0:00

Hello everybody

0:04

and welcome

0:08

to the

0:10

Canerance podcast

0:13

volume 13, issued by

0:17

the

0:22

Canerance

0:28

podcast volume 13, issued

0:30

620. Today we're going to

0:32

be talking about Ghostbusters

0:35

colon the video game.

0:38

Not to be confused with the Ghostbusters computer

0:41

game that we covered a few

0:43

issues ago. Joining me Leon Cox in

0:45

this one is Brian Edwards.

0:47

Hello. Hello. It's Karmu.

0:50

Hey everyone. And Tony

0:52

Atkins. Hello. Ghostbusters

0:55

the video game is a

0:57

third person supernatural themed action

0:59

game. Yeah. Yep.

1:03

Check it out. Just

1:05

checking. It also in

1:08

some versions has a multiplayer component which we'll talk

1:10

a little bit about a very little bit about

1:12

later on. And it

1:14

was remastered, which we'll also talk about.

1:16

But let's start with our histories. So

1:18

this game is 15 years old. It

1:20

came out initially around

1:22

the time of the original

1:25

movie's 25th anniversary. It

1:27

was initially on PS3 and 360

1:29

chiefly and then a PC version.

1:32

Tony, was this one of

1:34

those that you gobbled

1:36

up eagerly as a 360 player

1:39

in chief back in 2009? I did. But I only

1:41

know that because I went

1:45

back and looked my achievements. Yes. I

1:47

couldn't have told you that I played it

1:49

on launch, but apparently I did. So yeah,

1:51

I must have been eagerly anticipating it. There

1:54

was some buzz around it. I guess

1:56

you were probably podcasting at the time. It

1:58

was the sort of game that people were

2:01

the likes of us were playing to talk

2:03

about? I think

2:06

it's funny when I think about Ghostbusters

2:08

now, because I think obviously it's had

2:11

a number of recent iterations into the

2:13

franchise. Some have been okay, some have been

2:15

great, some have been, eh. Your mileage

2:17

may vary. Yeah, your mileage may vary. But

2:20

I think back in

2:22

2009, the idea of

2:24

anything new Ghostbusters was

2:27

quite a thing, because it had been a

2:29

fairly dormant franchise for a long time. So

2:32

I think the fact that the game was

2:35

due to come out and continue some

2:37

form of a continuation of the Ghostbusters

2:39

franchise, I think actually- Less dormant if

2:42

you're into comics or cartoons, I think.

2:44

But yes, I think that's it.

2:46

Yeah, but I just think that the

2:48

buzz that would have been around it

2:50

then was just the fact that anything,

2:52

I guess more visually, Ghostbusters, and I

2:55

suppose a cartoon comic would be. But

2:57

yeah, a new entry into the franchise,

2:59

and they were almost saying it was

3:01

the kick start of something to

3:04

continue on. And in fact, as we know now, it

3:06

was. So I think there was a lot more buzz

3:08

around it then just to see what they were going

3:10

to do, and it had the original cast and what

3:13

not come back in. So

3:15

yeah, I think probably the reason I picked

3:17

it up straight away was just it

3:19

sounded like a really good final idea

3:21

of a Ghostbusters game that actually visually

3:23

looked like a modern, at

3:26

that point, Ghostbusters game. Yeah.

3:29

And have you managed to go back to it,

3:31

or is this all memories for you? No, no.

3:33

So I went back to the remastered version that

3:35

came out a few years ago. Seemed like the

3:39

more sensible thing to do is to see

3:41

how I knew polished up, looking at the

3:43

best light possible. Relatively

3:45

cheap in one of the sales, I think I brought it.

3:47

So yeah, so

3:50

complete new fresh playthrough,

3:52

some of which I completely remembered some

3:54

of the levels I had completely forgotten

3:56

so always handy to do a replay.

4:00

might actually signal more about the game

4:02

than anything else. But

4:04

I think before going into the remastered,

4:06

I had fairly fun memories of the

4:08

game. Once again

4:10

kind of laced around that.

4:12

No, you don't. No

4:15

spoilers. Pre-entive.

4:18

Not to lace any doubt on it, but I

4:21

remember thinking before the show

4:23

that, no, that was a game that

4:25

I really enjoyed. I really enjoyed Rangling

4:27

Ghosts. There was something there and the

4:29

performance is even the storyline was actually

4:31

relatively good. So I was interested to

4:33

see how it would just stand up in 2024 as a

4:35

2009 game. 360

4:38

games. Oh, I'll say 360. That

4:41

era games have mileage can

4:43

vary as we found out on

4:45

different shows. I

4:47

have history and some new history. Cool. Karl,

4:51

what about yourself? Yes,

4:54

I was a fan, as I'm

4:56

sure many of you were, of Ghostbusters

4:58

when they originally came out of

5:02

the time. I'll say that.

5:05

And I played a

5:07

number of different Ghostbusters games. Some

5:11

of which I enjoyed, some of which I didn't.

5:13

I never felt like any of them really captured

5:15

what I was expecting from Ghostbusters. Obviously

5:18

a few things had been teased in terms of

5:20

getting the whole cast together and that was a

5:22

big deal for this game and I got quite

5:24

excited by it. I actually imported it on the

5:27

Xbox 360 because, well,

5:29

the PS3 always generally seemed

5:31

to have really flaky versions

5:33

of games at the time and I thought, well, I'll

5:35

just import it. I think maybe the PS3 was the

5:37

lead platform for this one, but I'm not so. It

5:41

was a better safe than

5:43

sorry situation and it was relatively

5:45

cheap to import at the time.

5:48

Certainly a lot cheaper than it was in my childhood. I don't know

5:50

that for a fact. And

5:54

there was just something at the time where I thought

5:56

I want to buy some import games because quite

5:58

frankly, I was priced out of so. many of them

6:00

when I was younger and it still had a sense

6:02

of novelty at the time. So

6:05

this seemed to be an amalgamation of all

6:07

the things that I was looking forward to,

6:09

a sense that this might be the best

6:11

representation of the actual

6:14

the Ghostbusters since the

6:16

second film. The fact that

6:18

it was on a console that

6:20

I was playing on the 360 which was thriving

6:23

at the time and it felt

6:26

like reading the previews that actually

6:28

got the essentially the ghost wrangling side

6:30

of things and I thought that that

6:32

sounded really novel so I was

6:34

kind of all in for this I was

6:37

really really excited so yeah that's that's the

6:39

reason why rather than wait I just went

6:41

and jumped to the queue and imported it.

6:44

Cool cool, have you managed to revisit

6:46

it? No I

6:48

actually opted not to. I watched quite

6:51

a lot of the

6:53

the remastered footage when it sort

6:55

of dropped which about five years ago

6:57

now and so

7:01

sometimes you see games and you get a feeling that yeah

7:03

do you know what it'll still be great it'll be really

7:05

interesting to go back to and sometimes you look at stuff

7:07

and go do you know what I'm just gonna

7:09

leave it to what my thoughts were at the time

7:11

and this was one where I thought yeah do you

7:14

know what I'm just gonna leave that as it was

7:16

and it's continually popped up in sale after sale and

7:18

I can't lie I've come close to

7:20

pulling the trigger a few times but I thought no do

7:22

you know what I

7:25

you know I enjoyed my time

7:27

back then I'm going to recall

7:29

it and then see how you

7:31

feel after this show yeah exactly

7:33

yeah no I like I sometimes

7:35

bring that perspective of purely going

7:37

off memories and we'll see

7:39

where that takes us as well. Brian

7:43

you are you a Ghostbusters guy? Yeah

7:47

I would wager to say that Ghostbusters the

7:49

original 1983 movie is probably the film I've

7:51

seen the most. 84. I was

7:54

born 83 that's the that's I just assumed then

7:56

me and Peter Venkman entered the world at the

7:58

same time. Yeah yeah. That's

8:00

probably the movie I've seen the most. I

8:03

was joking before in the proverbial green room

8:05

about my parents being good parents, but they

8:07

did have HBO when I was a young

8:09

age and were not great at filtering what

8:11

I watched. So I saw a

8:13

lot of movies that were watching early. You were watching Oz as

8:15

a 10 year old. Yes. That's

8:18

how you got into the prison service. Yeah,

8:20

exactly. Right. Exactly. There was

8:22

a lot going on. Because it looked so appealing. I mean,

8:24

what else could I do? I mean, I was left to

8:26

my own devices and Oz was on the TV. What was

8:28

I supposed to do? And

8:32

then I also had a really, not to get super nostalgic, I

8:34

had a really magical day once I

8:37

was seven years old and my grandmother took

8:39

me to the movie theater to see two

8:41

movies in one day and it was the

8:43

Tim Burton Batman and Ghostbusters 2, which is

8:45

just about maybe the most legendary day of

8:47

my life as a seven year old. So

8:50

huge Ghostbusters fan. So I was definitely a

8:53

day one purchase for this game, but

8:55

something very unfortunate happened when I bought it. This

8:58

is the game that my launch

9:00

360 Red Ring. So

9:04

I got to the Sedgwick Hotel after the

9:07

kind of the tutorial and I was all

9:09

ready to go. And well, it was quite

9:11

graphically intensive. It probably melted that thermal paste.

9:13

Maybe. I remember like

9:15

seeing what happened. Like I obviously we were well into

9:18

the Red Ring saga at that point. And it was

9:20

like one of those things I just I couldn't believe

9:22

it. So I like I like

9:24

what what could possibly go wrong with my

9:26

Xbox. But so I end up getting another one. I

9:29

played I played it, you know, maybe a month

9:31

or two after launch, after I sent my Xbox

9:33

in and went through that whole process as a

9:35

lot of us did. Yeah.

9:38

So, yeah, I completed it at the time. And

9:41

when the remaster came out, it was one of those things kind

9:43

of like Carl. I didn't wasn't

9:45

sure if I wanted to go back to it or not. Didn't

9:48

want to color kind of my memories of the experience.

9:50

But then leading up to the show,

9:52

I'm like, you know, I really I started watching the

9:54

videos and I realized I did not remember very much

9:56

of it at all. So I'm like, OK, I'm going

9:58

to set aside this week. the week leading

10:00

up to the show to replay the remastered version.

10:03

So I bought it on

10:05

PlayStation 5, the PS4 version on PlayStation

10:07

5. And so I I

10:10

set aside the whole week to play it. And I actually

10:12

finished it in two sessions on Monday and Tuesday of this

10:14

week. So I'm pretty fresh on it now.

10:17

But yes, I've replayed the remastered

10:19

version, obviously, and I played the

10:21

original version around launch minus my

10:23

put my Xbox in a box

10:25

and send it to the state

10:27

of Washington to be repaired. So

10:31

lovely stuff. Yes, so I

10:33

was 12 when the movie came out and went

10:35

to see it the cinema. But it isn't a

10:37

film that I was kind of obsessed with. Like

10:39

some of my friends were crazy about it. I

10:41

really enjoyed it and I loved the concept and

10:43

I had fun with it. But I've

10:45

only ever seen it a few times over the

10:48

years. Never seen Ghostbusters 2. My intention was

10:50

to actually watch that today ahead of recording, because

10:52

it obviously kind of it set released

10:55

and set two years before this game. But

10:57

we had a washing machine related

11:00

issue at home. So I didn't get around to. So

11:03

I've never seen. Yeah, could be

11:05

could be haunted by lint

11:08

and yeah. The

11:10

stuff that clogs up the you know, you know

11:12

how it goes with washing machines. So

11:15

yes, I've still never seen Ghostbusters 2, but

11:17

I've effectively played Ghostbusters 3. I didn't buy

11:19

this at the time. I was keen

11:22

on it. It looked cool. I like

11:24

the concept. I just never got around to it for whatever

11:26

reason. And the first time I owned it,

11:28

I think it was given away on Epic, the

11:31

PC version some years ago. And

11:33

that's it been in my library untouched.

