Hey folks, just wanted to let you all know that I may not be blogging as much as I used to. I just got a new part time job in the extermination business. My other co-workers at my new job keep calling me ‘rookie,’ the receptionist ignores me, and the pay’s lousy. But in these hard economic times, you gotta do what you gotta do. Plus, aside from helping an old plumber friend clear some pests out of an old mansion, I have next to NO experience in this kind of work. Honestly, I’m just following in the footsteps of one of my idols, a hungry, round, yellow fellow who’s a bit of a ghost buster himself. So who ya gonna call? That’s right, me! I’m a Ghostbuster now, and I’m ready to believe you.

So basically I got the Ghostbusters game on 360. But before I do a short review on that, I thought I’d share with you all on how Ghostbusters mania was a part of my childhood. As a kid in the 80’s, Ghostbusters was a pretty big thing for a long while.

Ghostbusters Movie
Well it all started with the first movie. Definitely a great comedy action flick, and one of my favorite movies of all time. I prefer older comedies over new ones. Stuff with Steve Martin, the late John Candy, Bill Murray, etc. Give me a Blues Brothers, Uncle Buck, Stripes, or Caddyshack over the crap ‘comedies’ folks like Will Farrell poop out today. I think some of the younger folks out there may not realize just how big Ghostbusters was back then. I think it was one of the first big mass marketed blockbuster movies of its day. I don’t think the people who made Ghostbusters imagined it would get so popular either.

Anyway, as I said, Ghostbusters is one of my favorite movies alongside stuff like Star Wars, Muppet Christmas Carol, and The Fifth Element (yes I have strange tastes in movies). I still use lines from the movies every once in a while. Like, “Nice shootin’, Tex, four feet above the covers, dogs and cats sleeping together, and my favorite: Where do these stairs go? They go up.

The music in the movie was pretty popular, too. When I was little, they played the Ghostbusters song ALL the time on the radio, believe it or not. Much later, when I was in middle school or high school band (can’t remember), we even played that song in the stands at football games!

When the first movie came out, I was only like in first or second grade. I think my parents may have been a little reluctant to let me see it because they thought I might get frightened. They probably thought the same thing when they took me to the Gremlins movie. After both movies, they asked if I got scared, and I said, “Maybe a little, but sometimes scary stuff can be fun, too.” That’s why I think stuff like Harry Potter and Goosebumps books are popular with kids. Similar to adults, I think some kids enjoy being scared a little bit every now and then, too.

Ghostbusters 2
You know, even though the sequel wasn’t as good as the first one, I think it’s still a pretty fun movie. My favorite part was when they brought the Statue of Liberty to life and used a NES Advantage joystick to control it. I thought that was cool since the NES Advantage is one of my favorite video game controllers ever.

By the time Ghostbusters 2 came out, the gluttonous green ghost Slimer was insanely popular. So another thing I remember about the sequel was that, at the end when they showed all the movie stars and their names, the last thing they showed before the credits was “And Featuring Slimer,” with his picture. I remember at that moment in the theater, all the kids went, “Awwww, it’s Slimer! Yaaaaayyy!” Yup, Slimer was definitely popular with the kiddies.

Whenever I think of Slimer, I always think of a friend I had all the way up to high school. He graduated a year before me and I lost touch with him after that. Which I hate that, so I try hard to keep in touch with all the friends I have now. Anyway, whenever he would play a game that let you input a name, he would always pick ‘Slimer.’ Anytime I would let him borrow a game, when he’d return it, sure as the world there would be a save file named “Slimer.” He did that even in high school, and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he still did that today!

Ghostbusters cartoons
Sometimes big popular movies get their own cartoons, so that’s what we’re going to talk about now. But the first cartoon I’m going to write about has nothing to do with the Ghostbusters movie. Back when the film was popular, Filmation decided to cash in by releasing a cartoon called Ghostbusters, but was totally unrelated to the popular movie. Instead, the Filmation cartoon was based on a live action kids’ show from the 70’s called The Ghost Busters and it was about two guys and a dude in a gorilla costume who caught ghosts. I’ve never seen the live action show, or really heard of it much, but it sounds like a very cheap Sid and Marty Kroft rip-off. Anyway, the Filmation cartoon was an animated cartoon based on that.

I know that money drove them to do that cartoon, but sometimes I think it would’ve been nice if Filmation gave kids more credit than that. Most kids at that time would’ve never heard of the live action show (I know I didn’t), and surely they must’ve thought kids would know this wasn’t the Ghostbusters from the movie and they wouldn’t watch it because of that. I know when I first saw this and viewed the intro, that’s what I was thinking, “This isn’t the Ghostbusters.” And I changed channels. Needless to say, I didn’t like that cartoon at all and I really don’t have much respect for Filmation. They also made other crappy 80’s cartoons like He-Man. Of course, I’m not saying I was above watching awful cartoons as a kid. I loved watching the Pac-Man cartoon and I KNOW that one is horrible. But I loved it anyway since I am such a big Pac-Man fan.

