Zero Punctuation: Ghostbusters: The Video Game

Klarinette

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May 21, 2009
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That's so disappointing. Most movies now have the video game out before you can even buy the movie in stores. I had my hopes that this one would be different, having come out so many years ago.

...that sucks.
 

Sparrow

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Feb 22, 2009
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rayman 101 said:
Zefar said:
Chiefmon said:
Thank God we didn't have to wait a year to get the game in Australia.
Nope, this time it's Europe to take the shit. We ain't getting the game until September or something.
Why is beyond me.

Nice review though.
Reeally? It's out in the UK. (But I guess that's kind of seperate from Europe)
He may be talking about the fact that the Xbox 360 version doesn't work outside of America, and isn't sold for the 360.

PS3 is uneffected I think
 

Sylocat

Sci-Fi & Shakespeare
Nov 13, 2007
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I believe I'm not the only one whose feeling on Doctor Who is "Thank all that is good and decent in the world for Steven Moffat."
 

FalloutJack

Bah weep grah nah neep ninny bom
Nov 20, 2008
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imkerrusin said:
I have it, and played it. The AI does act retarded when your working with the team. They tell you not to cross the streams and you end up doing it anyhow. x.x
Well, unfortunately, that has to do with our own aim, if nothing else. Fortunately, a total protonic reversal doesn't insta-kill you even if it DOES happen.


Now, there are irritating points in the game, but Yahtzee didn't actually mention them much. These are problems you would have at the normal and hard difficulty at certain points of the game, more so than the occasional mission failure.

{1} The marshmellow ambush. An art studio room in Times Square with a ton of those marshmellow minions coming out of the vents with only Ray as backup. Ray probably gets overrun first and you're left alone unless you can lead off or destroy a load of bad guys to get to him, and they're coming from all the vents, Aliens style. "Game over, man!" (This is still a light problem, though.)

{2} The possessors. At the museum, a bunch of human-possessing ghosts are attacking guests and Ghostbusters. They have to be slimed out of their stolen bodies and then dealt with as you do with ghosts. The problem is they don't stay out of bodies much and they try to possess your team. Since there's four of them, that means one for each Ghostbuster, minus you. Being possessed is the same thing as an instant out for the guys, though you're somehow immune. But aha...don't you worry, because they'll blast you, quick as you like, and you'll be dead.

{3} Stone Angels. Probably the hardest part in the game. You're in the cemetary with Ray, and the others are stuck on the other side of a nigh-invulnerable gate that has 'loose hinges'. The point here is to knock these flying stone angels into the gate three times, recommended by the slime-tether. Except that using the damn thing requires precise aiming and not every tethered angel will come even close to hitting the gate while the rest are trying to kill you and there are endless crawlers coming up the path to make things worse. The whole situation there feels like the developers more or less screwing around with the players here. THIS is what Yahtzee should've been complaining about.

Aside from those exact three points, the game has no distinctive real flaws that can't be dealt with.
 

jimClassic

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Jun 4, 2008
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dls182 said:
Nice critique, I've been debating about getting this...

On another note, the crossword-style word jumbles are getting more and more crazy (read: impossible to follow), but, you know, in a good way.
Buy it. It's an amazing game. Yahtzee review was terribly off base I'm afraid.
 

jimClassic

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Jun 4, 2008
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I have to admit I'm really disappointed with Yahtzee's review of Ghostbusters.
I have the game for the 360, and I have to say, it's a really good game.
The controls are fine. The special effects aren't that over powering, and the story isn't bad either.
Yahtzee complained about all the parts of the game that were good, and he left out the real complaints. The game's too short, the ending's kinda lame, and Bill Murphy over acts a bit (more so in this than the movies). Yea...that's it. Those are the worst things I can say about the game.
I think Yahtzee was just having an off day, and I say try not to take this review too seriously, because he is just waaay off on this one.
 

imkerrusin

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Jul 9, 2008
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Triffid said:
jimClassic said:
I have to admit I'm really disappointed with Yahtzee's review of Ghostbusters.
I have the game for the 360, and I have to say, it's a really good game.
The controls are fine. The special effects aren't that over powering, and the story isn't bad either.
Yahtzee complained about all the parts of the game that were good, and he left out the real complaints. The game's too short, the ending's kinda lame, and Bill Murphy over acts a bit (more so in this than the movies). Yea...that's it. Those are the worst things I can say about the game.
I think Yahtzee was just having an off day, and I say try not to take this review too seriously, because he is just waaay off on this one.
Yahtzee's issue is he can't make a review out of praising a game, because apparently his fans get pissy if he's not angry about something. If he ever has anything good to say, it's very brief, usually 30 seconds or less, and the rest is ranting.

