New Ghostbusters Video Game in the Works

Next month's issue of Game Informer has a big, familiar symbol on its cover. On their website, they tease the announcement of a brand-new Ghostbusters video game. This isn't some knock-off, either: "Harold Ramis, Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd are getting back together and revisiting their roles to make a sequel to Ghostbusters 1 and 2 - in video-game form, and we've got the first details. Both Aykroyd and Ramis are teaming up for scriptwriting duties and are going far beyond just the typical licensed add-your-voice-to-the-game-you-had-nothing-to-do-with formula" Commentary on the announcement provided by Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

Oh god

Does this mean that damn song will be coming back too?

Re:Oh god

Does this mean that damn song will be coming back too?

So what if it did? Who ya gonna call?!

who ya gonna call?

HE-MAN!

Scraping the bottom of the barrel.

The movie came out in 1984. It's the end of 2007 now. Are they hurting that badly for material?

Scraping bottom?

What about that movie that's opening up soon? or has it started already? Beowulf...

it's based on an epic from 1300 years ago!

Talk about unoriginal!

I mean it's 1300 years old! who would want to see those characters in a different medium... /Sarcasm

Re:Has it been done before?

It seems to me that The Odyssey is begging to have an RPG made based on it. It'd be a little like Chrono Trigger/Cross + God of War. Awesome.

For that matter, The Iliad (or better yet, the whole Trojan cycle, filling in the gaps where necessary) would make a kick-ass multiplayer hack-n-slash, a bit like Gauntlet meets Dynasty warriors, with control points and a bunch of allied NPCs helping you out. Maybe the ability to call for divine intervention from whichever god happens to be on your side. Damn, that would kick ass.

Re:Scraping the bottom of the barrel.

The movie came out in 1984. It's the end of 2007 now. Are they hurting that badly for material?

The Warriors [imdb.com] came out in 1979 and the game [rockstargames.com] in 2005 yet is one of the best film tie-ins I've ever seen, expanding the story and letting you play through the movie.

I guess a good game is a good game, maybe when they aren't being rushed out to coincide with the movie's release, not to mention having a cult following.

Re:Scraping the bottom of the barrel.

What that means is that those of us who were kids when the movie opened are now right in the middle of the largest gaming demographic, and have lots of disposable cash.

And why do you think there's been so many superhero movies over the last few years all based on storylines from the 80's? I mean, I've hardly gone to a see a single superhero movie in the last ten years that's not been based heavily on storylines I remember from the comics I bought as a kid.

The timing is great - both in terms of the people who saw it in the cinemas and all of those of us who were too young and had to wait a few years to see it on TV or video.

To heck with the game

I've been saying for years that they should do another movie. Provided that they keep with the spirit (pun not intended) of the first two, modern special effects combined with a good script could make for a great movie.

Given hollywood's abysmal track record in late-sequals though, I think perhaps it would be better off without any, regardless of whether it is a movie or game.

Re:To heck with the game

You can hardly say that the original had a good script. A substantial amount of the film (a lot of the best parts) were ad libbed. Most of the sense of a "good script" came from the fact that Ackroyd had all this weird, but internally consistent, stuff in his head.

I think the second one had a "proper" script. Naturally, lightning didn't strike twice.

-Peter

In Soviet Russia

the streams cross you!

What do you mean big?

Well, let's say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area. Based on this morning's reading, it would be a Twinkie thirty-five feet long, weighing approximately six hundred pounds.

Re:What do you mean big?

...that's a big Twinkie. *Venkman walks in* Egon... tell him about the Twinkie.

Keeping fingers crossed

Here's hoping the trio are teaming up for a third go-around out of love for the franchise instead of love for another paycheck. I can think of far too many ways this project could go sour, especially since it's been, what, almost two decades since the 2nd flick? Good luck, guys. We're pulling for you.

Multiplayer?

I see an opportunity to coin a term here... when you're engaged in multiplayer, and your teammate crosses streams with you, resulting in both your deaths... we'll call that streamkilling. Or teamcrossing. I'm still working on it.

Not the first time...

There was an old Ghostbusters game--I remember playing it on a PCjr, I think in the late 80s. You needed one of the joystick accessories.

(The PCjr itself, incidentally, is a remarkably funny machine. To add the second 128K RAM, you... wait for it... take a cover off the side of the case and plug in a unit the depth and height of the case that makes it about an inch thicker. There isn't a parallel port on the main case, but there *is* one on the back of the extra 128K RAM, which also takes its own external power supply, if I remember correctly...)