11:36

And then I started playing it for the

11:38

show, basically the remastered version, PS4 remastered, but

11:40

on a PS5. And

11:43

it was on PS Plus. So that

11:45

was cool until the game

11:47

was taken off PS Plus after I'd completed about

11:50

half of it. And so I

11:52

then had to buy it to finish it. I

11:54

could have obviously started again for free on the

11:57

PC version, but I didn't really want

11:59

to. We

12:01

ponied up for the

12:04

PS4 version on PS5 and I played

12:06

it over the last couple of weeks

12:08

or so. Finished it a couple of

12:10

days ago. So

12:12

it was by Terminal Reality, the original version on PS3,

12:14

360 and PC. Not

12:18

a team that I was wildly familiar

12:20

with. Their first game was Terminal Velocity,

12:22

appropriately enough. And the most recent release

12:24

bearing their name was Terminal Velocity Boosted

12:27

Edition. Which was obviously a

12:29

remaster that came out just last year.

12:31

Probably best known for the Blood Rain

12:34

games. And

12:38

other than that they'd done some work

12:41

for things like compiling

12:43

SNK games on PS2 and stuff

12:45

like that. But

12:47

there was some PS1 era

12:49

stuff like off-roading

12:52

games. They did a Blair Witch game.

12:54

Various sort of odds and

12:57

ends. And they

13:00

went on. And I

13:02

hadn't really clocked this until

13:04

researching for the show. A number of the team

13:07

would go on to work on Connect Star Wars.

13:10

The legendary Connect Star Wars from 2012. And

13:14

also the almost equally legendary The

13:16

Walking Dead Survival Instinct in 2013.

13:19

Which was the first person shooter. Not

13:22

to be confused with the rather

13:24

more well regarded Telltale

13:28

adventure game. Various

13:31

studios helped with conversions. And in the

13:33

case of things like the PS2 and

13:35

the Wii game and the DS. They

13:38

were actually quite different

13:40

adaptations of the game. I'm

13:43

suspecting probably none of us has had any experience

13:46

with these. Red Fly Studio took it

13:48

to PS2 and PSP and Wii. War

13:50

Drum Studios made a PS2 version. Wow.

13:53

In 2009. And

13:55

Zen Studios made a DS version. With

13:58

Saber Interactive Handling. the remaster.

14:01

It was Atari Interactive who

14:04

published it back then at the

14:06

time and in that incarnation

14:08

of Atari, a bit different

14:10

to the current Atari. And

14:13

Mad Dog Games published the

14:15

remaster directed by Drew Hawth,

14:19

who was probably best known

14:21

for Blood Rain and Blood Rain 2. Probably

14:24

the biggest news was the

14:26

fact that Dan Aykroyd and

14:29

Harold Ramey's the original creators of the

14:31

Ghostbusters had a hand

14:34

in writing the story. It was at

14:36

least partially based on a

14:38

proposed script for a Ghostbusters 3 that had

14:40

never been made in

14:43

the aftermath of Ghostbusters 2, the

14:45

1989 film. And

14:48

they were supported by a bunch of

14:51

other video, probably more video game savvy

14:53

and aware writers with presumably,

14:55

you know, all the things that you have

14:57

to write for again, the pages

14:59

and pages of extra script and

15:02

things like that to account for all the interactions

15:04

and so on and so forth. Composers,

15:07

well, Kyle Richards and Chris Rickwood

15:09

composed some original music, but you

15:12

will, unlike with the 8-bit game,

15:14

get to hear some of Elmer

15:16

Bernstein's great score,

15:18

famous score. And I

15:21

think you get a little blast of

15:23

the Ray Parker Jr. song here and

15:25

there, but it's not featured quite

15:28

as front and center as it was in the

15:30

8-bit game, right? I think it plays a little

15:32

bit right at the end. Is there a little

15:34

bit at the start as well? I can't remember.

15:36

I think it's like the credits splash screen and

15:38

then the outro credits. Yeah, that's it.

15:40

Yeah. At least it's in

15:42

there. The

15:45

game runs in the Infernal Engine, which

15:47

I think maybe is one of the

15:49

reasons that, I don't know if the

15:52

studio had to, the developer had to

15:54

pitch for it, but actually one

15:57

of the things that particularly on the

16:00

remastered version on the modern systems where it

16:02

runs without a freight any frame hitches

16:04

I don't know about the original. It's actually a

16:06

pretty good kind of it Is

16:09

it a pretty fun physics engine that handles

16:11

a lot of stuff? Whirling around

16:13

the screen in quite an entertaining manner. Is

16:15

that fair to say? Yeah,

16:18

definitely I

16:20

definitely agree with that. It's one that

16:23

your memory call as as somebody who's who played it then

16:25

but not now so I Guess

16:27

we were generally collectively a bit less

16:29

kind of hung up on frame rates

16:31

and stuff in the three six Yeah,

16:34

it was day was definitely not like

16:36

the smoothest experience, but it wasn't awful

16:40

as I suppose it I Don't

16:42

want to say that the frame rates didn't matter as much

16:44

back then because the cost didn't frame we

16:47

were less attuned to Yeah, yeah,

16:49

it's you know, 20 was a quite

16:51

a common our expectation 20 and 30.

16:53

Yeah Absolutely,

16:56

but I remember reading in the previews

16:58

about the sort of the sense of

17:00

the effects But

17:03

you can take that physics and

17:05

stuff these days and talking about the kind of

17:07

the waiting of it and when you you know

17:09

you you You've got your your

17:11

pack on and the things are starting to get

17:13

destroyed around and how impressive that was at the

17:15

time and These were the things that

17:17

really drove me into wanting the game. So when I actually

17:19

got my hands on it and you could actually feel

17:22

and I You know

17:24

again to go with the physics the thing

17:26

that actually surprised me and it's a criticism.

17:29

I've had of many games on

17:31

this podcast is that Quite

17:34

often when we're talking about laser or plasma

17:36

weapons or something is that the feel weightless

17:38

and that there's no Yeah

17:41

Feedback and the fact yeah This actually

17:43

felt like there was weight and power

17:45

behind the stream was another factor that

17:47

really kind of swung the game Yeah,

17:50

and ironically the ghosts had a

17:52

sort of sense of a physicality

17:55

to them. Yeah, exactly. Yeah Which

17:57

you know ties in with the film? Particle

18:00

stuff, or not even particles, the physics

18:02

and kind of the destructible elements of

18:04

the game. I remember at the time

18:07

being pretty impressive, because if anybody was a

18:09

fan of that first movie, I mean basically

18:11

the first stage of this game is the

18:13

hotel scene from the first movie

18:15

where you're chasing Slimer, and there's a very famous

18:17

scene from that movie where Egon just blows up

18:20

an entire bar and just is like, you know,

18:22

just blowing all these bottles off the bar. So

18:24

when you walk into that ballroom, and if you're

18:26

a fan of the movie, the first thing you'd

18:29

want to do is you want to turn your

18:31

proton pack on that bar. And I remember doing

18:33

that and all the bottles exploded, and I just

18:35

remember being like, nice, all right, here we go.

18:39

I feel like a ghostbuster now. So yeah,

18:41

that was definitely one of the things that drew me, and

18:43

I think it's one of those things that it

18:45

trailer quite well, because

18:47

you start wondering, I mean, in this

18:50

era, I mean the post, how do you

18:52

want to say it, the post

18:54

Gears of War third person action game

18:57

era, and the, you know, cameras

18:59

were very specific and you

19:02

started to expect certain things from these games

19:04

that maybe that I didn't personally expect before

19:06

Gears of War. There was a

19:08

new quality to the third person experience,

19:11

the third person shooter experience for,

19:13

especially for me, a console player,

19:15

and the initial impressions of

19:17

this game, the initial footage of

19:19

this game that I saw very much was doing

19:22

the things that I needed to do to get

19:24

me interested in diving in. I

19:27

think, interestingly, though, playing

19:29

the remaster first person now,

19:31

I say, ironically,

19:33

it's probably the best version of this game

19:35

to play because it, I assume, runs it

19:38

feels like it runs at 60 frames a

19:40

second, no hitchups, you know, really crisp picture

19:42

shows off all the assets and

19:44

everything. But actually, back

19:47

to Carl's point, I actually think it

19:49

being like that loses some of its weight

19:51

and inertia. I think

19:53

I know exactly what you're saying. In the actual playing

19:55

because, and I, this

19:58

is a weird one because I do know it was

20:00

we were saying with the free six, we were back

20:02

in that generation, quite often the

20:04

lower frame weight kind of led into

20:06

things feeling like they had a slightly

20:08

heavier weight behind them because things just

20:10

weren't moving around quite so much. Yeah.

20:12

This feels like this is like the

20:14

best version. But at the

20:16

same time, wrangling... Furniture has no weight.

20:18

Yeah, furniture has no weight. You can wrangle

20:21

goes across the screen at, you

20:23

know, super, you know, finite,

20:26

quick succession. But it feels like the

20:29

wrangling's now just super simple and

20:31

easy to do. So it's such

20:34

an odd way to describe it, you know,

20:36

almost like less was more

20:38

back then. Because my reaction to what Karl

20:40

was saying was like, no, I do remember

20:42

the game being like that. And then my

20:44

modern headspace and playing the new version

20:47

of the game is actually a

20:49

lot of that inertia is now gone.

20:52

We know lower frame rates are more

20:54

cinematic, right? Yeah, it's more like a

20:56

movie. There is an argument that they

20:58

should have kept the remaster locked at

21:02

24 mps. No, I don't think they should. Exactly.

21:05

Yeah. Or maybe given the toggle

21:08

or something. But yeah, it's an interesting point.

21:10

And I did have similar feelings. Yeah, and

21:12

we'll get further into it. But it also

21:14

plays into the visual design, like graphically, I

21:16

think, you know, there's

21:18

a there's a Hold on to those. I would.

21:20

But there's a certain look, I think back in

21:22

that era of games. And when you clean it

21:24

up, you're like, Okay. Yeah.

21:28

Yeah. So the game was released first on

21:30

PS2, PS3, DS, Wii, Windows and

21:32

360 June 16

21:40

2009. And the EU

21:43

version arrived of

21:45

in November that

21:47

year. Hence, Carl

21:49

importing. The PS3 version

21:52

has exclusive videos that are

21:54

not present in either 360 or PC

21:56

versions. I don't know what those entail.

21:59

Nothing essential. I would suggest. And

22:02

as of January 2017 the

22:04

original 360 version was made backwards

22:06

compatible on Xbox One. I don't know

22:08

if it has any enhancements

22:10

at all, either frame

22:13

rate or HDR or anything like that, because

22:15

that's not the version I played. So

22:19

I guess this was a case where

22:21

it probably wouldn't have been made available

22:23

as a backwards compatible game had the

22:26

remaster already existed, but it

22:28

predates the remaster by a couple of years. So

22:30

you have the choice of which one to play

22:32

on Xbox. PSP

22:35

version arrived in the autumn of

22:37

2009 and that remaster that we're

22:40

talking about it is on PlayStation

22:42

4, Xbox One and Switch. I

22:45

don't know how that version runs at

22:47

all because that's not the version I played,

22:50

but that arrived October 2019. There's some controversy

22:53

though because

22:55

the multiplayer was not included in the

22:57

remaster. The intention was there, but essentially

22:59

the developer discovered that they would have

23:02

had to, because of the nature of

23:04

online play and so on, they would

23:06

have had to rebuild it from the

23:08

ground up. And I don't think the

23:12

scope of the project and the budget allowed

23:14

for such things. I don't know what the launch

23:16

price of the remaster was. It's

23:19

now I paid £24.99 for

23:21

it on PS4

23:23

for the PS5, which

23:26

was slightly more than I really wanted to pay

23:28

for it. But I expect you can

23:30

get it cheaper. But yeah, there's a

23:32

whole chunk of the game that isn't there.

23:34

I was scratching my head about why

23:37

this got a remaster in, you

23:39

know, specifically. And obviously I understand

23:41

money and I assume it was

23:43

tied in with a release of

23:45

films to earn Ghana a bit

23:47

more money. But it's between

23:49

movies actually. It was between Answer

23:51

the Call and Afterlife,

23:55

but it was on the,

23:57

so five years ago, it was on the 35th anniversary. or

24:00

thereabouts of the movie, the original movie. But

24:03

it does feel a bit... pointless.