He can use his "I'm a critic" excuse all he wants, but criticism is NOT just crucifying whatever you are assigned to critique. A critic is meant to point out the redeeming qualities along with the flaws.
There's more to it than you think. The main reason he crucifies them is because there's more issues with most of the games today than there is actually descent aspects to what makes them good or great. If the bad outweighs the good, what are you supposed to do, sugar coat it and put a cherry on top to make it look nice? No, you see the flaws as they are, then you expose them. The points he made out are true as well if you actually played it.

When it comes to being a critic, balancing is not an option. Just because a bunch of fans/magazines and the such praise the games, doesn't mean they actually critique them. Reviewers look for certain aspects that makes a game good, fans have their own standards, a Critic, looks at body of work as a whole, analyzes it then gives his or her opinion on the overall presentation. Case and point, Yahtzee. How many reviewers do you know actually sit down, play through a game and say: "Okay this was good, this was bad, this needs to be improved, etc." Answer: NONE. They only review the games and base their reviews on several categories: Sound, Gameplay, Story, Graphics, Lasting appeal, etc. They see games as they are. Games. Critics see games as artwork. Roger Ebert gets paid to critique movies, Yahtzee gets paid to critique games. Both see them as artwork. Not the format which they are in.

And just for the record, it's not Murphy, its M-U-R-R-A-Y! I was actually surprised they managed to get him to reprise his role as Peter. Plus, you got to remember one thing: It's been over 20 years since the guys did a Ghostbusters film. So obviously, they are going to get a little carried away. But who would complain about that? That makes it more the entertaining.

As for the story, its equivalent to how long a movie would run. It may seem short, but films are short too. Most last about an hour or more. Akroyd DID state in an interview that this game WAS the third film. What more do you want? An intimate scene with Peter and his girlfriend? That would go over very well. >_>;

Also, Yahtzee critiques these games in an entertaining way. There's hardly anyone else out there that has the sacks to step up to the plate and state how the games are. Besides, not all of the games are bad. Matter of fact, if you look at his other reviews, there are a handful he actually liked or recommended. Crysis, for example, he recommended for the viewers to try. So before you decide to bury Yahtzee with your "hate mail", check his other reviews and you'll see that there ARE a few games that he liked or recommended, and if you still see them as "butchering", well, maybe Yahtzee can put it in better words than I can.

As for the Critiques, this is actually helpful for the developers and publishers. With someone like Yahtzee critiquing their work, they have something to work with so they know what to look out for with their future projects. Weather or not they would actually listen, is a different story.
 

AD3N

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Apr 15, 2009
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shame, i really enjoyed this game obviously it had its bad points (im yet to touch it since it got completed) but i got what i was expecting.
 

FelixofMars

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Oct 31, 2007
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I am guessing he had to be negative to keep the majority of fans happy, The game was pretty good for a film tie in (All be it a 20 year old film) However the difficulty curve was steep, especially the last 30 minutes of the game. That bit was a case of 'retard round up'. The amount of times the AI went down was insane.

Oh I imported it on Xbox360 to the UK BTW. Take that Sony and your fanboy CEO at Terminal Reality.
 

Motley Jester

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Jul 23, 2009
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Ok, this will be an uncharacteristic first for me. Lately, I've been hooked on satirical, edgy, and in some cases down-right angry game review sites. *cough* Angry Video Game Nerd *cough* Having run out of current material from other sites I plugged in a few choice tokens in Google and voila, here I am.

So I ventured through around 25 different episodes from Yahtzee, starting from the beginning (after all, what's worth watching is worth watching from the beginning) and jumping from familiar title to familiar title there-after. I laughed, I cried, I had to mend multiple stitches in my side. I love the guy. I love the brutal and unflinching way in which he goes for the throat, and damn the torpedoes!

