Ghostbusters: The Official Video Game Remastered Review

Despite the many attempts at adapting the Ghostbusters franchise into a game, I never thought the series would be good for a game. You’re mainly a pest control specialist who deals with spook, spectre and ghosts, with most of the action with attempting to trap a singular ghost. Saying it out loud doesn’t do much to have confidence as a game, but in 2009 I was proven wrong when Terminal Reality and Atari released Ghostbusters the Official Video Game.

This one was different – a script that was essentially the third movie written by Dan Aykroyd and the late Harold Ramis, and saw the return of the original cast of the films. The game proved to be great in the gameplay department as well, with trapping ghosts required patience and understanding of your opponents, and felt like an actual battle.

10 years later, Mad Dog Games – who previously worked on titles like Shaq Fu: The Legend Reborn, NBA Playgrounds and World War Z – brought back the 2009 classic. With 10 years past, its time to see if the game still holds up to its glory.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game takes place in 1991, two years after the events of Ghostbusters 2. Players are thrown into the role of the Rookie, a nameless newcomer to the crew who is hired to be the Ghostbusters guinea pig for their experimental and dangerous devices. After a blast of paranormal energy ruptures through New York City, a variety of ghosts, both familiar and new to the franchise, start running amuck and it’s up to Ghostbusters to stop them.

When I first played the game in 2009, I agreed with most people saying that this should have been the true sequel for the series. In 2019, I see the game more of fan-service as a lot of the events don’t necessarily move the Ghostbusters forward. I still consider a strong shoo-in for a proper sequel – at least until we get a look at Ghostbusters: Afterlife, but battles with Slimer, Stay-Puff Marshmellow man, and the Library Ghost seems to be more of a nod to the movies then have any pull on the new story.

The most surprising part of Ghostbusters though is how well the game plays. Taking controls of the Rookie in a third-person shooter fashion, Players must line up their shots with the Proton packs and weaken the ghosts. As the Ghost gets weak enough – players can wrangle them up with a capture stream and attempt to force them into a trap. Of course, this is the most easiest thing to do as Ghosts can attempt to slime you or throw items in the environment at you, but the work you do to trap the ghost feels genuine to the franchise because after all, the ghosts in the movies didn’t go down easily.

There is a strategy to weakening ghosts as you proceed through the game, as you’ll gain new experimental packs which treat the proton packs like a different type of gun, some better for destroying smaller poltergeists, others for peacefully taking down possessed items or people.

These battles are also where the game shines in terms of the environment as almost everything is destructible (which its cost is added up as you destroy everything.) The level design also gives more of a horror-themed environment as some ghosts are powerful to manifest changes to the world which offers an almost unsettling tone as you explore the various levels.

The return of the original cast for the likeness and voice work is the final nail that this game needed. With veteran actors such as Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson and the late Harold Ramis reprising their roles brings something to the table that most games don’t. It almost feels like not a single line is a misstep, even when they’re trying to explain the game’s mechanics of capturing ghosts, finding collectibles or helping team members who’ve been knocked down.

Even after 10 years, Ghostbusters The Video Game still holds up and is easily one of the best movie-to-video games available. The Remastered edition gives some fine quality of life tweaks which makes the controls a bit easier overall but a lot of it remains untouched and that’s exactly how a game that is pretty much perfect should be treated.