Click here to follow a YouTube link to the Filmation Ghostbusters cartoon intro

The Real Ghostbusters
Now THIS was the cartoon based on the movie. All about the Ghostbusters’ further adventures. It was actually kind of scary sometimes for a kids show. But it was also pretty good for a cartoon based on a movie and I enjoyed watching it a lot as a kid.

One of the gags they kept from the movie was how the Ghostbusters’ receptionist, Janine, would always try and hit on and flirt with Egon. And Egon would always try and ignore or avoid her. I never understood that as a kid because cartoon Janine was kind of cute, for a cartoon character anyway. And I thought cartoon Egon should’ve been nicer to her. But cartoon characters are just silly like that sometimes.

The Real Ghostbusters was on TV for quite a long time, and later when Slimer became more and more popular, he even got his own cartoon in the show. He was always in the Ghostbusters carton as a supporting character, but he was kind of annoying sometimes. The new cartoon segment was simply called ‘Slimer!’ and they changed the name of the series to Slimer and the Real Ghostbusters. The Slimer cartoon was animated more cartoony and was geared towards a younger audience. Slimer’s adventures were more slapstick and Looney Tunes-ish. He usually would have to keep a mischievous alley cat out of trouble, or help neighborhood kids in the park with their problems. The Slimer cartoon wasn’t as good, so when it came on, I would usually flip channels until the Ghostbusters came back on.

Click here to follow a YouTube link to The Real Ghostbusters cartoon intro

Extreme Ghostbusters
During the mid to late 90’s, they made an updated version of the Ghostbusters cartoon. I was already in college by the time this came out, and with all the working and studying I had to do, I was really selective about what I watched on TV so I never saw this. But generally, most of the cartoons that came out around this time were crap, so I didn’t watch a whole lot of animated stuff then. I think Slimer was in it but most of the Ghostbusters were new. I think they tried to make it more politically correct because one of the characters was in a wheelchair if I’m not mistaken. I kind of feel bad saying anything negative about this cartoon since I never really watched it, but my gut feeling says it probably wasn’t worth my time anyway. Plus I’m always leery about anything with the word “Extreme” in it. Space Invaders Extreme excluded.

Ghostbusters Cereal
Yup, they even got their own cereal. I’ve always loved cereal, so for some reason, I remember old cereals from my childhood. I never liked the Ghostbusters cereal, though. It was basically Fruit Loops with a line across the ring to represent the “No” sign, and white marshmallow ghosts. I’ve always hated anything that has to do with marshmallows, even as a kid. I detested roasted marshmallows, S’mores, things with marshmallow cream like Oreos and Twinkies, and marshmallow cereals like Lucky Charms. I even hated the Pac-Man cereal because it was basically Lucky Charms with Pac-Man and ghost colored marshmallows. And I WANTED to like the Pac-Man cereal so bad. I guess I was a strange kid.

Click here to follow a YouTube link to the Ghostbusters cereal commercial

I didn’t get into any of the other Ghostbusters products as a kid, though. I knew there were action figures and vehicles and toy proton packs and such. But by that time, I was a little too old for the toys. Although I still enjoyed the movies and cartoon. Really the only two toy lines I got into as a kid were Star Wars and Transformers. Never was into G.I. Joe or He-Man. I learned pretty quickly that my money was better spent on video games, and I haven’t looked back ever since.

Hi-C Ecto Cooler

Sadly, my favorite Ghostbusters product tie-in was…juice. During the height of Ghostbusters mania in the 80’s, Hi-C came out with a juice box flavor that was very citrus-y, like orange/tangerine juice. They colored it an unnatural green, called it Ecto-Cooler, and slapped Slimer on the box. It was SO GOOD and I drank tons of the stuff as a kid. I must’ve not have been the only one because Ecto Cooler stuck around long after Ghostbusters popularity ran its course, and even after taking Slimer of the box, they still called it Ecto Cooler! They don’t make it anymore, but I’ve read about Internet petitions trying to get Minute Maid to make the stuff again. I wouldn’t count on that happening, but I would love it if they did. Anyway, I won’t go into all the history of Ecto Cooler, but there’s a pretty good article about it over at X-Entertainment.

Click here to follow the YouTube link to the Ecto Cooler commercial.

Ghostbusters Video Games
Before I get started talking about the new Ghostbusters game, I thought I’d briefly mention some of the old ones. I didn’t play all of them, but some stuck out in my mind. I think I played the first game on the computer. It wasn’t a very good game and I couldn’t figure out what to do, but I do remember it having some original ideas for the time. In the game, you were starting up your own Ghostbuster franchise, and there was a bit of a business simulator aspect to it as you could earn money to upgrade your Ecto-1 and whatnot. Most of the rest of the game was single screen mini-game fare. You would plot a course on the map, then play an overhead driving mini-game to get there. Then you’d play another single screen mini-game to trap ghosts (just don’t cross the streams). And that’s about all I could figure out to do (hey, I was just a little kid). I read the Ghostbusters game was actually made by David Crane, maker of (much better) games like Pitfall and A Boy and His Blob.

