Atari Talks Ghostbusters Date, Popular Franchises

Early last month, Atari announced the production of a new Ghostbusters game featuring many of the original actors and set for some time in 2009. Now, they've announced that the game will be scheduled for June. Atari executives also took the opportunity to discuss several of their popular franchises, saying they had plans to revisit the Neverwinter Nights series as well as Baldur's Gate. A console version of The Witcher was confirmed, and Atari detailed "a partnership with famed rhythm-game designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi and Q! Entertainment on a new music-based game for the Wii. Details on the game are slim, and it's operating under the working title 'QJ.'"

When the opportunity for a...

[Anonymous Coward]

new Ghostbusters games comes along, who are you gonna call? Certainly not Atari.

Re:

[Tastecicles]

it'll fill the hole in New Mexico next to the ET cartridges just nicely...

When the opportunity for a...memory lane.

[Ostracus]

I think it's too little, too late. The time to capitalize on the Ghost busters franchise was when the movies were still fresh in peoples minds.

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[Kokuyo]

There were Ghostbusters games... but back in those times, video gaming was not the mainstream hobby it is today.

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[fbjon]

They did capitalize on it back then, and the results were not impressive. I think a game now would be (or should be) more of a reinvention.

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[shawn(at)fsu]

Why does a game based on a movie have to come out at the same time as the movie? If it can stand on it's own right then it can come out whenever. Some of the most popular games that have come out recently have had no movie to capitalize on and they did quit well.

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[Rob T Firefly]

Nostalgia counts for a lot. Kids who grew up watching the movies and cartoons and playing with the toys are now adults with game consoles and disposable incomes.

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[Hatta]

I'd be a lot more interested in video game adaptations of films from my youth than any of the crap they put out today. I'm not sure Atari is the best company to do this at this point in time, but a new Ghostbusters game is a great idea. I'd also love to see new video game adaptations of Back to the Future, and The Goonies.

On the other hand, I can't think of a movie made this century that I'd care to play a game of.

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[Briareos]

On the other hand, I can't think of a movie made this century that I'd care to play a game of.

How about "Max Payne: The Movie: The Game"? :D

np: Mr. Scruff - Bang The Floor (with Danny Breaks) (Ninja Tuna)

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[jandrese]

Interestingly enough, the Ghostbusters cart for the 2600 [mobygames.com] was one of the best games on the system. It had an amazing amount of gameplay given the (severe) limitations of the 2600 hardware.

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[v1]

I remember playing it on the Apple II. Was a fun game, though not a lot of variety. The only examples of it I can find on the net easily were for the commodore, but the game looked pretty much the same. Playable with keyboard, but you really needed a joystick, which weren't very common back then.

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[jandrese]

The C64 used the same joystick the Atari did, so they were pretty easy to find and cheap. Granted, it wasn't particularly ergonomic and the build quality was iffy on a lot of them, but they did work. The amazing thing about the 2600 port is that they managed to keep most of the features on a system that was literally an order of magnitude less capable than the C64.

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[v1]

and the atari had binary joysticks. I assume the C64 were 8 bit. The apple joysticks were 8 bit.

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[jandrese]

You assume too much. The C64 used the Atari joysticks. They were no more capable.

Billy Murray..

[CometRico]

... in video game form? Cannot wait.

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[StingRay02]

Did I miss something? Is this a new game, or just the release of the game that was supposed to come out in November?

Re:Billy Murray..

[andy9701]

Originally, Ghostbusters was to be published by Vivendi/Sierra. However, when Vivendi merged with Activision to form Activision/Blizzard, they decided that they didn't want to publish this game (since they couldn't "monetize" this game every year...yay greed). Atari eventually came along and scooped up the rights to publish it.

I think originally it was supposed to be released around this time of year, however it was delayed for some reason (supposedly due to the merger, but that seems kind of odd to me).

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[StingRay02]

An acquisition of the game would explain it. I knew there was an issue with the merger, and that the game might not be released. I never heard that Atari picked it up. Thanks.

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[andy9701]

It was only in the last week or so that Atari announced that they would be publishing it. I'm glad they did, though - from the sounds of it the game is nearly complete (including all of the voice acting). Would be a shame if it never got released, since it sounds like it will actually be good.

Baldurs Gate

[JosKarith]

C'mon. Pleeeease can we have a version of Baldur's Gate/NWN for the DS? Seriously - I might even break my policy of never buying games full-price for that one...

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[chrish]

You do realise how tiny the DS's screens are, right? Remember how big Baldur's Gate's maps were? Now imagine them each taking up at least 4x as many screens.

The Witcher? Yahtzee loved it :P

[Shivetya]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/22-The-Witcher [escapistmagazine.com]

Actually finding Zero Punctuation is about the only thing I will thank Digg for, but having read that Atari is going to bring that game to the consoles reminded me of the review that hooked me on Yahtzee's style. While it isn't for everyone he does make it fun.

In other words, there rarely are reviewers who say what we want to say let alone so publically

BG3

[Enderandrew]

Baldur's Gate 3 or Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 3? There is a MAJOR difference. And given that Obsidian handled NWN:2 for Atari, and they employ the former lead designer for BG3, including several staffers who worked on BG3, Obsidian seems like the logical choice for NWN3 if not also BG3.

Ghostbusters trailer

[antdude]

Shacknews [shacknews.com] has a trailer for it. It looks like a rendered trailer, not ingame.

You know 80's Movie is RIPE for a great game?

[MrPinstripeCom]

The Last Starfighter. Seriously, am I the only one that loves this little gem? EVEN THE MOVIE is BASED on a game...talk about primed and ready. . . kick it up a notch, and you're golden. C'mon!

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[KDR_11k]

For some reason the movie reminded me of Freespace.

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[protektor]

Someone made a windows game based on the arcade game in the movie. So in a way there is a game based on the movie. Go to this web site.
http://www.roguesynapse.com/games/last_starfighter.php [roguesynapse.com]

The guy even made a duplicate cabinet of the game in the movie to house his game. So it looks just like it does in the movie. The plans are all there so you could create one yourself as well.