24:07

I'm just thinking of so many games that probably,

24:09

you know, need a remaster to be brought back

24:11

into modern time for gamers to play. And this

24:14

one just feels like, yeah, it was a good

24:16

game back in the day. But

24:18

like, who was sitting there going, man, I hope they

24:20

really do Ghostbusters. There was always a market for it.

24:22

And I've got two copies, right? And

24:25

I've played it, you played it, so we paid for it. But

24:28

yeah, there was a point where

24:30

I was like, why did

24:32

this get made? Like just really...

24:34

I suspect you can pick up a

24:36

360 or PS3 copy fairly cheap if

24:38

you have those consoles still around. But

24:40

as we know, only two, well, a

24:42

lot of us like the convenience of

24:44

playing. I know, but there's thousands of

24:46

games that you can do that with.

24:48

So why Ghostbusters? Because

24:51

Ghostbusters. Yeah, I guess. Beloved

24:53

franchise. So I'm

24:55

trying to remember, was the release

24:58

of Ghostbusters Afterlife, the start

25:01

of the newer film franchise, was

25:03

it around the time of the remaster?

25:05

Like two years later. Two years later?

25:07

Okay. So I wasn't sure if I

25:10

didn't do that. I didn't look at it myself, but I

25:12

wasn't sure if it was like coinciding. Hey, we got a

25:14

new film. Let's do this, you know, marketing thing. 2016

25:17

was the answer, the call

25:19

as it's now known, the game, the film

25:22

that was just called Ghostbusters at the time

25:24

with the SNL based female crew and

25:27

Afterlife was the one that

25:29

did have involvement from Aykroyd

25:32

and Murray in us. Yeah.

25:35

And so on. Obviously they

25:37

did actually appear in Answer the Call,

25:39

but in a very confusing way, if

25:41

anyone's ever seen that movie. So

25:44

yeah, it was in another

25:46

dormant phase, unless maybe you were into

25:50

other media. Mm.

25:54

Initial reviews for the PS3 and 360

25:56

versions were pretty decent. Hence the

25:59

positive buzz. with 78

26:01

and 79 on Metacritic. The PC

26:04

version scored slightly lower, not sure if

26:06

that means it was a dodgy PC

26:08

version or if it just wasn't considered

26:10

as interesting because it was on the

26:14

mother of all machines. Probably had

26:16

too many frames. Wii

26:19

version reviewed quite well in

26:22

its own form with a 76% average. PS2 version, less well

26:24

64, DS

26:27

less well 56 and

26:29

PSP less well 54. The

26:32

remaster version has an average review

26:35

score on Open Critic of 69% and

26:39

the other thing of note about the

26:42

remaster is that there is

26:44

a very clunkily inserted tribute

26:47

to the sadly departed late Harold

26:49

Ramius who died in 2014. It's

26:54

not very sensitively done. I mean it's

26:56

not an insult or anything but it's

26:59

so clearly shoehorned in the

27:02

way it slams down this

27:04

in loving tribute or whatever it is

27:06

card in. It just doesn't feel like

27:10

it's been carefully inserted at all but

27:12

it's there. I suppose it's better than not

27:15

acknowledging because obviously he's a big part

27:17

of this game. He possibly has

27:19

more lines than anyone else I think maybe.

27:22

Maybe other than than acroid but and

27:27

yeah I'm still sad about the fact

27:29

that he passed away so yeah. User

27:31

reviews on IMDB which is obviously

27:33

a more movie based place. They

27:36

feel very positively about this game with an

27:38

8.4 out of 10. On

27:40

Purr Square the PlayStation site it has a moderate

27:44

but positive 7.5 out of 10. The

27:46

original version of the game sold over

27:48

3 million copies beyond that in terms

27:50

of anything else as usual. I don't

27:52

know. Don't know about the digital sales.

27:54

Don't know about the remaster but it

27:56

was a good idea. I think it's a good idea.

27:58

I think it's a good idea. healthy enough for

28:00

it to get a remaster, I guess is

28:02

the key thing. Seth

28:05

from our forum says to me this

28:08

is the canonical continuation of this series

28:10

and not any of the live action

28:12

attempts since this which is backed

28:15

up by the fact that this game uses sections

28:17

from the planned Ghostbusters 3 script. While

28:19

it was a retread of the films I enjoyed

28:21

just playing out those moments. I had a lot

28:24

of fun with this and the main disappointment was

28:26

the lack of co-op in the main game. This

28:28

was perfect for that. A lot

28:30

of the level design and environments are dull and

28:32

uninspired and it is just a shooty bang bang

28:34

game underneath the hood. The biggest

28:36

surprise for me was actually the voice

28:38

acting. I was expecting the most board

28:40

sounding phoned in performances especially from Bill

28:42

Murray but everyone gave it the effort

28:45

it needed. But that alone this

28:47

game is worth at least one play

28:49

through. While I enjoy

28:51

Seth's positivity I don't think everyone feels

28:53

the same about Bill Murray's contribution to

28:55

this project. Right?

28:59

Yeah I remember it

29:01

the way Seth wrote it from

29:03

my time playing through back when

29:06

it first came out. I remember being so

29:08

excited that this is a potential Ghostbusters 3 movie.

29:10

All the actors are back and it's going to

29:12

be this romp with all these characters that I

29:14

know and that's the way I felt. That's largely

29:16

the way I remembered it. Having

29:19

replayed the remaster I was quite

29:22

frankly I was shocked at how

29:25

I felt about the voice acting after this.

29:27

It's really a

29:30

dichotomy. There are performances

29:32

in this game that I

29:34

think are wonderful. I'm specifically thinking of Dan

29:37

Aykroyd, Harold Remus and William Atherton who

29:39

plays Peck. I

29:42

think they're just committing in a way

29:44

that I don't expect them to.

29:46

I kind of feel this way about everything Dan

29:48

Aykroyd does. I feel like he doesn't do much

29:51

where he's not fully bought into

29:53

that. That's kind of my impression of him. At least the

29:55

things that I've seen. show.

30:00

He's the one who essentially

30:02

kind of believed all the Ghostbusters

30:04

stuff. Like he gave this comedic

30:07

idea of Ghostbusters being a fourth

30:09

emergency service or like a Renterkill

30:12

is because he at least was fascinated

30:14

in ghosts and supernatural, if not believed in

30:22

it all. Yeah, I thought Harold

30:24

Ramis was great as Egon too. And then you would

30:26

cut to these scenes

30:29

where clearly Venkman is supposed

30:31

to be the comic relief and the

30:34

line reads and the delivery on these lines.

30:36

It was like by the end of

30:38

my playthrough of the remastered, I was I

30:40

was cringing at

30:43

some of his performers like thinking

30:45

like, like, man, he could

30:47

not he could not sound less invested.

30:50

And then and then you

30:52

pair that with his love interest played

30:54

by Alyssa Milano, who I don't have

30:56

anything against. But she just seemed her

30:59

voice acting just seemed out of place like

31:01

like it was recorded in like in

31:04

like a different sounding booth than everyone else.

31:06

Like the way it came through cuts in

31:09

a way. And then to go from them

31:11

back to then acroid and ramus, like it

31:13

just it was like a, you know, breakneck,

31:16

you know, immersion breaking thing where I just

31:18

I went from being like, I can't wait

31:20

to see these lines again to being like,

31:23

oh, this is a mission where I'm only

31:25

with Ray Stance. Perfect. You know, it's just

31:27

Dan Aykroyd giving me directions

31:29

on where to go. I'm in for that. But when when

31:32

I was stuck with Venkman, I never thought I'd say that.

31:34

But boy, it completely changed my

31:36

opinion of this game, playing

31:38

it the second time through. Shoutouts

31:40

to Ernie Hudson and Annie Potts as well

31:42

for giving it, I think, a good a

31:44

good go. Not and not thinking, oh, this

31:46

is video game. I don't have to bother.

31:48

Yeah, Ernie Hudson was great. And then I

31:50

also wanted to point out Max von Seidau

31:52

did the voice of he goes the painting.

31:55

I know. And those line reads, there's not

31:57

many of them. They were hilarious. I

31:59

would stand by that. painting and just spam the button to hear what

32:01

he would say next. I thought they were great. Did

32:03

he voice that character in Ghostbusters? Yes. So

32:06

long story. The the

32:08

German Austrian actor Wilhelm.

32:12

He was in Die Hard and a couple

32:14

other movies who played Vigo. I did the

32:16

face. Yeah. They they replaced his voice lines

32:18

with Max von Seidau, which he

32:20

was pretty famously not very happy

32:23

with. Right. But

32:25

yeah, I can't remember his last name is Wilhelm something. Yeah.

32:28

But yeah. Sure. No worries. But yeah, no. So I

32:30

looked it up. I'm like, that really sounds like Vigo.

32:33

And sure enough, it was it was a

32:35

close to 85 year old Max von

32:37

Seidau doing the doing the lines. So

32:40

yeah, a few years before The Force

32:42

Awakens, one of his last film

32:45

appearances. So so my question then

32:47

is, do you think that it just comes across

32:49

because there's less acting on

32:51

screen like there is less visual?

32:55

I don't know when Bill Murray

32:58

does his kind of smirminess in the actual

33:00

film. There's an element of like, God, he's

33:02

kind of a jerk and

33:04

he thinks he's going to get away with, but everyone can see

33:06

through him. Well, I don't think the game necessarily gets that across

33:10

in its visual representation in the game

33:12

because he just comes across as this

33:14

smirminess and it doesn't and

33:16

that's where it finishes. He just

33:18

seems creepy, but mostly through the game. Mostly

33:20

through the game. I think he I think

33:23

he comes across as creepy in the film.

33:25

Yeah, no, actually, we were

33:27

talking about this on in

33:29

pre-show slack is one of

33:31

the I think one of the I can't remember if we talked about

33:33

this in the previous show, but yeah,

33:36

one of the aspects of the film that I think

33:39

is worst is is

33:41

is the Venkman character being a slime

33:44

ball, basically, especially where women are

33:46

concerned. And in this one, I

33:48

think it's even worse because he basically he kind

33:51

of harasses the Alyssa Milano character in a

33:53

lift. And by the way, I know, you

33:55

know, you can sort of say, well, we

33:57

don't know about ages and stuff, but there's

33:59

like a. 20 something year

34:01

age gap between them. And

34:03

she basically says, get off me, you jerk.

34:06

Not like, get off me physically, but get

34:08

away from me. And then they share a

34:10

good sort of maybe three minutes of cut

34:13

scene screen time before at the end, she's

34:15

kissing him. That is

34:17

their relationship development throughout the movie. Basically,

34:19

he gets the girl because that's what

34:22

happened in movies back then. And he's

34:24

Venkman, who the women can't resist because

34:26

even though he's a bit creepy, he's

34:29

devilishly funny. So yeah,

34:31

I think it's, again, you can sort

34:33

of, you can hand wave it the fact that

34:35

this game is still set in 1991 when such

34:39

behaviors were more

34:41

accepted for

34:44

want of a better word. But

34:47

yeah, I think that's actually one of the elements

34:49

and they combine that with Murray's sort of rather

34:53

lazy delivery. And yeah, I don't think he comes

34:55

out of this terribly well, slightly

34:57

better than he comes out of certain

35:01

stories from the

35:03

sets of other movies in Hollywood. Yeah, it's

35:06

an odd one with him, right? I mean, his whole

35:08

kind of fame and character

35:10

was built upon characters just like that.

35:12

Whether you look back at that late

35:14

80s or I mean, mid 80s to

35:17

early 90s kind of, kind

35:19

of, yeah, casserole. I mean,

35:21

even in the movie that I think you'd

35:23

be as beloved for as anything else would

35:26

be Groundhog Day. He

35:28

turns out to be a great guy, but

35:30

it's only because he has to live for

35:32

however many years in repeat as a scumbag

35:34

to learn how to be a good guy.

