I’ve played the David Crane original since I was a kid ghostbusters Playing on my Commodore 64, I thought so ghostbusters is a property that lends itself perfectly to video games. You have great characters, you have cool gadgets, you have otherworldly spirits that threaten New York City and the world with apocalyptic proportions of destruction. And who gets to save the day and be heroes? A couple of dirty guys in work clothes. So it’s pained me a bit over the decades to see other franchises like that war of stars Get bonanzas from games, many of which are great ghostbusters has mostly been left in the shadows, save for the occasional disappointing, memorable game. Ghostbusters: Ghosts Unleashednext week from IllFonic, isn’t that great ghostbusters Game I’ve been waiting for all this time. It does have its unassuming charm, though, and I hope it’s a precursor to a new wave of games that do cool, interesting things with it ghostbusters license.
IllFonic (which set up my box with code for this game) is the studio behind the asymmetric multiplayer games Predator: hunting grounds and Friday the 13thamong other things and Unleashed Ghosts is in this sense. Up to four players dress up as Ghostbusters, while another player (or an AI) haunts one of the game’s five locations as a spook, ghost, or ghost. The ‘Busters’ use classic ghostbusting gear to hunt down and capture the ghost while allowing the ghost to do things like hide in common objects, unleash weak but obnoxious little minion ghosts and of course slime people . If the ghost scares enough civilians and generally causes enough havoc to fill a “haunted” meter, it wins. The Ghostbusters want to catch it before that happens.
So first the positive. Unleashed Ghosts made a good first impression in this regard ghostbusters Fan by throwing me into the gang’s iconic fire station right off the bat, meticulously recreated and fully explorable. It also focuses on Winston Zeddemore (voiced by actor Ernie Hudson, who played him in the films) and ties right into last year’s film Ghostbusters: Life After Death ceased when Winston reopened the old New York location. Seeing Winston prominently here feels a bit like a course correction for some of the early ones ghostbusters Games I loved, but which often left Winston completely out of the picture and pretended the Ghostbusters were just three white men. (Gosh, I wonder why.)
One of the first things you do is create your own buster, and the customization options are solid. My heart absolutely goes to Spengler, Stantz, Venkman, and Zeddemore, but it was also great to see a lot of mixed-gender, multiracial Ghostbuster crews during my time with the game. And the signature Ghostbusters gear has perhaps never been more effectively incorporated into a game. Your trusty PKE meter will help you track down those pesky ghosts as well as Ghost Rifts, essentially respawn points that give the ghost a few extra lives. Ghosts start at three, and by destroying the rifts you deprive the Ghost of those extra respawns. Of course, traps are needed to actually catch the ghosts. But the proton packs are the standout. The chaotic blast of colorful energy that shoots out when you start blasting looks just as wild and unruly as it does in the movies, and just like the crew in the movies, this means you’ll almost certainly cause some serious property damage in your efforts to argue the spirit. It’s part of the fun.
As for the rest – well, look, it’s hard to talk about a game like that Unleashed Ghosts Pre-release when opportunities to play with others are limited. my box came with multiple codes, but our efforts to connect with each other via crossplay often ended in a disconnect, leaving me unable to really get the full, proper experience of the game while communicating with teammates, which I believe to be the case becomes essential to the experience. In order to effectively capture a ghost, the ‘busters’ often need to coordinate things such as B. holding the ghost in a proton pack ‘tether’ – something best done by multiple ‘busters’ – while someone else ejects and opens their trap. The mechanics are clearly designed to encourage and even require communication to really work. The good folks at IllFonic have also made themselves available for multiplayer sessions, a gesture I appreciate, but I want to keep my experience as authentic as possible and not play with people who have a vested interest in a game’s success. I’ll definitely keep trying the game once it’s out and ideally the crossplay and network stability have improved.
Of course you can play Unleashed Ghosts alone, either as Buster or Ghost, while the other roles are filled with bots. However, I can’t recommend it as a single player experience in its current state. I was often amazed at how utterly ineffective my bot-driven peers were. They didn’t seem to have a sense of teamwork or what might help in a given situation, and there’s no way to give them orders or suggestions like “I could use a trap here!”
The bot AI may see some improvements in the coming weeks and months after release, and if it does, that improvement will definitely be welcomed. But even if it does, it’s fundamentally undeniable Unleashed Ghosts is designed as a multiplayer game that encourages communication. So if you’re thinking of playing it, I’d recommend that you get an idea of people you know want to play it.
Also, keep your expectations in check. This is a humble game. Reasonably priced at $40, it’s a low-key, casual multiplayer experience that can be fun for the whole family, but won’t knock your socks off either. Sure, there’s a story that progresses as you play games and earn XP, unlock upgrades to your gear, and unlock new cosmetic options for your Buster (including some nice tributes to the great animated series The real ghost hunters), but once you’ve played a few games, you kind of get the whole deal.
And as faithful as all of the Ghostbusters gear is to the original, the act of actually catching ghosts often feels messy in a negative sense. I’ve often just thrown my trap in the general direction of the ghost, trying to get the ghost in a position above it, and hoping I’m lucky and that it doesn’t trigger a mega slime attack that knocks my character out for a few seconds cover my screen with mud. Perhaps playing with friends makes the process feel more coordinated, skillful, and satisfying. I look forward to finding out soon.
On the screen of a computer at the fire station, a nod to the classic David Crane game I mentioned, taken directly from the opening sing-along. To use the computer you have to reach level 20 and I figured that means the classic Activision game could be a playable Easter egg Unleashed Ghosts, so excitedly I ground myself to 20 to find out. Unfortunately, no, the computer only gives you access to new objectives and challenges that you can complete to earn more XP and other rewards. Of course that’s okay. The David Crane game still exists and I can still play it if I want to. But it says something about it Unleashed Ghosts that after playing it a bit, I was more excited about the opportunity to play another, much older game in this one than playing this game itself. Unleashed Ghosts gets the superficial details right, but I’m not sure it has the depth I seek in the really big, hypothetical ghostbusters Game I’ve dreamed of for almost 40 years. We hope it’s just a spooky sign of far scarier things to come.
