cons:
- AI partners are virtually useless
- Skill point system is not very well thought out
- Randomly generated missions are a snooze fest
- Driving the Ecto-1 is terrifying


Busting ghosts, crossing streams, and getting slimed. The Ghostbusters videogame has been one of the most highly anticipated licensed revivals ever. Since the film first released in 1984, there have been a large number of Ghostbusters videogames produced to coincide with all manner of films and tv shows. Unfortunately, most of them were about as satisfying as being covered in ectoplasmic goo. Thanks to Atari however, our haunt-stopping heroes finally make their return. Not tied down by the shackles that chaff most licensed titles, Terminal Reality was able to make a competent title for both the PS3 and the 360. Does Zen Entertainment's handheld version remain just as hauntingly epic, or is it the stuff of handheld, ghost fueled nightmares?

Ghostbusters is a fair mixture of game designs. Imagine an overhead action title like Gauntlet, but with skill management and randomly generated missions. Throw into that a full city were you can roam freely around in the Ecto-1, and Ghostbusters sounds like a game bursting with content and depth. Sadly, this phantom impression quickly dematerializes moments into the first level. Ghostbusters suffers from a number of problems that keep it from attaining the level of fun found in the console versions. Thankfully there are some redeeming factors to be found, and no doubt it's these features that will encourage some to complete the game regardless of its largely negative aspects.

The Ghostbusters tale picks up in 1991, three years after the events of the second film. Business is a little slow for our heroes as of late, but things soon pick up once a mysterious fog rolls into town. The Ghostbusters are immediately called upon to catch a slimy old friend who recently returned to his local hotel haunt. Unfortunately for our friends, Slimer is not the only disgruntled ghost returning from the Ghostbusters past... If you've played the console version you'll find a lot of similarities here, but also a number of differences in the game's stories. The biggest one you'll notice right away is there is no rookie character, which really changes the way the game feels. More important is how events unfold without him. While the overall story is similar to the console title, events happen a little differently. That's not exactly a bad thing, but the game then skims over events far too quickly, often with little explanation as to what is going on or why. The dialog is still great for the most part, but there's much less of it. The story starts off fairly well, but after the first boss fight things begin to unravel awkwardly at a slow pace.

Gameplay also comes off much slower than the DS's titles big brother, but in this case that's intentional. The gameplay is simply so different from the console version that it's to be expected, and it's not really a detriment. The DS version of Ghostbusters plays more like an "almost" RPG, and has a weaker focus on outright action. The title involves a combination of top down "dungeons", Ecto-1 driving, and a mixture of weapon, equipment, and research management.

Driving the Ecto-1 against a time limit is where every mission in the gme begins. You'll have a few minutes to traverse a tiny, fictional map of New York City. The city is open ended and you're welcome to roam around it outside of missions. Occasionally random ghosts will appear within the map, and you can capture them using the Ecto-1's proton laser to gain a little extra cash. At first this all seems impressive, especially since the graphics are actually pretty good (The Ecto-1 is even SHINY! Oooo). The moment you try to move the Ecto-1 though, the entire experience falls apart. You control the Ecto-1 entirely with the D-Pad, using forward to move forward, and back to move back, while the laser is controlled with the stylus. The driving controls are incredibly cumbersome. Moving is an utter pain, but more so because the DS simply is not equipped to handle diagonals very well. Any time the Ecto-1 hits an object, it stops instantly, and you are forced to reverse. The car also continues to move forwards or backwards unless you hold the D-Pad in the opposite direction, so expect your thumb to be overworked. To make matters worse, the Ecto-1 takes damage, which slows your car down to a crawl and costs a very good chunk of cash to repair. The car can never be totaled, but driving the Ecto-1 at the slowest speed is complete torture. To cap the experience off, the draw distance is abysmal. The entire drive you'll choking on distance fog the likes of which hasn't been seen since Superman 64. Overall the game would have benefited immensely from avoiding the whole driving portion altogether. There's pretty much nothing redeemable here.

The overhead levels thankfully fare better, but not by much. Using the stylus and d-pad, you'll control the four Ghostbusters as they attempt to traverse overhead, dungeon like environments. The d-pad is used to move the Ghostbuster you currently have selected, while the stylus is used to aim and fire his Proton pack. You can swap which Ghostbuster you're controlling by clicking their portrait on the right hand side of the screen, as well as tell them to follow you or hold their position. Each character has unique abilities, so you will need to swap them once in a while to make the best use of their skills. For example, Egon can temporarily boost his attack power by a huge percentage, while Peter is the only character that can escort civilians who are scared.