35:37

So his whole humor stance, which I have

35:39

loved for years, obviously big fan of that.

35:41

Yeah, we're not here just to crap on

35:44

building. Right, but it's

35:46

certainly built on the no doesn't mean

35:48

no type of character, which is like

35:50

now, like looking back at it,

35:52

like you said, it's just you can you can explain

35:54

it away however you want, but like it's like, wow,

35:56

like this is really wearing it on its sleeve, you

35:58

know, and And yeah, it

36:00

can definitely a put off for sure. He

36:03

didn't write. It's wild how proud the lead has

36:05

changed, isn't it? In what was 90s humor

36:08

to now, I mean, Bill

36:10

Murray's obviously he's got his legacy. And the thing with

36:12

Bill Murray is it goes the stories.

36:15

There's more stories about Bill Murray than movies

36:17

about Bill Murray at this point. Right. And

36:19

they always seem to range from one extreme

36:21

to the other. Like it's the coolest story

36:23

you'll ever hear. Or it's him being an

36:25

absolute douchebag. And it's like both things can

36:28

be true. Yeah. And I

36:30

think, you know, you look at his

36:32

lead and then, you know, another actor

36:34

that's very much of the same milk

36:36

would be Chevy Chase. Right. Like also

36:38

very similar lead that never says no.

36:41

And then it's I mean, I would.

36:43

He's almost exclusively horrendous. But by all

36:45

means, yeah. I'm

36:48

not sure he's had quite the same accusations

36:50

of inappropriateness with female costars and stuff like

36:53

that. So much as more is just like

36:55

a bully and a difficult. I

36:57

am glad he's in the game, though, because

36:59

it would have felt weird. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

37:01

Yeah. It could have been Lorenzo

37:03

Music, who who did his voice in in

37:06

the real Ghostbusters cartoon, of course. But then he would

37:08

have sounded like Garfield. It's funny to see in the

37:10

notes that he demanded like the

37:13

same amount of screen time as everyone

37:15

else in the game. Supposedly. Because according

37:17

to Moby Games, he only agreed to

37:19

reprise his role under the one condition

37:21

that each Ghostbusters would receive equal screen

37:23

time or presumably number of lines. But

37:25

that's clearly not the case. I

37:28

mean, I don't know. I don't know. It doesn't feel like it,

37:30

does it? Because, yeah, Dan Aykroy seems

37:33

to be like the main driver of everything.

37:35

But OK. Well, of course, the follow up

37:37

to that is that Murray

37:39

reportedly did two days on the

37:41

game. This is there's

37:46

a chat show interview with

37:48

him around the time. And he said, Oh, yeah, that was fun.

37:50

I did two days. So but

37:53

according to people who worked in the

37:55

game, that two days did not include

37:57

him actually recording all of the. lines

38:00

that were scripted for him, so presumably

38:02

other characters took up his slack, which

38:05

does rather talk to the idea that

38:07

he wasn't fully invested in it.

38:09

That said, he was the only one out

38:11

of the entire cast to be nominated for

38:13

an award at the Spike Video Game Awards

38:16

for Best Performance. How Bill Murray

38:18

is that? I think I would

38:20

wager to say how Jeff Keighley is that,

38:22

putting the biggest celebrities in your category in

38:25

hopes that they show up. Who do I

38:27

want to meet most? Yes, exactly. I'd have

38:29

absolutely wanted to meet Aykroyd or Raimis over

38:31

Bill Murray. But there

38:34

you go. Now probably

38:36

also relevant is

38:39

that, so Alyssa Milano was a reasonably

38:41

big name at the time, having done

38:43

Charmed and stuff. Also an actor with

38:45

some controversy surrounding her, as I didn't

38:47

really, wasn't really aware of this, but

38:49

in researching her I've seen, but I don't,

38:52

yeah, there's a lot of tittle tattle anyway.

38:55

Dana Barrett was originally in the script, of course,

38:58

but Sigurdi Weaver turned down the offer to play

39:00

the role. I'm not sure she's ever done a

39:02

video game and maybe, you know,

39:04

I don't get the vibe that she's somebody who'd

39:06

be particularly into that kind of thing.

39:08

I could be wrong. However, she

39:10

changed her mind about doing the game

39:12

when the rest of the film's cast,

39:14

including Murray, signed on. However,

39:16

by the time Dana had been written out

39:19

and the part had been rewritten as Dr.

39:21

Alyssa Selwyn, played by Alyssa

39:24

Milano. Anyway, the

39:26

story, written by Aqroyd and Ramis, takes place

39:28

in 91, two years after Ghostbusters vanquished

39:32

Vigo, preventing

39:34

him from taking over the world. Since then

39:36

the Ghostbusters have been overrun by the increasing

39:38

number of spirits appearing in the city and

39:40

have decided to add a fifth member to

39:42

the team. This is where the

39:44

player will step in, taking the place of the

39:47

nameless new cadet or rookie of

39:49

the Ghostbusters hired to test Egon's

39:51

new experimental equipment. Just

39:53

as the rookie is being initiated into the Ghostbusters,

39:55

all hell breaks loose in the city as a

39:57

massive amount of spirit energy has threatened to New

40:00

York apart and it's up to the

40:02

player along with his new employers to

40:04

stop a familiar menace. Yeah,

40:07

I think it's fair to say that while this

40:09

does go deeper into the law, some of which

40:12

was explored later in

40:14

Afterlife with the, what's

40:17

the name of the architect, Shando?

40:19

Evil Shandor. Evil Shandor, that's

40:22

it. I

40:24

think largely, virtually everything here is

40:26

an excuse to revisit iconic locations

40:29

from the films and play them

40:31

yourself. Yeah.

40:35

Kind of makes you wonder why they, well not why, maybe

40:38

a different pitch for

40:40

like a game that followed the

40:43

actual events of the first movie, but it

40:45

would be difficult to put you in a protagonist

40:48

that wasn't there before, right? You know, keep talking

40:50

about the tenderfoot and the rookie coming along for

40:52

these things, but it definitely felt like they were

40:54

playing a bit of a greatest hits tape at

40:56

the beginning of here. Let's show you these things

40:59

that you clearly recognize. And

41:01

then that very much changes by

41:04

the end to where all of

41:06

a sudden you're fighting giant spider

41:08

women and you're on mystical

41:11

islands and such. But yeah,

41:13

it was interesting to see because as you

41:15

said, Leanne, in Afterlife, the

41:18

kind of grander plans of the architect, Evil

41:20

Shandor, was the central plot of that movie.

41:22

So I wasn't sure how much of that

41:24

actually, that through line came into the

41:27

movies. But yeah, it was certainly

41:29

a choice. And I think that,

41:32

you know, you don't get the Stay Puft marshmallow man on the front of

41:34

the box if you don't put him in the game. Yeah.

41:39

And it's easy enough because the whole concept

41:41

is comedic nonsense anyway. You

41:43

can do whatever you want. It's just

41:45

whether it's like, I mean, actually the

41:47

use of Stay Puft in this film

41:49

is arguably less egregious than

41:51

it is in the Afterlife movie

41:53

where there are just random mini

41:55

Stay Pufts because they're cute. Like

41:57

there's clearly no justification for them.

42:00

being there other than this will be

42:02

a cute CGI sequence. And it was, but

42:05

yeah. It's

42:07

kind of a shame, I think, for the third one

42:09

that they didn't kind of, you

42:12

know, go somewhere different, but also I

42:14

totally get it for the 2009 video

42:16

game. Of course, you're going

42:18

to revisit certain famous locations and concepts

42:20

from the film. It would,

42:22

yeah. So it feels more

42:26

like the Return of the Jedi of a

42:28

third entry rather

42:30

than something completely other. Yeah.

42:34

Was everyone else happy? I mean, yeah,

42:37

I don't even know if you remember the

42:39

story after all this time. It's

42:42

pretty much kind of, it goes as you'd expect.

42:45

Yeah, it's pretty standard

42:47

Ghostbusters fare, isn't it? I mean,

42:49

it's pretty traditional to kind

42:52

of wackiness of the

42:54

movies, which, you know, that's

42:57

one of the reasons it appealed to me.

42:59

I don't remember the story beats as per

43:01

your immediate guess given that both Tony and

43:03

Brian's ever seen things. Yeah, yeah.

43:05

I just finished it. And no,

43:07

I think they at least

43:10

harken back. There's a knowing tone to the

43:12

whole procedure, knowing that they're kind

43:14

of just going around. It's like, you think

43:16

all these things are linked almost like the

43:19

first time we did this. It's like, you

43:21

think? It's like, yeah. But as Brian says,

43:23

they kind of wander off into their

43:25

own lane towards the back end of the game and

43:27

arguably that's the worst, worst,

43:30

you know, when they try to do their own thing,

43:32

it comes off as a bit more kind of like,

43:34

eh, is this great? Probably

43:36

not. But yeah, overall, I

43:39

think it was a perfectly good

43:41

attempt to kind of just continuation of

43:43

something that kind of come dormant in

43:45

Ghostbusters lore. So although, but

43:47

sounds like there's probably plenty of comic

43:49

book stroke animated stuff

43:52

that probably they could have picked up the reins from and

43:54

made it like a bit more deeper. But as you

43:56

said, it's a it's a video game at the time.

44:00

Evil Ninja Phil from our forum says as a

44:02

child of the 80s I'm one of those people

44:04

who watched the original, probably a bit too young,

44:06

but was enthralled by the scientific buffoodery of the

44:09

Ghostbusters. Video game versions and arguably

44:11

most of the films that followed never seemed to quite

44:13

capture the vibe of the first film, but

44:15

I think this game got the closest.

44:17

What really shows this is the opening

44:19

of the game that recycles the old

44:21

Columbia Pictures logo that opened the original

44:23

film. I can't quite put my

44:26

finger on why this stands out to me

44:28

so much, but I think using that says

44:30

a lot about how the game sees the

44:32

original film. It really is a sequel in

44:34

both spirit and intent that rides that line

44:36

between playful nostalgia and all-out wallowing. The music

44:38

is also a standout, the original film gets

44:40

remembered for all the catchy songs, but that

44:42

overshadows the fact that Elmer Bernstein's original score

44:45

for the 1984 film is an all-timer. That

44:49

the game leans into this reusing the score

44:51

is borderline genius and really helps the atmosphere

44:54

of the game. Yeah,

44:57

I agree. I think the

45:00

presentation's nice. It's the menus

45:02

like outside the firehouse

45:04

with text on the side of

45:06

the walls, which was quite a trend at this

45:09

point. Playing

45:12

that little piano riff from the score.

45:16

Talking about the visuals, we talked a

45:18

little bit about the engine there. The

45:20

thing I really wanted to praise the

45:22

dev team and the art team is

45:25

the proton packs themselves. They knew that

45:27

the player was going to be looking

45:29

at these for the duration

45:31

of the experience, which may last you between five

45:33

and six or maybe eight or nine

45:36

hours, depending on how you play and how much you want to

45:39

find and collect. But you are looking

45:42

at the proton packs the entire time. Now,

45:44

character animations are all pretty okay, I think,

45:46

certainly for the time, but it's

45:48

the detail on the proton pack and the lights and

45:50

the way it actually tells you what mode

45:53

you've got selected and all that stuff. And

45:55

the beams coming out of it that look

45:58

just like the ones from the film probably. better than the

46:00

ones from the 1984 film in fact,

46:02

because they're more, they look

46:04

less like they've been, you know, slapped over the

46:06

top kind of thing. I

46:08

think that's the stand up for me

46:11

along with the PK meter view, which

46:13

I think the way that they got the animation

46:16

on the little arms on the PK meter to

46:18

slide up and down in tandem with the audio

46:20

on that, I just thought that was really, really

46:22

cool. Yeah,

46:25

it's the proton pack for me is

46:27

the one real stand out. I mean,

46:30

with that period in cinema and the cult

46:32

following, there's the little things that fans are

46:35

really going to latch onto, right? And you

46:37

know, you're entirely right. You're kind of looking

46:39

at the proton pack the whole time that

46:41

you're playing. It's quite close to the camera,

46:44

but it's the way that it's, it

46:47

doesn't feel static in that I

46:49

remember that the library level, for example, there's quite

46:52

a lot of light and dark and you lose

46:54

the details, but you see the lights lighting up

46:56

in that believable way from the movie and

46:58

the way that it would light up as soon

47:01

as you start firing off with

47:03

your beam. And it's for

47:05

me, they're absolutely get that kind of stuff. The PK

47:07

meter is cool as well as sounds, but yeah,

47:10

the proton pack, I absolutely adored because even

47:12

though, even when you're kind of in a

47:14

fight, you see the way that it's reacting,

47:16

the way that you're venting it, and it's

47:18

all happening kind of out the corner of

47:21

your eye because you're looking at

47:23

obviously the beam and the ghost itself,

47:25

but you can see it's all going on

47:27

and it feels really authentic

47:30

to the Ghostbusters experience.

