Ghostbusters DS - Reviewed

"Do you believe in UFOs, astral projections, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full trance mediums, the Loch Ness monster and the theory of Atlantis? "

For those born in the 1980s, Ghostbuster is an icon, a hero and a faded memory now. A story about three down and out parapsychologist which has captured evidence of paranormal activity and seen a ghost, the tree Docs established a Ghost Extermination Service aptly named as "Ghostbusters" and as they say, everything else becomes history.

What with a number of successful movies and more numbers of games that is based on the movie, the Ghostbusters DS should learn from it all right?

GAMEPLAY

WRONG - Immediately after I started the game I foresee a problem. The car steering system is a monumental mistake, to accelerate, you need to press the "UP" button, so to turn, you would have to chop off part of your finger, and then attach it to your thumb so that you can press the "LEFT" or "RIGHT" button. I think they did this on purpose because they would like to leave your right hand free to tap the screen when driving but couldn't they have put the accelerate on the "L" button?!

Then we have the "Ghostbusting" part, to catch the ghost you move around using directional button and then tap and hold the ghost when you see them. This will then reduce the ghost's health and you can use the Ghost Trap by holding the L button and tapping the location where you want to deploy the trap. Fairly easy right?


WRONG! For one, the AI is as usefull as a cow ushered to the chopping board, what with their refussal to response when there is ghost around, the inability to shoot any anything without you shooting first and coupled with the utterly headache inducing layout of the map which keeps me running around the damn place before I realise that I need to either Extract all Victims/Capture all Ghost/Capture all Artifact/Close all Ghost Portal or that I left out one other thing before I can complete the mission. It's frustrating!


Granted there are SOME saving grace to the game, the jokes and the humor in game is solid and funny enough to remind you of the movie itself or a small laugh, the customizable and equipable items which can be researched, made and then re-researched and then made again. But that's about it! That's about the only stuff that is interesting for me!

GRAPHIC

The graphic is 3D and are surprisingly nice, I loved the driving part of the game where the fogs are heavy and the scene are dark, covering most of the city which keeps the graphical boundry of the game down while pushing the effect up. Nicely done there, but the graphic while you are walking around ghostbusting in a building though is slightly drab and lifeless, granted it is due to the ghost being around and what not but I wish it could have had a bit of GTA: Chinatown DS colour scheme in it. Now that game has good graphic!

MUSIC


Be prepared to feel nostalgic and all that as the music hits home, who can forget the tune for ghostbuster!

If there's somethin' strange in your neighborhood
Who ya gonna call (ghostbusters)
If it's somethin' weird an it don't look good
Who ya gonna call (ghostbusters)

CONCLUSION


Look, I loved Ghostbusters, I loved the movie and dearly want to love this game but I just can't bring myself to do that. It has solid jokes, lots of equipable items, great customizable stuff and all the jiggly wiggly thingy machingy that you could expect but the gameplay, the crux of it all just doesn't live up to my expectation!


If you have the money, if you loved the movie, spend the money to buy the Blu-Ray Ghostbusters Movie HERE instead of wasting the money to buy the Ghostbusters DS. Hell, you can have the whole chunk of Ghostbusters game and movie available at Play-Asia HERE but for crying out loud. AVOID THE DS VERSION LIKE A PLAGUE!

-Because I Can-