(And you could keep going, adding inches to the case until you had 512 or 640K or some-such.)

Very true, not the first time...

Actually, there was a Ghostbusters game written for the Commodore 64 that I can recall playing back in about 1984. Surprisingly good graphics for the standards of the time, and considering the machine could only user 8K of RAM for video (and that 8K it had to steal from the 64K RAM total in the machine).

As I recall, the program was a little over 30K in size. Hmph. These days a "hello world" executable can run 1.7 MB.

First Screen here

http://kotaku.com/gaming/ghostbusters/ghostbusters-screen-co+op--mp-info-322990.php [kotaku.com]

They've said the game is set in the early 90's after Ghostbusters II so either the Stay Puft Marshmellow Man makes a comeback or there is a flashback. Im voting he gets ressurected, or they are taking some license with the flashback since last I checked they never did and scaling of walls ;-)

Here's some spoiler cheat info for you

In this game if someone asks you if you're a god YOU SAY YES!

Hilarious screenshot:

http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/resources/2007/11/gbstaypuft.jpg [kotaku.com]

Interesting way to avoid the strike.

Since video games manufacturers are not under WGA contract, they can write video game scripts but not movie scripts.

Will This Replace the Third Film?

I had heard for a while that there was going to be a Ghost Busters 3, though it would be fully CGI. I really hope that this is what became of the rumors. The film would have sucked, no-doubt. A videogame has the chance to at least be decent however. It worked pretty well for Tron 2.0 ;)

Needs this tag:

dontcrossthestreams

Who you gonna call?

I loved the first Ghost Busters. The second one sort of sucked. The problems with sequels is that some of the greatness of the original is the newness of the concept. Once the "newness" is gone, or you are at least comfortable with the concept, you are left with unoriginal crap.

Take the Marx Brothers movies, someone watching them for the first time today will find them boring because *everyone* has ripped off the Marx brothers to the point where they are not even funny anymore. Everyone knows every punchline to every joke because we've heard them all already a million times.

Now, what could be original about a new ghost busters? What would grab our imagination, and twist it sideways and make us laugh. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a new ghost busters movie on par with the first, but I don't see what they could possible do to make the scary funny again.

Ghostbusters Doom

Hah, this won't hold a candle to GhostBusters DooM2! [doomworld.com]

Screams to be made for the Wii

As awesome as that Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man screenie looks, this game just HAS to come out on the Wii.

Requirements

This better be on Wii. I better be able to catch a ghost with my Wiimote, and slide a trap out with the nunchuck. Otherwise, I'll take a big pass as every other GB game has been awful.

Oblig Quotes

Ok, She's a Dog.

Yes, Its true this man has no Dick.

How old does it make me...

when I remember playing a ghostbusters game on my Apple //e?

Ghostbusters!?

Awww, I thought it was gonna be He-Man.

Wii

The Wii was designed for a game like this. Imagine the potential of four players with Wiimotes. If they don't design this game from the ground up for the Wii, it would be a major travesty.

Okay, you win, you are the fanboy of the year

We know nothing about this game except that it will be a sequel to a movie and you claim it was meant for the Wii? What on earth are you smoking and how deep is that Wiimote up your ass anyway?

It could be an adventure, it could be a sim, it could be a management game, it could be a shooter, it could be a stategy game.

What makes this game a Wii game? Take one look at the released screenshot, does that look like something the Wii can pull off?

About the only Wii connection I can think of is using the remote to control the beams, possibly a fun way of doing it, but nothing you couldn't do as easily with a mouse.

Anyway the story so far is that it is going to be on all the platforms. This usually means the game is going to suck some major donkeyballs as it will have to fit to the restrictions of ALL the platforms.

If anything, I hope that this game will have some bloody humor in it for once. The hotel shootup in game form, oh yeah, I pay for that.

There's somethin' strange...

...in the videogame store

But....

What about the fourth, African American Ghostbuster? Won't HE be back too?

Yes, have some.

Yes, have some!

Variety has a better article

There's a way more informative article with additional screen shots here [variety.com]. Looks like Ernie Hudson (Winston), Annie Potts (Janine), and William Atherton (Peck) are signed on!