47:33

And you know, it's like,

47:35

for this, this is important as getting like

47:38

the sound of like an X-Wing right in

47:40

Star Wars or the sound of a lightsaber

47:42

or that kind of look, you know what

47:44

I mean? It's something that belongs to that

47:46

franchise. It is absolutely intrinsically linked

47:48

to the experience of Ghostbusters and it's

47:50

where some of the stuff has fallen

47:53

flat, you know, before

47:55

in games and actually since

47:57

in games, looking at them.

48:00

I feel for this they absolutely kind

48:02

of nailed the aesthetic in that regard. Do

48:05

you know what? One of the reasons I think it

48:07

would maybe slightly easier on the story is because the

48:09

way they introduce new things for that proton pack is

48:11

because you'll get to a point, the level and they're

48:13

like, what we need is this.

48:16

And suddenly it would just appear as

48:18

an extra gadget on your protein pack from

48:20

nowhere. Like you're three out, you know, three

48:22

quarters of the way through a level and

48:24

you go on and somebody's got like, oh,

48:26

I've now given you slime. And

48:29

here is a bolt onto the side for all

48:31

of you. I read somewhere having not seen two,

48:33

despite my intentions, isn't isn't

48:35

there slime shooters in that

48:37

movie? Yes. Yeah.

48:40

Yes. Okay. So

48:42

so that that that one thing is and obviously the

48:44

the capture beam and the wrangling beam. Yeah.

48:47

Is is is but there's other things as various

48:49

other kinds of weapons as it were that are

48:52

pretty much unique to the game. I

48:55

was going to specifically the part of the proton

48:57

pack that impressed me the most aside from the

49:00

venting when you vent, you overheat and you vent

49:02

and those four cores like jump out of the

49:04

program. It looks awesome every time. But

49:07

when they gave you slime, I'm like, oh, well, how's

49:09

that going to work? Because in me being the Ghostbusters

49:11

nerd, as I'm sliding my glasses back up my nose

49:14

saying, you know, they had a different nozzle to shoot

49:16

the slime. And then I look at the bottom of

49:18

the gun. I'm like, well, look at that. They put

49:20

it on there. Like Grant and Tony said it just

49:22

appeared three quarters of the way through the level. But

49:25

it was it was visually accurate for the

49:28

for the you know, the slime sprayers they

49:30

used in Ghostbusters 2. And I'm

49:32

like, man, that that type of attention to detail

49:34

is for me as

49:36

kind of like a pretty enthusiastic fan

49:38

of those first two movies. Those

49:41

are the types of details and stuff that will get

49:43

me to look past some of the warts and push

49:45

through. You know what I mean? Like, oh, that's cool.

49:47

I wonder what that will add next. I wonder what

49:49

the next reference will be. And you know, so if

49:51

you're if you're already trading in

49:54

nostalgia, those things become more and

49:56

more important to keep the player engaged, I think.

49:58

And that worked for me. were very

50:00

specifically the first time through. The second time through,

50:03

as we'll talk about in a bit, I think the

50:05

shine had worn off a little bit, but it was

50:07

those details, like you said with the pack, like Carl

50:09

mentioned and Tony too, it just, there's

50:12

something about the recognition of you're going to

50:15

be staring at this the entire time you

50:17

play the game, we better get this right,

50:19

and I think they got it right. Yeah,

50:21

exactly, yeah, exactly. Tony, you wanted

50:23

to mention, and this is something that

50:25

Darren and I have been talking

50:27

about as we're playing Perfect Dark Zero

50:29

in the run-up to that podcast, the

50:32

look of games of this era. Now Perfect

50:34

Dark Zero, I would say, is even more

50:37

shiny. Of this, even more shiny.

50:39

It was four years earlier, first generation Xbox 360 and

50:41

so on. Here

50:44

we are a few years into the that

50:46

generation, PS3 and 360, and

50:48

obviously we've been playing a remaster as well,

50:50

which I think both, yeah, as

50:55

I think you alluded to, helps in some

50:57

ways, obviously higher resolutions and frame rates, but

51:00

also perhaps shows up some of the shortcomings

51:02

of the assets and the textures. Yeah, it's

51:06

very difficult for any game, so the game I've been playing

51:09

prior to this was Dragon's Dogma 2,

51:11

which is obviously vastly different in style

51:13

and scope and the way that you

51:15

interact with the world, and quite often

51:17

I feel like, we

51:19

talk about, oh, we're bored of that kind of open

51:21

world, blah, blah, blah, but there's games that come along

51:23

and they kind of redefine that. Going

51:26

back to a game like this, I

51:29

have hugely fond memories

51:31

of the generation, the 360

51:33

PlayStation 3 generation, of

51:35

very tight, self-contained areas where there's

51:37

a lot of detail in the

51:40

actual environments because they're dealing with

51:42

very narrow scope of

51:44

what happens in those environments. And

51:47

I think for the most part, I think Ghostbusters gets

51:49

it pretty spot on in the way that it, like

51:52

I said, the packs look and

51:54

the hotel looks like it, it feels like it's something

51:57

out of the film. But I think

51:59

the problem with someone like the... with a

52:01

remaster and we've seen this in

52:03

certainly earlier games, N64 games that

52:05

have been upres. The moment

52:07

you upres these things, the

52:10

hidden lines suddenly appear, like the

52:12

seams in the architecture

52:14

start to appear. You start to see things

52:16

that have been very, very square boxy rather

52:18

than slightly edged

52:21

off through just the fidelity of not

52:23

being there in the original design. They

52:25

knew that they would be delivering

52:28

a certain image, say 720p to the player

52:32

primarily on a 360 or a PlayStation

52:34

3. So that's

52:36

what they were working with. The moment you take a remaster

52:39

and you make it look 4K

52:42

and you just see every single thing. I don't

52:44

think it's 4K. I

52:46

think the remaster might be 1080. But

52:48

it feels very clinical. The point remains.

52:50

It feels really clinical. And in some

52:52

regards, I love it because it just

52:54

shows the detail in the art assets

52:56

that are there. And on the other

52:58

half, it loses a little bit of

53:00

grounding because it shows every detail that

53:02

is there. It's almost like having that

53:04

film grain effect when you're watching a

53:06

film in a cinema versus having a

53:08

4K presentation. It's why

53:10

we particularly have, particularly like Chris

53:13

O'Regan and Michiel, who are advocates

53:15

of playing on original hardware, because

53:17

there is something to be said for a

53:19

game's presentation being so tied to both the

53:22

hardware it was made on and the type

53:24

of screen on which it was designed to

53:26

be shown in the same way that pixel

53:28

games can look less

53:30

effective without a CRT filter. We've now got

53:32

that experience with 2009 games being remastered for

53:36

2019, being played on 2020 hardware,

53:40

and so on and so on. So yeah, I'm

53:42

not sure what the actual optimal way

53:44

to play is. Certainly I was conscious the whole

53:46

time I was playing it of the

53:49

aforementioned thing about

53:51

the frame rate almost being too

53:53

good. And

53:55

exactly as you say, the

53:59

fact that everything kind of so crisp.

54:02

Yeah, it kind of shows the

54:05

multitude of sins that were previously hidden

54:07

and now front and center. Same as

54:09

when you play an N64 game with

54:11

the folks turned off, that kind of

54:13

thing. Yeah. It's all part of

54:15

the art direction, isn't it? The art direction

54:18

is different to the art quality and

54:21

building the art direction around what

54:23

were fundamentally flaws and

54:25

difficulties with developing on the

54:27

PlayStation 3 and the Xbox

54:29

360 with things like high

54:31

areas of blur, low field of

54:34

views, the 720 resolution, the

54:36

motion blur on movements, all

54:38

these kinds of effects that

54:40

actually paid into giving you

54:42

the overall look. There

54:44

is a stylized look to PlayStation 3

54:46

and Xbox 360 era games. Tony mentioned

54:48

things like the box rooms, but things

54:51

look big and chunky. You know, I

54:53

think when we covered Condemned and how

54:55

big and chunky that world was, Gears

54:58

of War and Ghostbusters

55:00

is actually very, very similar. But when

55:03

you actually take essentially those little cheats,

55:05

those little things that they've put in to

55:08

be able to manufacture and get this game

55:10

running on that hardware, things like the blur

55:13

and actually that's removed, it loses

55:15

the feel of what the actual experience

55:17

was. And it's something that happened on

55:19

PC for years and years and years,

55:21

right, where you would just get this

55:23

higher resolution game and you go, this

55:25

looks really sharp, but it's

55:27

lost all its cinematic appeal. And

55:30

that's kind of what you get with the remasters.

55:32

And there's only, it gets to a certain point

55:34

where, and to get into

55:36

the discussion of remaster versus remake, right, there's

55:38

only so much you can get back out

55:40

of a remaster before the

55:43

hardware supersedes what the effect was

55:45

so much before you

55:47

kind of need to remake it and get

55:49

that look like, you know, Resident Evil 1 on

55:53

PlayStation 1 versus Resident Evil on

55:55

GameCube or Resident Evil 2, those

55:57

remakes are probably a little less than that. in

56:00

that regard, because that was such a broad period

56:02

of time. But there's a reason why you

56:04

get the remake, because you get

56:06

to put new artistic effects, new

56:09

creativity. I mean, Dead Space is

56:11

probably a better example, right? Because

56:13

the new one represents

56:15

what we remember the original looking

56:17

like, because that's how that hardware

56:19

replaced it. But because it wasn't

56:21

just an upscaled version of that

56:23

game with a higher frame rate

56:26

and a higher resolution,

56:28

it would still, it would not

56:30

look as good. It would

56:32

look sharper, but it would lose its appeal.

56:35

But the remake allowed them to implement new

56:37

technologies in terms of the way that reflections

56:40

and sparks and particles and stuff fly around

56:42

the screen so that you get that feeling,

56:44

that sensation of what it actually felt like

56:46

the first time. And sometimes when you get

56:48

the remasters, particularly around this era, kind of

56:50

the 10 year push, you

56:53

lose what you

56:55

once had, and it's not

56:58

always a positive thing. Even

57:00

though you get the higher resolution, it's

57:02

not necessarily beneficial to the experience. Yeah,

57:04

and I think there's an element of

57:07

game design, obviously progressing over this period

57:09

of time, just because I feel like

57:12

I'm playing this and the stay path

57:14

fight, for instance, should be this

57:16

big dramatic moment. But

57:19

really is just moving around the screen, trying

57:22

to not get hit by stay path. And

57:24

game design has probably come along, has

57:27

come along, big chunks and leaps and bounds

57:29

between that. I feel like if a modern

57:32

game approached that fight, it would feel very

57:34

different. So it just, I

57:37

imagine playing the game upon

57:39

release, and that's probably like, oh, wow, look, I

57:41

get to see stay path as this great big

57:43

monster right in front of my eyes. And even

57:46

though I'm just avoiding it, that's quite impressive, where

57:48

now it just felt like, huh, they could

57:50

have done a lot more with stay path in

57:52

this scenario. And

57:55

I think just some of the fact that with

57:57

the remaster, as much as I did really well,

58:00

enjoyed just playing through the game and it's a nice way

58:02

to see it kind of in a really cleaned up form.

