Spook Central

We came, we saw, we kicked its ass! OXM suits up and straps on a proton pack for the first hands-on with Ghostbusters: The Video Game.

“No sudden movements.”

The order comes from Dr. Ray Stantz, professional paranormal investigator and eliminator — “the heart of the Ghostbusters,” as colleague Peter Venkman once put it. Ray’s leading us through a building that has caught the particular interest of the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, a 100-foot-high spongy monstrosity made of gelatin, dextrose, and pure evil. We’re here to see if we can figure out what makes this building so attractive to the beast — and hopefully not garner any undue attention ourselves. And suddenly, as we turn the corner, there he is, looming through a destroyed window, staring menacingly at a helpless woman who is clearly terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought.

Oops — with one press of the right trigger, we let loose with a stream of pure protonic energy from the particle thrower, aimed directly at his jaunty sailor hat. “Sudden movements, sudden movements!” screams Ray, as Stay-Puft turns his attention to us, his face rapidly breaking out in toasty scars. He looks intimidating and…delicious.

We knew the risks when we signed up. Hell, we asked for it — we’ve wanted to don the jumpsuits of New York City’s supernatural janitors for years. And with the impending release of Ghostbusters: The Video Game from Sierra, we’ve finally got our chance.

Back in Business

But unlike most movie tie-ins, this is no mere licensed cash-in: the game features the full participation of most of the major players from the hit films, including all four Ghostbusters — Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, and Ernie Hudson — plus Annie Potts (Janine) and William Atherton (Walter Peck). (Only Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis chose to pass.) Crucially, Aykroyd and Ramis are also writing the game’s script together (as they did for the movies) and treating this as an official part of the Ghostbusters canon.

The game is due on store shelves Halloween 2008, but the story’s timeline takes place in 1991, a few years after the events of Ghostbusters II. “You are a new recruit — you become the fifth Ghostbuster,” explains Mark Randel, president of the game’s development studio, Terminal Reality. “We decided to have you be a recruit because so much of the fun of Ghostbusters is the banter between the characters — their attitude, the comedic timing that Harold and Dan and Bill have from working together. You can’t replicate that unless you’re not one of them. You have to be an outsider, watching that. So we’ve been able to keep the feel of the movies by including over 40 ‘cineractive’ sequences in the game, where you’ll be able to listen to them speak and talk to each other and advance the story, but you also play as a Ghostbuster.”

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