Now I won't say I don't give a rat's ass about other people's opinions, because I do. I process them, I weigh them together, I average them out. I try to find the element of truth that binds the similar opinions together to get an overall picture. But, I digress.

I normally don't even bother hitting the forums on sites like these either, because generally one way or the other, I'm here for the main content, not what other people think about it. I have my laughs and go about my day.

That being said...

This is a review that (not unlike others already pointed out) leans a bit towards the "Missing the Mark" side of things enough that I felt compelled to create an account, wait an inordinate amount of time for the registration email (30 minutes in this day and age for an automated email response is a bit of a stretch), and shovel my own foul-smelling, easily ignored, and completely ineffectual opinions upon anyone here who cares to read it.

If you are any bit of a true video gaming geek at all, you already have the bad taste of countless movie franchise game translations left upon your taste buds. With each sequel, and prequel, and sequel to a sequel, and spin-off, your hopes for a decent conversion or representation of the source material has been crushed repeatedly.

It's a tad bit masochistic actually, we know they're going to be bad, they have a history of being horrid, there are very few exceptions (read damn-near-non-existent) that haven't left us pulling out swatches of our hair, shaking our heads, and saying "What were they fucking thinking?" Of course the answer we all eventually come to is "Capitalizing on a beloved franchise, and sucking Satan's cock are not mutually exclusive notions in the gaming or movie industry."

In the instance of the Ghostbusters Franchise, you only need look back at the long and uninspired string of games released on everything from the Atari 2600 to the Super Nintendo and beyond for examples where Satan obviously got a hummer, and someone walked away with a shit-load of greenbacks. Oh, and fuck the fans.

Surprisingly, this is NOT one of those games. This is a GREAT GAME. There, I've said it, and I won't take it back. I bought it, I brought it home, I crossed my fingers, I powered up the system, I suspended my hopes and I put that receipt right there on the table within easy reaching distance next to my car keys.

And. Eight hours later, watching the closing credits, I had this feeling of wholesome completion. I felt purified from every crap-tastic piece of dog-shit software I'd every bought into in the name of Egon, Ray, Peter, and Winston.

Yeah, eight hours, I took my time, I relished every moment. Every quip, every explorable area, every answering machine message at the GB HQ. When it was over, sure I wanted more, and sure I felt like the game could have been at least a few areas longer. But then, I love the GB franchise. This thing pegged my nostalgia meter, it spun the needle.

Of course there were a few things that I could nick-pick about, so let me elaborate on them so as not to seem one-sided.

1: The inability of customizing your own character. Not a big thing, but it would have added just a little bit more immersion than just playing John Q. Ghostbuster.

2: Very short chapters, and an overall short story-arc. They could have padded this thing out just a bit more. The few "bosses" you get to fight are interesting, but the lead up to fighting them is too short to build up enough steam to get your overall nervous tension fired.

3: No side-missions. This is pretty much a linear crawl from start to finish. A handful of extra-curricular missions here and there wouldn't have hurt.

You know, I'm scratching my meager brain at this point, because try as I might I really can't find another major flaw in the execution of this game. Sure a lot of people have pointed out that the AI is has some weak moments, and in some instances you spend as much time fighting ghosts as you do reviving your fallen mates. But these cases tend to be exceptions to the rule and usually occur more highly at the increased difficulty levels than in a casual level game. And rightly so. If you increased the difficulty, and the ghosts got stronger and your mates got stronger, and you were the only one to feel like a gimp, it'd piss you off now wouldn't it?

Oh, and did I mention the multiplayer portion of the game? No. Well, step right this way. This is actually one of the areas I was biting my nails over. So many games rely on the ubiquitous multiplayer modes of Capture the Flag, Capture and Hold, Steal the Woozle, Plant the Foozle, and of course, yes, Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch. This game was a pleasant surprise. None of that overused, overdone bullshit here. Multiplayer is completely cooperative in this game. However! That doesn't mean it's not competitive, as you hustle about attempting not only to work with your mates but also try to earn the biggest score from each of the game modes.

And the game modes work well. There's your Entrapment mode where you try to catch as many ghosts as possible within the time limit, there's Survival mode where, yup, you guess it, stay alive as long as possible. There's a Thief mode where you attempt to prevent 4 artifacts from being stolen away by the pesky poltergeists that spawn wave after wave. There's even that incredibly fun Slam Dunk mode where you attempt to slam dunk differently colored (and differently valuable) Slimer clones in a race against your buddies.