I know there was a Ghostbusters 2 game on the NES as well, but I never played it. Even at a young age, I knew that movie based games were usually not worth my time. There was also a Real Ghostbusters three player arcade game by Sega. I didn’t play it much because the bigger kids usually hogged it. But when I did try it, something about it felt a little off, like it didn’t feel like a Ghostbusters game. Turns out that I wasn’t too far off the mark, as later I read it was a totally different game in Japan that Sega reworked for the US.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game (360)
I got the 360 version of this for a few reasons. One, I was just in the mood for a more ‘realistic’ Ghostbusters experience, and the Wii version is more cartoony. Plus, I love the Wii and all, but sometimes I just want to play a game with an old fashioned regular ol’ controller. But mainly I got the 360 version because it was made by Terminal Reality, and they’re about 15 minutes away from my house so I wanted to support the local guys.

The Ghostbusters video game casts you as a new recruit to test out all the equipment for the other Ghostbusters as you follow them on another haunted adventure, which is a pretty clever video game gimmick/premise. While it looks like an over the shoulder third person shooter at first glance, there is some creative stuff here and there to keep things interesting. You don’t just shoot everything, you must wrangle and trap the ghosts so it has a bit of a Luigi’s Mansion vibe to it. And I also like how all your energy and weapon information is right on your proton pack.

It’s really the little details that make this game great. The stars of the movie lend their voices, giving authenticity to the experience of making you feel like a real Ghostbuster and part of the team. Other little details I appreciated was when exploring the firehouse between levels. They have a few arcade games up there and one of them was a Q*bert machine, with all the artwork on it and everything. I wanted to play it SO BAD! In the game, Ray got a little impatient with me when he wanted me to go down to the basement to catch Slimer, but instead I was trying to figure out how to play Q*bert! Another detail I liked was a billboard in the firehouse where it looked like a bunch of elementary school kids made a big thank you card for the Ghostbusters. One sheet of paper had a kid drawing of Slimer and scrawled on it with kids writing was “Slimer ate 50 hot dogs!” I bet one of the developer’s kids did that, and it cracked me up!

The Ghostbusters game is pure fan service. In the first three levels, you catch Slimer in the hotel again, fight the Stay Puft Marshmallow man, and get the library ghost! As far as movie based games, it’s pretty good. Probably one of the best movie games out there!

Ghostbusters: Good for kids?
The Ghostbusters game is rated T for Teen with ESRB descriptors of comic mischief, fantasy violence, and mild language. I don’t know if the Wii version is more family friendly since I’ve only got the 360 game. I hear the Wii version is more cartoony and has two player co-op in the main game, so maybe it is.

While most of the ghosts are pretty silly and cartoony, the game does get a little scarier later on. I thought the disembodied voices whispering in the background were especially creepy. You hear children’s cries in the juvenile section of the library, and when you leave, the door slams and you hear a kid’s voice behind you say, “Bye!” Later on in the sewer, I heard whispers that went, “Should we kill him now? No, not yet.” Creepy!

The second time you venture to the hotel, you battle a ghost woman with a spider body. The events that lead up to this battle reference some pretty violent and sexual acts by her before she turned into an evil ghost. She would lead men to her hotel room and kill them like a spider does. When you get to her room, you see all these body-shaped masses of web hanging from the ceiling! But that’s about as scary as it gets. The rest of the game is as tame as the movie. So if you’re OK with your kids watching the film, they’ll be alright here, too.

One ‘good for kids’ aspect of this game is the emphasis on teamwork. Even in the one player game, the four other Ghostbusters rarely leave you alone, and will shout hints to help you out. And when you run out of energy, they’ll almost always drop what they’re doing and help you up. Nobody dies (except the ghosts, who are already dead) and there is no blood. When you run out of energy, you just fall on your back like a tipped up turtle until another player helps you back up.

Another good part for kids is the selectable difficulty levels. I’m not too good at third person shooters, so I put the game on “Casual” and did just fine. In fact, it was a little too easy, even for me! The only part of the game that gave me trouble was on the last level where you have to smash some flying stone cherubs into a wall to break the gate. The team tells you to use the slime tether, but the statues are so relentless that you’ll fail before too long. I found the best way to get past this area is to keep your back to the gate with the glowing skulls and let the stone angels kamikaze into you. But instead, they’ll hit the wall and break the gate! All in all, I think kids younger than teens could play Ghostbusters: The Video Game OK, but I think it’s best for older kids anyway.

I would love it if you all would give me your opinions on my Ghostbusters blog and share your own Ghostbusters stories as well! And if you’ve got a ghost problem, just call me, OK? –Cary

Tags: Game Reviews