Log in
Consoles
Ask the Experts
Review
For many, the films Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II hold a special place in the nostalgic memories of their childhood. Whether old enough to have seen the films at the cinema, re-watched them again and again on VHS, or caught them when first aired on TV: the Ghostbusters franchise is integral to our pop culture heart. Its popularity mirrored only by two other '80s and '90s family adventure film series: Indiana Jones and Back to the Future.
Set in 1991, two years after the second film ended, you play as a new recruit to the Ghostbusters team, referred to only as "Rookie". You have an extremely interesting first day on the job as a paranormal investigator when a huge PKE event sends the paranormal denizens of Manhattan into a frenzy. Soon you're riding out in ECTO-1 with Ray, Peter and Egon, Winston arrives later, to discover what's going on, and using the Proton Stream to give ghosts an afterlife in the containment cell at an old fire station the Ghostbusters call home. I warn you now: if you have not seen the first two films then the game's story will be difficult to understand.
When you start the game, as well as creating a new profile and choosing what difficulty to play at, you may choose whether to play as a young man or young woman. But once kitted out with your Proton Pack, and exploring the first chapter, you soon learn the joy of using the Wiimote and Nunchuck to live the dream of being a Ghostbuster. At the end of each chapter you're presented with a summary that explains how many collectibles (scans of entities and items, and Tobin's art cards) you've found, and how much damage you have caused.
The Wii version of the game, despite cartoon style graphics (as opposed to the realistic graphics of the Xbox 360 and PS3 version), enables an engaging level of play, because when you use the controls to take down paranormal entities it is almost as you may have imagined wheeling the ghost busting kit from the films. Using the Wiimote to blast and throw ghosts around levels with the Proton Stream, in the camera's main third person point of view, and then bowling with the Nunchuck to release the trap to capture ghosts is intuitive and fun. During the course of the game your arsenal of tools to combat and investigate the paranormal shenanigans increases beyond the simple tools of the trade.
