Ghostbusters: The Video Game

One of the most surprising things about the Ghostbusters campaign is its length. By the gold standard of Gears of War/2's co-op campaigns, this one is longer - and though there are some parts that get a little videogamey (go to the four power nodes, collect the four pieces, etc.) the story in general is still good, easily better than Ghostbusters 2 as well as most modern games. Aside from the Wii version's wacky graphics, about the only real complaint I have about the setting is that Bill Murray clearly isn't into it; he has less lines than almost anyone else in the game, and only a handful of them are really convincing.

The gameplay gets a little murkier. Gestural ghost-wrangling can be fun, but can also be frustrating, e.g. when a directional slam the game prompts you for takes a ghost out of your line of sight, or behind you, completely screwing up the camera angle. There are a few glaring bugs as well: a "Catch up to your team-mate!" mechanic would semi-frequently teleport my co-op partner or myself to completely the wrong place, and in one level in particular, one or the other of us would invariably spawn outside of the level, falling through the map forever while the other had to finish the level solo. One gets the impression that, if it hadn't been pushed to release alongside its hi-def cousin, this version of the game could have used another couple months of development polish.

It has its problems, and the mildly inventive gameplay dulls as the game marches on. Yet there is a simple joy in the mostly-destructible environments, the boss fights are atypically creative, and Aykroyd's and Ramis's story carries the whole production fairly well. If you like good comedy, you owe it to yourself to try this game out on one of its many platforms. Although I've heard that the DS one is awful.

Progress: Finished on co-op in "Gozer" difficulty