The formula is actually pretty well thought out, but the execution erodes the experience until there's little value left. The tasks you have to complete are the same four tasks repeated until the end of the game: Save civilians, collect items, stop a ghost generator, or bust some ghosts. It's required to do a large number of these missions repeatedly to progress, so they very quickly become tiresome. To make dull tasks duller, the environments change very little over the course of the game. Be prepared to see the same cemetery dozens of times, or the same library over and over with a slightly different room layout. Your AI friends will be no help in making these missions any easier either, as they completely lack AI. They do nothing more than follow you, shoot any nearby enemies, or hold their position. On the upside, ghost busting is kinda fun. Together with your friends you have to zap ghosts until their health is depleted, upon which you can throw a trap and capture them. It works well enough, but the ghosts themselves are cheap opponents. Anytime they attack or walk into you, you are completely stunned for several seconds. If they have a long range attack, ghosts usually use the opportunity to spam you with attacks while you're helpless. Worse is that they can do this way off screen, with little chance of you being able to determine where they are or where their attacks will come from. In the end, the bulk of the gameplay is little fun. The only missions that were fun to complete were the story based ones, but there's not nearly enough of them. Some of the boss fights are also either extremely easy, or extremely difficult thanks to your partners lack of intelligence. On the whole there are some good ideas within these stages, but the most redeeming part of them is they're usually very fast and easy to complete.

Once you complete your missions, you'll be thrown back to the Ghostbusters home turf. Here you can do a number of things involving money management, weapon research or skill development.

Resource management is a huge part of the DS game that really separates it from its console brothers. Every mission you complete will net you money, reputation, and slime. Money and slime are used to do things like research or produce new items or weapons, while reputation affects the pay you receive from jobs. You can sometimes sacrifice your reputation for money, or for making development go by faster. If your reputation becomes too low however, you lose the game. You also must develop certain items to progress the game's story. So while the story stages are the best, it's required that you complete enough miscellaneous quests to proceed. When you set items to be created, they take a certain number of days to complete, which is equal to a number of missions. It's a clever system for anyone who enjoys a more RPG approach to their games, but the system is broken by the gameplay that rides on its back. Thanks to the random missions being so aggravating, resource management soon becomes a process you wish you could skip altogether to get on with the cool story levels.

Along with money and reputation comes skill management as well. Each character has a unique set of skills you can upgrade as they become stronger through completing missions. The list of abilities is pretty small, but the variety isn't so bad. The biggest problem that comes from this system is how few useful skills there are to be found. Sure it's great that Peter can heal allies better than anyone else, by why is Winston stuck with a skill that increases the time limit of the driving missions, or reduces the cost of fixing the Ecto-1? There's a lot of opportunity here that was missed, and I personally never really needed any of the additional skills anyways seeing as how the game is so easy outside of a couple boss fights. Why bother with this system all?

At least Zen Entertainment did bother to make the Ghostbuster DS presentable. The graphics are solid for the most part, with plenty of detail in the overhead environments. It's fun to watch places get destroyed as you swing your Proton laser all around the various stages. The music is lifted right from the movie, and put to good effect. My only major gripe with this is that the Ghostbusters theme loops endlessly while you drive the Ecto-1, totally driving the theme into the ground. Sadly there's pretty well no voice acting to be found in the game, but the writing is snappy enough that this is slightly made up for. Controls are simple to learn, and menus are easy to navigate. Overall the game actually looks and sounds pretty good, so it's too bad that other factors drag this all down.

Ghostbusters is simply a border-line average experience. There are a few good ideas to be had here though. The overhead exploration system was a good choice, and the resource management adds a nice layer of depth to the overall experience. Add to that some decent presentation values, fun story missions, and the game actually had a chance. It's unfortunate that things like the horrible execution of the Ecto-1 driving, the lame off screen ghost battles, the horrible AI, and the grossly repetitive mission structure eliminates much of the fun that could have been had from this title.

So, who you gonna call? Someone else. While Casper's three uncles might be one of the few things the Ghostbusters are scared of, I don't doubt this game would rank somewhere in the same level of fear. I wanted to avoid comparing this to the console versions as much as possible since the gameplay is so completely different, but the fact of the matter is that the DS game simply doesn't stand up in terms of fun. If you have a home console, do yourself a favor and purchase the real Ghostbusters experience. It's a shame that a title with so much potential finds itself stuck in this lame destructor form. At least Gozer's destructor form was kinda tasty...

End score:

6/10



Product link:

Buy Ghostbusters for DS on Amazon here!

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