58:06

The fact that it feels like it's just, it

58:08

probably is more than that up res because I'm sure there

58:10

is some work going in there. But it

58:12

feels like then they should have done a lot

58:14

more with the particles effects a bit more with

58:16

the physical nature of what's happening on the screen.

58:18

Just feel to up that ante of like, okay,

58:20

this is what if this

58:22

the scope that we have, we could make it this

58:25

much more dramatic and sell it a bit

58:27

more. But like you say, budgets, who

58:29

is this game for at that point? That's why

58:31

it came back into my earlier discussion like, did

58:33

we really need a remaster of Ghostbusters if it

58:35

was just an up res version of Ghostbusters other

58:37

than just to sell it to a few people

58:39

and then kind of go, oh, okay. But

58:43

what I will say, the one error I do love

58:45

for the remaster is the

58:49

the the Firehouse,

58:53

which is like, in the game,

58:55

you don't really do anything. No,

58:59

I realized I described it as a hub,

59:01

but that's a pretty grand title. It's more

59:03

like just an interactive semi interactive play room.

59:05

Yeah, you just wonder it's just it's just

59:08

there that feels like there's so much more

59:10

that could have happened in that firehouse. But

59:12

it is. Yeah, but the fact when it

59:14

looks as good as it does in this

59:16

new release, I found myself just walking around,

59:18

you can see all the details, which I

59:20

don't really remember from from the original game.

59:22

Yeah, you can play arcade games. You

59:24

can, but you can't actually play them. Yeah,

59:27

that that to me

59:29

is really annoying. I have a keyboard machine

59:31

there. Plenty of license keyboard machine. Just let

59:34

me play keyboard. We all know that I'm

59:36

going to play the first level, nod and

59:38

smile and then quit. Like we know that.

59:40

But like, yeah, I

59:42

mean, I even have I have another version

59:44

of Cuba installed on the same console. But

59:47

that's not the point. If you put a keyboard

59:49

machine in an interactive area in a game, obviously

59:52

I want to play it, not having pretend to

59:54

play it anyway. Yeah,

59:56

so as I say, I described it as

59:59

a hub, but really all it is. is

1:00:01

some story

1:00:04

exposition happens. And then

1:00:06

when you wanna start the next level, you go to

1:00:08

the Ecto-1. Which is beautiful rendering

1:00:10

of Ecto-1. I walked around, I looked

1:00:12

in that car, and they even make

1:00:14

a quip in the game about, hey, maybe we should let

1:00:17

the rookie drive. Nah.

1:00:19

Nah. I'm like, come on, that

1:00:21

would be crazy. But obviously. I

1:00:23

guess they, yeah. I feel like they had that before.

1:00:25

I was wondering about that. I was coming, yeah. When

1:00:29

they did that gag, I was wondering, was

1:00:31

there an intention to be

1:00:34

a player-controlled driving

1:00:38

section? And then

1:00:40

they basically couldn't make it good or couldn't

1:00:43

make it work or run out of time.

1:00:46

I did find some evidence

1:00:49

of sections that

1:00:51

were, as with all games, there

1:00:53

were sections proposed that didn't

1:00:55

make it. And then there was a Macy's Thanksgiving Parade

1:00:57

level. It's referenced, it's

1:00:59

actually referenced in the game, in the

1:01:02

script. Basically

1:01:04

the mayor, who's played by Bill Murray's brother,

1:01:06

going, why did you ruin my parade? Like,

1:01:08

well, I didn't, did I? And

1:01:12

so they moved the cut scenes from those levels

1:01:14

into the library level. And

1:01:16

there is actually some footage out there of a

1:01:18

crowd tech demo, which looks really impressive for the

1:01:21

time. I have to say, it looks

1:01:23

more like next gen Assassin's Creed in terms

1:01:25

of numbers of NPCs

1:01:28

on screen. But for

1:01:30

whatever reason, they couldn't actually make it fun, I

1:01:32

guess, or they couldn't finish it to

1:01:35

the standard. I wanted a diehard trilogy

1:01:37

game. I wanted a driving section. I

1:01:40

wanted a shooter section. Yeah. They

1:01:44

also, in the remaster, I don't know if it was

1:01:46

in the original, but I don't think it was. There's

1:01:48

an advert for the Blu-ray release of the film, but

1:01:50

there's also the, which they, at the time

1:01:52

they re-furbed

1:01:54

the original car prop.

1:01:58

And there's a video of the going... through that, which

1:02:01

is completely unrelated to the game really, but

1:02:04

it's worth watching. Yeah,

1:02:07

so I'm just trying to think of my thoughts

1:02:09

just going through this. I think that there was more scope

1:02:12

that they could have achieved for this game and it is

1:02:14

actually when you really boil it down,

1:02:16

you talk about those ideas that could have

1:02:18

been there. It is very much level

1:02:21

to level, rinse

1:02:23

and repeat. There feels like there should

1:02:25

be a bit more scope of what they actually achieved. Or

1:02:30

is that just me? No,

1:02:33

I agree. I think it

1:02:35

makes you wonder, and Liany already referenced it,

1:02:37

every game has sections that were designed and

1:02:40

sometimes fully built that were cut for whatever

1:02:42

reason that we just won't know about. But

1:02:44

you look at all that detail in the Firehouse,

1:02:46

you look at all that detail in the Ecto

1:02:48

1 and it seems like they make jokes about it,

1:02:51

but it leaves you

1:02:53

wanting some more from the

1:02:55

game. I'm

1:02:58

not sure if they were maybe starting to set up, they thought they

1:03:00

were going to make another one. I can imagine probably not. I mean,

1:03:02

who knows. You'd

1:03:05

be set up for all these different sections, but

1:03:07

then all the levels essentially become rehashed

1:03:09

versions of the same thing. And

1:03:11

a room, take care of ghosts,

1:03:13

or there might be little smaller creatures that you don't

1:03:16

need to actually capture. And then you capture and you

1:03:18

move on. And sometimes there's some hidden items to find.

1:03:20

But each level moment to moment,

1:03:22

there's not a lot that differentiates

1:03:25

one from the other. And I wonder

1:03:29

if the scope of the game maybe

1:03:31

was bigger at the

1:03:33

beginning and then was pared down to this

1:03:36

experience due to time constraints, money,

1:03:38

whatever, whatever troubles

1:03:40

they came across. But it definitely seems like a

1:03:43

game that might have had bigger ideas. Now, I

1:03:45

can't confirm that just the way it feels playing

1:03:47

through it. But it's tantalizing because the visual imagery

1:03:49

of the someone like the Echo One, you're like,

1:03:52

oh, that just you just do want even if I

1:03:54

could just get inside it and play with it inside

1:03:56

the firehouse, that would be that would be something. Yeah.

1:04:00

sound effects that are so

1:04:03

prevalent throughout the game. There's elements

1:04:05

there that are just, I

1:04:07

think maybe it was just playing in a

1:04:10

modern headspace. I did feel coming off it

1:04:12

like, okay, yeah, I'm

1:04:14

just wandering off this again. Yeah, that was

1:04:16

exactly what I expected it to be, nothing

1:04:18

more, nothing less. It'd be

1:04:21

hard to imagine them making a back to the future

1:04:23

video game where you don't get to drive the DeLorean,

1:04:25

right? So making a ghostbusters game and having that they're

1:04:27

not being able to interact with it at all is

1:04:29

a bit teasy. And I wonder if

1:04:32

that was not necessarily

1:04:34

by design, but I guess that's

1:04:36

pure speculation. Yeah, I haven't looked

1:04:38

at really properly at any

1:04:40

of the more recent Ghostbusters games, ones

1:04:42

that seem to tie into

1:04:45

the recent crop of movies, which obviously

1:04:47

the, I think the Ecto one, thanks to

1:04:50

the advent of CG, they've been able to kind

1:04:52

of do some pretty crazy chase sequences and stuff

1:04:54

with it. And it's got like a Gunner's chair

1:04:57

and all this stuff. I would imagine that recent

1:04:59

Ghostbusters games are probably doing more with the Ecto

1:05:01

one, but I don't really know. You

1:05:04

mentioned the audio there, Tony. The only issue I

1:05:06

had was that, and this is a kind of

1:05:08

common remaster problem is that the levels seem to

1:05:10

be all over the shop, but obviously you can

1:05:13

tweak them. I ended up kind

1:05:15

of dialing down the speech and dialing up

1:05:17

the sound effects. So I could get the

1:05:19

sound of that proton pack, thrumming away

1:05:22

and blasting. But yeah,

1:05:24

I thought the audio overall was pretty good. Obviously there's a

1:05:26

lot of banter, a lot of chatter, not

1:05:28

too much repetition a little bit, but

1:05:30

actually not compared to other games of

1:05:32

this type when you're constantly surrounded by

1:05:34

characters. There wasn't quite as much as

1:05:36

I was perhaps dreading. And

1:05:39

it even deals at times a

1:05:41

tad bit the creepiness of Ghostbusters. There

1:05:44

is one or two, only one or

1:05:46

two areas where you go in where

1:05:48

I'm thinking of the child's playroom where

1:05:51

you've got the fairly eerie

1:05:54

kids, ghostly

1:05:56

kids noise coming from there. I

1:05:58

guess knowing they were audience they

1:06:00

didn't want to make it too spooky but there

1:06:02

is one or two moments where if you go out your

1:06:04

way searching for some of the more kind of hidden

1:06:09

artifacts etc and they have sound

1:06:11

effects you know linked in with the

1:06:13

actual item that can be a little

1:06:15

unsettling. But

1:06:18

yeah I mean audio wise I mean

1:06:20

they they hit all the key things

1:06:22

they need to as we've said before

1:06:24

the proton factors sounds amazing echo one

1:06:26

sounds you know as absolutely it should

1:06:29

that the theme tunes are in there.

1:06:32

Yeah the music's all present and correct it

1:06:35

it definitely has that kind of sense of place

1:06:39

in its world within the

1:06:41

actual franchise. I'm really

1:06:44

shocked how much of that original soundtrack

1:06:46

they relied on for so many

1:06:48

of those moments worked really

1:06:50

well for me. The music in the

1:06:52

library section matching the the music in

1:06:54

the opening scene of the original ghostbusters

1:06:56

it was was a huge moment for

1:06:58

me that that like even replaying

1:07:01

it now and even feeling the way that I felt

1:07:03

kind of about the game as a whole there there

1:07:05

was nothing that could contain my smile in

1:07:08

that segment where you're chasing the librarian and

1:07:10

and and that music's playing and the books

1:07:12

are stacked you know no human was stacked

1:07:14

books like that it's just like all those

1:07:16

things it's um it they

1:07:18

really do tap it again once again tap into

1:07:21

that nostalgia I think I think not to get

1:07:23

to to our general

1:07:25

feelings too early but I think there

1:07:27

really is a lot here for a

1:07:29

ghostbusters fan um and I think the

1:07:31

audio is maybe one of

1:07:33

if not the biggest part of that um

1:07:35

like you said you've already mentioned the just

1:07:37

the sound of the trap opening um the

1:07:39

sound of the proton pack and and the

1:07:41

banter like you mentioned leon I laughed

1:07:43

when you said there wasn't much repetition I wasn't

1:07:46

laughing because I thought you were wrong there was one section on

1:07:48

shandor island where you have to you

1:07:50

have to let the ghostbusters out of

1:07:52

pods but I didn't know what those

1:07:55

pods looked like so it was just for a while

1:07:57

it was just ray just saying the exact same thing

1:07:59

to me over and over and over again. I

1:08:01

couldn't find him. Eventually I figured it out. But,

1:08:05

but yeah, it could, this

1:08:07

could have easily slipped into the too

1:08:12

talky territory. And

1:08:14

while it was very talky and had heavy

1:08:16

dialogue during the mission, it never got grating

1:08:18

to me. And I was wondering with

1:08:20

your guys experience, is that me just being a

1:08:23

little bit too much of a Ghostbusters fan

1:08:25

or was, or was it done well and

1:08:28

implementable? Sounds like maybe not, not

1:08:30

any of us had too big of a problem with that. Cause it

1:08:32

certainly didn't bother me the way that I was expecting it to. Now

1:08:36

there are a few little box that got

1:08:38

said maybe a couple of too many times,

1:08:40

but overall it felt like every

1:08:43

sort of every new section, every

1:08:46

new combat encounter would open a

1:08:48

new little set of chats,

1:08:53

you know, perhaps some of the, you know,

1:08:55

it's above you, it's behind you, whatever, all that kind of stuff

1:08:57

gets a little bit old, but also it, you

1:08:59

know, it's fine. It's helpful at least it's not,

1:09:02

I'd rather have repeated box of,

1:09:05

you know, to your

1:09:07

right than the

1:09:09

same gag, like repeated 18 times in a

1:09:12

row or something like that. So yeah, yeah,

1:09:14

no, no problems with that aspect really. There

1:09:17

was, there's maybe one too many times of be careful not

1:09:20

to cross the streams. I heard that a number of times.

