Ten years after it’s PS3 release, the remastered version of Ghostbusters: The Video Game has landed on the PS4 to fulfill all your ghost-hunting needs. Find out how it aged in our Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered review!
For those who haven’t played the original game, or who don’t remember the story, you’re assuming the role of a new rookie member in the Ghostbusters team, working with the legendary Peter Venkman, Raymond Stantz, Winston Zeddemore, and Egon Spengler, all voiced by the actors who played those roles in the movies. The story is set two years after the events of the Ghostbusters II movie, with the museum hosting an exhibit on Gozer, but, as expected, ghosts emanate from the exhibit and start invading the city, so the team will have to once again take on Stay Puft who is back in town.
As a rookie in the team, you’ll be the one who has the chance to experience and use the all-new proton pack that’s in an experimental state. It’s probably because it’s too risky of an item for others to use, but that’s not something you need to be concerned about since you get to wield it! The majority of the time, you’ll be playing from a third-person perspective, following mostly linear paths to hunt ghosts and other creatures. Although you’ll sometimes be exploring inside buildings like the Sedgewick Hotel or out in open areas like Times Square, your paths will narrow down to specific areas where you’ll get to advance the story.
Hunting down ghosts is a pretty simple pattern you’ll quickly learn in the game’s tutorial level inside the Ghostbusters HQ’s basement while trying to capture Slimer. You can fire your Proton Stream at ghosts with the R2 button to weaken them. The stream has limited use, so you’ll need to vent it with the R1 button. Once the ghosts are weak enough, your Proton Pack will automatically switch to the Capture Stream, which you activate with the L2 button, which allows you to capture them and guide them with the right joystick to where you want them to go. Once you’re confident of catching them, just lay a trap on the floor with the Square button, and move a ghost over it. Just make sure to pick up your trap!
Sometimes you’ll have to look for the ghosts, which you’ll be able to do with your PKE Meter, which will also be used to look for special artifacts around each area. To use it, your perspective will switch to a first-person view as you take a look at the PKE Meter at the bottom of the screen as it pulses with peaks as you are looking in the direction of ghosts or artifacts.
Visually, the game has received a visual upgrade compared to the graphics of this decade-old release, but it’s not the kind of remaster that has a studio rebuilding a game from the ground up, as we’ve seen, for example, for the Spyro trilogy. The audio is still great after all these years, thanks to the excellent voice acting of the original members of the Ghostbusters team. Dialogue is very funny and fits perfectly with the mood of the game. I have, unfortunately, encountered a couple of issues where the audio just stopped working.
At its core, this game is all about blasting ghosts with your Proton Stream and trapping them, which feels incredibly fun, especially for people who grew up with the classic movies. It can be difficult to correctly aim your weapon at first with the prototype, but there are a few upgrades you can purchase throughout the game as you earn money from capturing and analyzing ghosts.
Unfortunately, the game doesn’t evolve into much more than repeating the same steps with small variants here and there. The game isn’t particularly long, as it can be completed in around 10 hours so, which makes the repetitiveness not a bad thing. Even though it’s a remaster, the game hasn’t aged as well as other releases from the era. There are moments where you are standing there, waiting for an event to trigger, while absolutely nothing is happening, and your partners are all there standing still as well.
If you’re looking for a short and fun Platinum trophy to aim for, this is one to get. There’s a trophy for completing the game on the hardest difficulty, but what will warrant an extra playthrough is the fact that there are two trophies that cancel each other out. There is one trophy for causing over $3 million in property damage, while the other is for causing under $100,000 in property damage. Other than those, there are a few specific trophies related to your abilities and for the upgrades, but nothing that should cause any issues with your trophy run.
Final Thoughts
Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered is a nice blast from the past for people nostalgic of the Ghostbusters franchise, but it might not appeal to today’s audience. It will be a fun time at its budget price, but you need to be aware of how it hasn’t aged as well as other games from ten years ago.
PSN Price: $29.99
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Disclaimer
This Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered review is based on a PlayStation 4 copy provided by Saber Interactive.