I dunno, I just can't see why anyone would really have anything to nit-pick about this game. Of course in the case of Zero Punctuation, the complaints seem to be on the order of "Why couldn't it have starred new characters in a new location with completely different technology and a brand new and unrelated story line from all of the rest of the source material?"

The answer quite simply is that it wouldn't have been Ghostbusters, it wouldn't have been anything like we remember, in fact... it would have been a lot like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filmation%27s_Ghostbusters

I don't care if Filmation was the first to have the name, or the general concept. To fans of the Ivan Reitman Ghostbusters legacy, it was like comparing Transformers to the Go-Bots.. same concept, just nowhere near as satisfying. Sort of like the Brand-X Ghostbusters.

Anyway, to conclude a very, very long winded post. If you generally get the concept of the Ghostbusters, but have never been big fans, at least rent the game once. It's incredibly fun even if you're NOT a hardcore fan.

However, if you are a fan (like me) of the movies, the animated series, the toys (ah, the memories), and even the damned role-playing game.... GET THIS GAME. And by get, I mean BUY. This can sit proudly on the shelf next to the movies, because that's basically what it ends up feeling like. It feels a lot like a 3rd film. Only better, because we finally get our chance to project gloriously arcing streams of protons at spooks and specters from our own unlicensed nuclear accelerator backpacks and for what has to be the first time in Ghostbusters video game history say proudly, and with conviction..

"We came, we saw, we kicked it's ASS!"
 

dls182

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Jun 15, 2009
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jimClassic said:
dls182 said:
Nice critique, I've been debating about getting this...

On another note, the crossword-style word jumbles are getting more and more crazy (read: impossible to follow), but, you know, in a good way.
Buy it. It's an amazing game. Yahtzee review was terribly off base I'm afraid.
That he is off-base isn't much of a surprise... I find it best to take his reviews as all of the things that are wrong with a game, rather than a definitive 'good game or bad' type review
 

Evil Ninja

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Jul 29, 2009
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Yahtzee has done it again. He has taken a perfectly inoccent game and made you want to stick your left hand in a mincer and turn it with your right hand just to get away from the Blasted thing.
 

crooked_ferret

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Jul 30, 2009
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Okay just finished playing this myself, and I have to say something that wasn't mentioned at all, is there are a couple of levels that are incredibly well designed, and some things you'll actually take a second to stop and look at. I agree the game play gets repetitive and there aren't any puzzles that will throw even an inexperienced player for a curve. It's playable though. Certainly not a great game, but at the same time easily playable.
 

UndrDog

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Aug 29, 2008
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He just got done bashing the game that should probably win GotY... Oh well, you can't expect Yahtzee to actually give a real review. But seriously if it's not going to be a real review then at least make it clever. In all of these reviews it seems that the level of perversion increases depending on how much he actually wants to talk about the game.

In short the only real complaint for this game is that it's short. You can beat it in roughly an hour and a half to two hours if you know what you're doing. Which is how the game was designed. It's the length of a feature length film.

In conclusion, this game is a movie you play through.
 

xopher

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Mar 16, 2009
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Well, I finally played the demo and later on rented the full version. In all honesty, Ghostbusters is a good game; certainly much better than just about every other crappy movie game that has come out. I'm glad I finally gave it a chance rather than just assuming it was just another crappy movie game.

My only two complaints are the slow loading times after you die, and the check point save system. But other than that, the game play is pretty solid and I must say I'm quite surprised. Graphics and sound aren't bad either.

Another small complaint I guess is that the game is kind of short. But its definitely worth a rental at the least.
 

MB202

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Sep 14, 2008
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James Rolfe (a.k.a. the Angry Video Game Nerd) likes this game, actually:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4usP1V8n8xQ

Although it isn't the AVGN who reviews the game, it's James Rolfe as himself.
 

MeatSnack1

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Jan 3, 2009
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This review proves once and for all that yahtzee is a well paid troll, c'mon man if you cant at least have fun with theis game your just dead inside.
 

eponlindsey

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Apr 25, 2008
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This game was so bloody quick to complete.. though most of the game i was drawing things on the walls and floors with my lazors!!!