1:09:22

Okay, now I get it. Until you, until you have to.

1:09:24

That's a joke, I get it, it's fine. Yeah,

1:09:27

yeah. Did anyone play on

1:09:30

any of the, any of the try out

1:09:33

any of the different difficulty settings or

1:09:35

did you like play on higher ones

1:09:37

for achievements, Tony? Or, cause I elected

1:09:39

to play this on casual because I had

1:09:41

no interest in this game being difficult

1:09:43

for me. I just

1:09:45

wanted to see it, play it and complete it

1:09:47

and make sure I did that. And actually there

1:09:49

were, I did still get knocked

1:09:52

out a few times along the way, partly

1:09:55

because I completely forgot

1:09:58

about the upgrade mechanics. because it

1:10:00

never tells you. Oh my God. After it

1:10:02

introduces the items at the

1:10:05

start of the game, I got to

1:10:07

literally the last level, and

1:10:10

I'd upgraded nothing because I was playing on

1:10:13

casual, I guess. I mean, it

1:10:15

was not a wild, cool game. And

1:10:17

then it was

1:10:20

that section with the two gates and the cherubs,

1:10:22

these stone cherubs come flying down, and they can

1:10:24

take you out really quickly. And

1:10:27

you're supposed to slime tether them to the locks.

1:10:29

And it's a little bit like some of the

1:10:31

areas I'd say it's yeah, and it's a little

1:10:33

bit confusing and unclear as to what you're actually

1:10:36

supposed to be doing. Anyway, I got knocked out

1:10:38

multiple times on that. So I

1:10:40

went into the menus and suddenly

1:10:43

noticed that I could upgrade literally everything

1:10:46

that I had and

1:10:48

had the money to do it. So I did

1:10:50

that and then came back out and then still

1:10:52

lost to the cherubs a couple of more times

1:10:55

before I worked out what was going on. But

1:10:58

yeah, actually, so

1:11:00

I only really got half a level where

1:11:02

I was playing with the full set of

1:11:04

gear. But yeah,

1:11:07

back to my original question, which may or

1:11:09

may not relate to this, did

1:11:12

anyone play on experienced or professional?

1:11:18

No. I definitely didn't do the

1:11:20

hardest difficulty. I know that I didn't do

1:11:22

the hardest difficulty because I remember having frustrations

1:11:24

playing the game like it goes down that

1:11:26

Lost Planet route of you being staggered and

1:11:28

knocked to the floor like a

1:11:30

lot. And I found really frustrating.

1:11:32

So I thought, well, I'll go and do it twice. You

1:11:35

know, the only achievements that way. And then I just

1:11:37

never did. I did the sort of the one and

1:11:39

done through. And I know having

1:11:41

looked at it that definitely didn't do the

1:11:43

hardest difficulty because there are a few

1:11:46

moments where it's quite tricky and a few moments

1:11:48

where you don't necessarily feel like

1:11:50

you're in full control, which I

1:11:53

guess is by design. It's kind of that

1:11:56

strange two factor thing where,

1:11:59

you know, by one hand. What

1:16:00

am I? How do I get this fence open?

1:16:02

And even though they're explicitly telling you what to

1:16:04

do, I'm still trying to get what? I need

1:16:06

to grab the cherubs and

1:16:08

then what? Like, so I was

1:16:11

just smashing the cherubs on the ground going,

1:16:13

uh-huh, uh-huh. Oh, on the

1:16:15

locks that, okay, that makes sense. And like now, you

1:16:17

know, I couldn't really imagine if I was trying to

1:16:19

do it on professional difficulty, not knowing exactly how to

1:16:21

do that would be a nightmare. But

1:16:25

it's, yeah, I, I

1:16:28

enjoyed the wrangling of the ghosts, um,

1:16:30

certainly in the first few areas, because I think that

1:16:32

is just, you know, that's everything that we know about

1:16:35

Ghostbusters and that comes across so well. But actually, as

1:16:37

you get further through the game, when

1:16:39

you're trying to deal with the enemies that

1:16:41

are just swarming at you, and you've got

1:16:43

the ghost that you're trying to wrangle, I

1:16:45

was getting frustrated with the ghost I'm trying

1:16:47

to wrangle because I'm like, that's, yeah, I'm

1:16:49

trying to get you into a trap whilst

1:16:51

also being attacked by little minion guys in

1:16:53

my feet. And I can't do both

1:16:55

at once. So I need to take these little guys

1:16:57

out before I deal with the guys in the trap.

1:16:59

But like, there was a bit just a bit too

1:17:01

much like, when it was just individualized

1:17:03

of one and then the other. I

1:17:06

think it just played a little bit more fun when

1:17:09

it was just trying to like, sort the chaos out

1:17:12

between everything it just it was just like, okay, I'm just

1:17:14

feel like I'm just now just playing it. I know this

1:17:16

sounds weird, just playing a game, you

1:17:18

know, just, just ticking off the box rather

1:17:21

than living the the ghost bustery experience. And

1:17:23

there's some weird levels as well, when you think about the

1:17:26

one where you go into the different

1:17:28

dimension in the library having to kind

1:17:30

of wrangle the environment around

1:17:32

going through multiple doors, not necessarily knowing

1:17:34

if that's the direction you're meant to,

1:17:36

of course, it's a maze that would

1:17:39

make sense. But at the same time,

1:17:42

am I going the right way? Like,

1:17:44

yeah, once or twice I found myself

1:17:47

universally backtracking to an area in the

1:17:49

cemetery just because I was like, Yeah,

1:17:51

yeah, have I done this area? No,

1:17:53

no, got well, then and it was

1:17:56

like, Oh, you haven't scanned a wall

1:17:58

to your left. As I'm Okay.

1:18:03

But, you know, that's just game design.

1:18:05

Sometimes it makes sense straight away. Other

1:18:07

times, you know, you get caught up

1:18:09

in these things and, you know, nothing egregious.

1:18:11

There wasn't, and I, unlike other games,

1:18:14

there wasn't a boss fight in particular

1:18:16

where I'm just sat there bashing my head against

1:18:18

the wall going, this is fundamentally

1:18:20

unfair. It was more

1:18:22

a case of, okay, I just need to get myself out

1:18:24

of the way of, you know, project

1:18:26

droids or, you know, use

1:18:29

the right piece of equipment to actually

1:18:31

deal more damage and listen to the

1:18:33

game level design, which I

1:18:36

appreciated because it really could have turned into just

1:18:38

a, you know, a case of attrition because

1:18:41

there's plenty of boss fights to be had in here. Yeah,

1:18:45

it's one of those things where that was where

1:18:47

an item description actually helped me. When

1:18:49

you read the description of the slime, it's like, you

1:18:52

know, whatever it says, you know, getting wear down ghosts.

1:18:54

And then the very last line says, can also make

1:18:56

things that don't appear in our world visible. And I

1:18:58

was like, well, that's odd. That's an odd description. Then

1:19:00

all of a sudden a wall shows up, like you

1:19:02

said, where you have to slime it down in order

1:19:05

to make it disappear. It's like, okay. But if I

1:19:07

didn't, if I didn't catch that one line of text,

1:19:09

I would have been sitting there for, you know, forever.

1:19:11

And it doesn't, much like Leon said before, it doesn't

1:19:14

guide you in certain areas where you feel

1:19:16

like you would definitely need some guidance.

1:19:18

And then it holds your hand in other areas,

1:19:20

like waiting for Venkman to kick open the door

1:19:22

that you know you have to go through or

1:19:25

things like that. Like again, very design

1:19:28

elements from the time. But

1:19:31

yeah, it's not an even

1:19:33

experience in that regard. There

1:19:35

was a fireplace bar,

1:19:38

like a door that you had to

1:19:40

open up via like your levitate ability.

1:19:43

And I got, I got there. And

1:19:45

it was like, we probably need

1:19:48

to levitate this. And I just sat there and go,

1:19:50

I can't remember how to do this after like 10

1:19:52

minutes, just like pressing every button

1:19:54

and completely forgot is a combination

1:19:56

of by pressing the right trigger, and then

1:19:58

the left bumper. activate that particular

1:20:01

one. Yeah, it's a bit of a

1:20:03

fingerful, that whole mechanic. I found that

1:20:06

during the main ghost fights, although helpfully

1:20:11

your main beam sort of automatically transitions

1:20:13

to the capture beam when you need it to, so it's

1:20:15

easy to forget. And then if you're trying to slam them

1:20:17

with L2 as well, or the left trigger,

1:20:19

there's a little bit of Tony

1:20:22

Hawk style knuckle

1:20:25

cracking going on. With the slime gun, one of

1:20:27

the really great ones is if you wear them

1:20:29

down, you can just slime tether

1:20:31

them straight into a trap from across

1:20:33

the room, which is really cool. Yeah, there's a

1:20:35

trophy for that, which I didn't get. Yeah.

1:20:39

Speaking of the slime tether though, the

1:20:41

slime tether is also, I think,

1:20:43

maybe the culprit of one of

1:20:45

the more egregious puzzle solving elements

1:20:47

of the game. Well, the

1:20:50

balls? Yeah, exactly. You gotta

1:20:52

slowly bring down those chains.

1:20:54

Oh my goodness. Some

1:20:57

of that stuff was just enough to drive

1:20:59

me mad. And then I couldn't get another

1:21:01

slime tether attached in the right area. Oh

1:21:03

man. Stuff like that, where I'm just

1:21:05

like, let's, I mean, for

1:21:07

a game that's pretty short, like I was kind of,

1:21:09

all right, come on, let's go. Like, let's get

1:21:12

this. Zach, same as you. I slime tethered it.

1:21:14

It's like, we need to stop those balls from

1:21:16

rising. Okay. Slime tethered the ball to the ground.

1:21:18

Ball still rises. And I'm like, well, that's because

1:21:20

it's like obviously string, you

1:21:22

know, three slime. So I do a second one

1:21:25

and the ball stops. I'm like, well,

1:21:27

the ball isn't rising anymore. So I'm walking around like

1:21:29

for two or three minutes, like just shooting other balls,

1:21:31

trying to get them all to be in the same

1:21:33

place at once. Randomly then did

1:21:36

the same ball for the third time and it

1:21:38

blew up. And I was like, exactly.

