Ghostbusters

The Good
Ghostbusters for the Atari 2600 was one of the last games published for the system, right around the same time the Nintendo Entertainment System was released in North America, ushering the next generation of video game consoles. So, this game has a sizable advantage over other games on the system, since Atari programmers would have discovered many tricks to maximize performance on the system. But this game also was at a big disadvantage compared to other systems, especially what would become the third-generation console champion, the NES.

The graphics on the Atari 2600 version are much simpler than what you'd get on other consoles, but they are still recognizable for what they are supposed to be. You can tell a roamer from a slimer, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man is as intimidating as it should be, and the plasma guns and traps are decent. You can recognize the Ecto-1 for what it should look like, although allowances must still be made due to the limitations of the system.

The music is particularly good for the Atari. It even had me bopping in my seat along with the music while I was playing, and the gameplay is smooth. The instructions booklet gives you all the information you need to play the game in only a few pages.

The Bad
There are still a few problems with the game that take some getting used to. The first issue is that you can't always tell when the round is finished right away. It would have helped if there was an audio cue, or a round finished screen, to let you know it's time to start a new game or buy more equipment for the next round.

It would help to have an indicator on the screen for how many traps you have remaining, or how many men you have left before you need to go back to the headquarters.

As I said earlier, the graphics are decent, but they pale in comparison to other ports of this game, so the fact that it was available on other systems guaranteed that they were going to be the better buy than this one.

And while the gameplay is smooth, it does get repetitive because you're only ever doing the exact same thing over and over. And finally, it's too easy for the slimers to escape over the reach of your plasma guns, so half the time you don't have a chance to catch them.

The Bottom Line
Overall, it's a fun game on a limited system. Even more fun to keep track of your best scores and try to beat it next time or compare with your friends. If your only gaming system was an Atari 2600, then this game would definitely be worth buying, but if you had any other system with a port of this game, that one would be more worth it.

The Good
When "Ghostbusters" came out in 1984, it became (and remains) one of my favorite movies. When it was announced that David Crane, the maker of "Pitfall" was making a computer game version, there was an overwhelming need to own this game.

The premise is unique. The bank gives you the funds needed to open your own Ghostbusters franchise. You choose the car, the equipment, and have to patrol the city in order to keep it ghost-free and enough money in your account. As things get closer to a meltdown in New York, players have to attend to multiple hauntings all over the city as well as frequent visits by the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, and the looming threat of the Gatekeeper and Keymaster. It retained all of the main elements of what made the movie so popular, right down to the theme song and crossing the streams. Though sparse by today's standards, the graphics were recognizable, and had some fun animations to them.

The Bad
The main thing that remained tedious about gameplay was the car scenes. They were long and offered very little to do, unless you bought the Ghost Catcher for your car. The early versions of this title haven't aged as well, certainly not in comparison to the superior Sega Master System version, which allowed more diversity in driving, a stair climbing scene, more items, and a showdown with Zuul. But the SMS version had the advantage of being a port of a game that was 3-4 years old at that point, hence the improvements.

There's really no ending for the Apple version. A quick door closing scene, and a wordy "You Win" message. Also laying Ghost Bait to stop Stay-Puft seemed rather hit or miss at times as to whether it would work or not.

The Bottom Line
All things aside, this was one of the much-anticipated games for my Apple IIc, and the business-minded approach to the game was definitely novel, with some elements of strategy used to catch the ghosts. Of all the Ghostbuster games available, this is still the most fun of the lot, and I wish some version of it would resurface for the current generation of consoles.

For a time when movie-based games had very little to do with their subject matter, "Ghostbusters" made a genuine and competent attempt to bring the fun and cleverness of the film home.

It may not have gameplay that's fully stood the test of time, but it still provides some enjoyable moments.

The Good
I love Ghostbusters. It was an enormous part of my childhood. Then it became an enormous part of my adolescence. I’ve dressed as a Ghostbuster for Hallowe’en for years. This is why it breaks my heart that most games based off of the movies and the cartoons are so abysmal. Some of them reach into the realm of passable, but a good Ghostbusters game is outlandishly rare. Out of all the Ghostbusters licensed games that I’ve played, I’ve come across two that I really like; “New” Ghostbusters 2, and Ghostbusters: The Video Game. So where does that leave this, the NES interpretation of the first movie?

It’s my opinion that the reason most Ghostbusters games are bad is because the developers don’t seem to know what being a Ghostbuster is all about. If the game is about running around and blasting ghosts into submission, it completely misses the point. Ghostbusting is a job. It’s an extremely awesome job, but a job none the less. Luckily, this game gets it right. You go out on calls, cruise to your destination in Ecto-1, wrangle a ghost, and suck it into a trap. Then you get paid and spend it on better equipment. Okay, so in actuality the Ghostbusters made their own equipment, and having a store sell it to them is a little strange, but it works from a gameplay perspective.