Plot

SFX had an article a few months ago about ghostbusters. Apparently in the third film the ghostbusters would venture to hell- which was basically a ghost/demon inhabited manhattan. It never got off the ground because Bill Murray was not interested, and without Venkman, why bother? apparently Ackroyd will also be doing motion capture for this http://www.sfx.co.uk/page/sfx?entry=i_ain_t_fraid_of [sfx.co.uk]

Arcade game

One game that's been hanging around my local Gameworks for years is "Brave Firefighters", a Sega game (in Gameworks, so that part isn't surprising) which involved the player using a fire hose apparatus (decorative; it was essentially a standard light gun past that) that strapped over the shoulder in an effort to stop a raging fire in a mansion.

As soon as I put this thing on my shoulder, I looked at what I was wearing: what looked like a long blaster with a hose extending behind me. Past that, there was one thing I couldn't get out my head. If you combined that with the Time Crisis footpedals (to spring the traps), you would have Ghostbusters the arcade game.

Now, I'm well aware this that we're talking about is going to be a console and/or PC game, most likely, but I still think that, using Brave Firefighters as a physical model, you could make a pretty sweet Ghostbusters arcade game. Then again, if they, say, made this for the Wii and had a proton pack and trap adapter that you could plug a Wiimote into...

Who's making it?

Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn't have to produce anything! You've never been out of college! You don't know what it's like out there! I've *worked* in the private sector. They expect *results*.

bustin' makes me feel good

This is like a wet dream especially if it does not suck like the previous games. Hell it would even make me consider a ps3 if needed.
The world needs this almost as much as mother3 in english maybe even a little more!

Don't mess with a classic

Ah, Ghostbusters. I remember that on the Spectrum. The weird crackling noise at the start which someone explained to me was meant to be a speech sample. Driving around the map running over ghosts so that later (in what now seems a masterpiece of boring gameplay) you could suck them up with your ghost vacuum. The boxing glove on a spring which jumped up to catch ghosts (was that in the movie?). The rather anticlimactic Marshmallow Alert when all you had to do was put down ghost bait and you could run him over on the map screen. And what was the point of the game anyway? It ends when the ectoplasm count reaches 999, but should you try to slow that down or speed it up by letting ghosts reach Zuul so you can get to the end quicker?

Good theme music though.

I for one

welcome our new protoplasmic overlords!

Sega Master System!

This stirs up a pocket of long-unused brain tissue... I remember that one of my favorite games for the Sega Master System [wikipedia.org] was Ghostbusters. And it was so much better than the Nintendo version that my friends had (I can't remember why I thought so). Never could quite beat Zuul, though.

SMS was a great console. I always get weird looks from people when I bring it up, but it seemed years ahead of the Nintendo at the time. I had a game that used 3-D glasses! Never saw that on the Nintendo.

Gameplay video

Check it out here [g4tv.com].

It looks pretty swell if you ask me. It's just snippets of ghost catching (and the occasional sliming) gameplay, but I'm sure there'll be a whole lot more. What is shown looks promising. Next-gen ghost catching never looked so sweet. There's also a main site [ghostbustersgame.com] up for the game already.

don't generalize

All anyone should be concerned with is the fact that Harold Ramis and Dan Ackroyd are actively apart of this projects development and they should be supported in their efforts in getting as far as making a game based on such a great license. I believe they have been pursuing something like this for years now. So one should not look at this as a bad movie to games tie in, but as a game with great potential especially since the original cast and writers are involved, something that can't be said for other movie based games and vise versa. The only thing we all can take a sigh of relief about is the fact "EA" will not be developing it.

Re:Video games based on movies are not fun to play

I can think of a few titles that I like. Star Wars comes to mind, but most kinda suck.

The C64 version was a lot of fun to play and can still be played on C64 emulators, if you don't mind the old graphics.

This will undoubtably be more RPG than that was, so there lies the challenge of making not suck.

Re:Video games based on movies are not fun to play

Yes, but this is going to be a sequel to the movie- its own storyline set in the same world, not a copy of the story. Doesn't assure it'll be good, but I think it has a better shot than the standard movie to game conversion.

Of course, they really ought to base it off the cartoon series. Slimer was always the best character in the show, and he wasn't really in the movies.

Re:Video games based on movies are not fun to play

As I seem to remember there was a movie about some Mario brothers that turned out to be a pretty big game.

Re:Video games based on movies are not fun to play

Depends, if a game doesn't try to replicate the story of the movie and instead focuses on telling its own story in the same universe there is a good chance that it can be good. The bad movie games are most often those that try to mimic the movies story and that kind of never works.