The game’s setup is pretty simple. It sort of follows the story of the movie, but doesn’t really explain any of it. Psychokinetic energy is on the rise, which can only mean one thing, Gozer’s coming to town and the Ghostbusters are the only one who can stop him/her. To do this, the team must gain enough money by busting ghosts to buy the equipment needed to climb the Shandor building (named the Zuul building in this game, for whatever reason) and defeat Gozer. It’s a race against the clock, since you only have a short amount of time (about a half-hour to an hour, maybe) before Mr. Staypuft arrives to wreck the town.

There is something pleasing about the game’s methodical pace. Perhaps it’s because it treats Ghostbusting as a skill you must build up to succeed. There’s a sort of realism to the game. After fumbling a few catches and crossing the streams a few too many times, you’ll find yourself catching ghosts faster and faster, gaining more and more money to buy upgrades. The buying of upgrades allows you to see your company expand. It’s very satisfying, to an extent. However, this is sort of offset by the repetitiveness of it all. It’s always the same type and number of ghosts that you’re trapping, so there’s very little variety and challenge. However, since each game only lasts around a half-hour, things never really get tedious.

The Bad
One of my high school chums had a Ghostbusters movie poster on his wall which featured three Ghostbusters; Ray, Peter, and Egon. Yes, that’s right, Winston Zeddemore was strangely absent. I couldn’t help but find that strange. Sure, Winston only appeared halfway through the movie, and his role wasn’t as big as the others, but what the hell? He was the fourth Ghostbuster. He helped save New York, so you can’t just forget him! Big surprise, he isn’t in this game. Yep, once again, Winston has been pushed into the background and doesn’t even appear in the movie’s officially licensed game. So what? You can’t include a black Ghostbuster? I know you didn’t use up the entire palette, and I can tell that there aren’t enough sprites on screen to fill a whole chart, so what is it? Laziness? Or are you just racist, Activision?

Speaking of palettes and sprites, this game has some of the worst graphics I’ve ever seen on the NES. From both an artistic and technical standpoint, this game looks like shit. The NES has a pretty limited colour palette, but Ghostbusters doesn’t even try to use it all. Ghosts are only one colour, backgrounds are bland and severely lack detail, and the Ghostbusters themselves look like they could have been rendered on an Atari 2600. Every bit of background scrolling in this game is in a single direction with extremely repetitive tile patterns. I can understand that the NES’s limitations are difficult to work around, but it’s like they didn’t even try. It’s not just bad, it’s amateur.

While we’re on the topic of amateur, I feel I must bring up a small complaint. The driving sequences in this game are insultingly simple and poorly programmed. Here’s a helpful tip, move your car to the very right hand side of the road and speed up to full. Now, you’re free to take a sip of tea, or take a bite of your sandwich, because you’re not likely going to hit anything. At full speed your car actually uses the exact same amount of fuel as it would at its slowest speed which is absolutely baffling to me, and I have no idea why you would ever even slow down. Cars spawn at very sparse intervals and move across the screen very choppily. Oh, and get this; the only scenery that you see on the side of the road is the exact same fire hydrant that passes way too frequently. It’s as if you’re driving through a forest of fire hydrants.

You like the Ghostbusters theme song, right? Sure, everyone does. However, and this may shock you, having an 8-bit version of the song looped at you over and over again is really maddening. There’s only one song and it doesn’t let up. It just keeps replaying. It’s not even a very good rendition of the classic tune either. It’s not particularly bad, but you’ll have plenty of time to appreciate its flaws. The song doesn’t even loop properly. It just starts over from the beginning. At least this way, you’ll be able to count how many times the song plays as you descend into madness. Granted, you could just mute the game and replace the soundtrack with, for example, Chopin, but you shouldn’t have to. Having one song in the entire soundtrack is completely inexcusable.

Do you remember that scene near the end of Ghostbusters where they had to climb up all those stairs? Well you may be happy to know that the developers of this game managed to capture the slow agony of climbing those stairs with heavy equipment on. In order to reach the end boss of this game, you must first climb a seemingly endless staircase while being pelted by ghosts. That seems bad enough, but to make things worse, you must do it by repeatedly pressing the A button for every baby-step you take. Who the hell thought that was a good idea? It’s stupid and I hate it. To make things even worse, the stairway level is next to impossible to complete. Further adding to the frustration, if you die, you don’t get to start from the bottom of the stairs, you have to play the game over again to make another attempt. The only way I can imagine beating this game is by using a controller with an auto-fire or being really hardcore and playing the game repeatedly.

The Bottom Line
While I concede that this game at least got the concept of Ghostbusting right, it’s just too bad that it gets so weighed down with laziness. It’s uncanny; this game fails out loud in just about every aspect. It looks like crap, it’s as frustrating as hell, it’s poorly programmed, and it somehow manages to make the Ghostbusters theme sound annoying. If you really must play this game, get the Sega Master System version, since it fixes a few of my complaints. The NES version, on the other hand, is simply excruciating. It is so offensively AWFUL that I recommend you stay away from it. In conclusion, I suggest you store any Ghostbusters NES cartridges in extreme conditions, or immerse them in water. It's the humane thing to do.