1:21:40

Oh, why three? I know that's

1:21:43

video game logic for three times,

1:21:45

but why, why three? Why not

1:21:47

one, two? Fine. But

1:21:49

it's fine. You know, you work for those, those

1:21:51

things. Yeah. The one

1:21:53

that I got actually stuck on to the point

1:21:55

of looking it up in a walk through was

1:21:57

the one in the hedge maze where you have

1:22:00

have to first go

1:22:03

down some steps that you've never really been

1:22:05

shown and then you have to use

1:22:08

some slime tethers in a certain

1:22:10

particular way. There's some quite fun attempts

1:22:12

at physics puzzles

1:22:14

in there. It's just that they come out the blue

1:22:16

and sometimes the actual

1:22:19

supposed physics that are being utilised

1:22:21

don't seem to quite add

1:22:23

up. But I appreciated the attempts

1:22:25

at variety. It's better than like

1:22:28

an on-rails

1:22:30

turret section or something that a

1:22:32

lot of games were doing at

1:22:34

that point. And I

1:22:36

did enjoy the PK meter scanning

1:22:38

and trying to fill your Tobin

1:22:40

spirit guide with ghosts. The

1:22:42

only disappointment is that in... So

1:22:44

this obviously was after some

1:22:47

of the Project Zero Fatal Frame games.

1:22:49

It was after Bioshock's intriguing use of

1:22:51

camera. It's a kind of a

1:22:53

shame I think that beyond capturing...

1:22:56

Maybe I

1:22:59

misunderstood, but beyond basically getting a

1:23:01

snap of each ghost to scan,

1:23:03

there was nothing more to it

1:23:05

than that. I would have liked

1:23:07

it if there was more depth,

1:23:09

I suppose, to the scanning

1:23:14

of the ghosts. Yeah, where

1:23:16

it gave you more backstory

1:23:18

and more ways of dealing

1:23:20

with them. When actually the main strategy

1:23:22

of my game is because you're... I

1:23:25

think one thing we haven't really made clear,

1:23:27

because this game isn't co-op, unlike

1:23:30

Gears of War, you are essentially

1:23:32

spending the vast majority of

1:23:34

your time with between one and four AI

1:23:38

and PC companions. And

1:23:40

the way that you know which weapon

1:23:43

is most effective against particular ghosts

1:23:45

is by watching what your companions

1:23:48

do and copying them, which is

1:23:50

not highly strategic. that

1:24:00

you have to hit with a blue shock beam.

1:24:04

A lot of the ghosts you can continue

1:24:07

with any weapon and it will eventually wear

1:24:09

them down just depends how fast you knock

1:24:11

them down. Including

1:24:14

the absolutely necessary proton

1:24:16

machine gun you get towards the end. Or

1:24:18

you can just like, do, do,

1:24:20

do, do, do, do, do, do, you know, it's, yeah,

1:24:23

you would have thought there'd be a little bit

1:24:25

more variety there in how to capture them. I

1:24:27

actually, it's hard not to make this comparison. I

1:24:30

know that they share a

1:24:32

lot of lineage, not gameplay wise obviously, but

1:24:34

like, like clearly the people who

1:24:36

designed Luigi's Mansion had watched Ghostbusters and

1:24:38

you know, there was, you know, there's the

1:24:40

idea of trapping the

1:24:42

idea of the first Luigi's Mansion out

1:24:44

and contain them. But even in something

1:24:47

like Luigi's Mansion where like different ghosts

1:24:49

would require different strategies to, and it

1:24:51

created more of a puzzle aspect to

1:24:53

solving how to capture each individual ghost.

1:24:55

I feel like this game could have

1:24:57

leaned into that a bit more because

1:24:59

as you said, Tony, like aside from

1:25:02

maybe one or two very specific cases,

1:25:04

it was like, if you really just

1:25:06

wanted to use your base proton beam and just

1:25:08

wear these ghosts down, you could, there was nothing

1:25:10

stopping you from doing that. Certain

1:25:13

other tactics

1:25:15

might expedite the process, but you're

1:25:17

gonna get to the same result

1:25:19

normally without much resistance, which

1:25:22

is something, again, I don't

1:25:24

necessarily think is a negative, but if

1:25:26

you could have given those combat encounters so

1:25:29

a little bit more variety, maybe make the

1:25:31

combat itself more of a puzzle, you might

1:25:33

have a reason to engage with

1:25:35

more of it or to want to fill out

1:25:37

that spirit guide, like you said, Leon, but

1:25:39

without any real consequence to it or any real

1:25:41

benefit from doing it, it just became something that,

1:25:44

unless you were just particularly inspired to

1:25:46

see all the enemy descriptions and

1:25:49

to see all this stuff, there wasn't a

1:25:51

tangible in-game reason to do so. It also

1:25:53

doesn't help that when you bring up the

1:25:55

PK scanner to

1:25:57

scan these things, it takes the entirety of your

1:25:59

screen and... and you get pelted by everything around

1:26:01

you because you're so busy looking through this thing

1:26:04

that you can't then interact with beyond just

1:26:06

trying to take this one perfect capture shot.

1:26:08

Now, I feel like there's a thousand

1:26:10

games that have done that. And actually, I just feel

1:26:12

like, and you can use your PK scanner just out

1:26:15

and about and get a general direction of something in

1:26:17

the area that you're heading towards. It feels like it

1:26:20

prompts you quite blatantly

1:26:23

when you need to do it as well.

1:26:26

It's not very subtle. I feel like there's a

1:26:28

nicer way to have done both those elements where

1:26:30

you could be using it to capture without being

1:26:32

taken out of the game almost. But, you know,

1:26:34

whatever it's, it's. One of the power-ups that I

1:26:37

got with half a level to go is the

1:26:39

you can move faster with the PK screen

1:26:41

out. So yeah. But

1:26:44

I actually kind of felt it sort of was

1:26:46

felt right kind of creeping around with the PK

1:26:48

meter out because that's what they do in the

1:26:50

films and that's what the NPCs do. It didn't

1:26:52

seem right sort of hairing down corridors with the

1:26:55

PK meter out somehow. So I'm

1:26:57

going to say I was just role playing. Role

1:27:00

playing, not gamification. Exactly. Psycho Hype

1:27:02

from the Forum says, what I

1:27:04

remember most about the Ghostbusters video

1:27:06

game was deciding to play on

1:27:08

the professional difficulty setting and having

1:27:10

my progress bottlenecked more than once

1:27:13

by a few particularly challenging boss

1:27:15

fights. At the time I'd not

1:27:17

yet played Gears of War. So I didn't quite realize

1:27:19

how so many of the gameplay mechanics came

1:27:22

from that series. Each boss fight felt like

1:27:24

this tense battle of attrition. I

1:27:26

remember having to constantly scurry around the

1:27:28

battlefield in order to revive my fellow

1:27:30

Ghostbusters who kept dropping like flies, lest

1:27:32

we all go down at the same

1:27:34

time and game over. I'll

1:27:37

never forget when I finally beat the

1:27:39

final boss after numerous failed attempts, an

1:27:41

achievement popped up on the screen. It said, are

1:27:44

you a guard? It took me

1:27:46

a second to recognize the quote from the end

1:27:48

of the first Ghostbusters film, but as soon as

1:27:50

I placed it, I had a huge smile on

1:27:52

my face. That was a satisfying moment. I'll tell

1:27:54

you about my comment of war of attrition and

1:27:56

bosses then, but apparently on professional

1:27:58

difficulty that is the case. Yeah,

1:28:01

yeah. So

1:28:04

yeah, achievement, I think the

1:28:07

achievement sets for the remaster and much the same. I don't

1:28:09

know if were there any multiplayer based achievements in the original

1:28:11

rooms? There was, yeah. Yes. Oh,

1:28:13

okay. And I

1:28:15

guess are they attainable now? No.

1:28:18

No. I think the free, if I look at it, the

1:28:20

360 stuff is still

1:28:22

up and active. I know the PlayStation

1:28:24

free servers have been taken down. So

1:28:26

that's not a root you can. The

1:28:29

Wii obviously has its offline stuff. But from what I can

1:28:31

see, the 360 stuff, there's

1:28:33

some weird kind of like glitchy discontinued

1:28:35

stuff, but you might there is recent

1:28:37

winners of it. So wherever you can

1:28:39

be done. So I guess it's

1:28:42

still and I did play some of the multiplayer stuff.

1:28:45

Not hugely, but it was it was good. It was fun

1:28:47

enough. Yeah, fun

1:28:49

enough. Didn't last long, I guess in

1:28:51

with all the so

1:28:54

much competition for your attention at the

1:28:56

time. So many. Well,

1:28:59

I mean, it's so many games

1:29:01

had, you know, quote, tacked

1:29:03

on multiplayer. And it became a real

1:29:05

frustration and a bugbear a lot of

1:29:07

the time. And now actually, for

1:29:10

me personally, I really kind of missed the time

1:29:12

on multiplayer that you sometimes get with certain games.

1:29:15

You know, I've had some really good experiences. I

1:29:17

quite enjoyed the multiplayer of this. Like Bioshock 2

1:29:19

was another one I thought I'd really go. Oh,

1:29:21

yeah. But people loved it. But

1:29:23

yeah, it's just, yeah, you also used to

1:29:25

often. Yeah, it felt like it oftentimes it

1:29:27

was a back of the box

1:29:30

ticking exercise. And a lot of times you

1:29:32

just ended up feeling sad for all the

1:29:34

developers time and effort that had gone into these

1:29:36

modes that then you just ignored or the

1:29:39

wider community was just ignoring. It reminds me

1:29:41

of the conversation we had on the condemned

1:29:43

two episode about that. It's

1:29:45

like, it's like, man, this game that really didn't need

1:29:47

that. But but like you said, back to the back

1:29:49

of the box, retail stores,

1:29:51

physical media, if a grandparent picks up that

1:29:53

game turns around and says, can he play

1:29:55

it with his brother? You know, that's a

1:29:57

that was a bigger deal back then for sure. remember

1:30:00

it, do you just play through like each

1:30:02

of the campaign levels? No,

1:30:04

no, no, no, it's not campaigns, it's

1:30:06

jobs. So you get

1:30:09

sent out and yeah,

1:30:11

so I guess

1:30:14

they're based on, obviously the assets will have been

1:30:16

reused and things like that from the main game.

1:30:19

But yeah, you couldn't play the campaign

1:30:21

in co-op, it was very

1:30:23

much like a separate entity

1:30:26

of co-op ghost busting. And

1:30:28

yes, looking at the achievements now, you

1:30:30

know, trap over 50 ghosts in your

1:30:32

Xbox Live ghost busting career. I

1:30:35

almost wonder if... So the end of the game and

1:30:37

one of the things I quite liked about

1:30:39

the way that this almost tied back to

1:30:41

the original computer

1:30:44

game that we've talked about is they

1:30:46

kind of went big on the franchise idea,

1:30:48

the idea that Ghostbusters was going to become

1:30:51

a city city by city franchise. And

1:30:53

you would be a franchisee and you would finance

1:30:55

your own Ghostbusters setup in order to make profits,

1:30:57

you'd be allowed to use the livery and that

1:30:59

kind of thing. In the

1:31:02

end game credits, Venkman's

1:31:04

sort of saying, you know, are you going

1:31:07

to try Chicago or wherever, where are you

1:31:09

going to open your franchise kind of thing?

1:31:11

Maybe, I mean, I guess maybe some of these

1:31:14

levels were set in New York still, but

1:31:17

I think the idea was that you

1:31:19

would play and make money. Yeah, I'm

1:31:21

reading now. You had like survival, so

1:31:23

you had, you know, basically survive waves,

1:31:26

destruction, do the most destruction within an

1:31:28

area, protection, protector tower, thief

1:31:30

you need to get come out with relics and not

1:31:32

be cured. Yeah, so yeah, definitely like little elements of

1:31:35

individualized ideas versus playing for

1:31:37

the campaign, which I assume

1:31:39

most people probably wanted to do, which was,

1:31:42

you know, being able to play with three other friends through the

1:31:44

main game. Yeah. But

1:31:47

yeah, I think overall, obviously, you've got

1:31:49

some fairly rudimentary achievements and

1:31:51

trophies for progress and story, but

1:31:53

they actually did put in some

1:31:55

fun ones for playing around with

1:31:58

the mechanics and finding secrets. and

1:32:01

obviously filling your spirit guide and

1:32:03

all that kind of thing. I

1:32:05

would say it's probably the remaster

1:32:08

is probably quite an achievable platinum

1:32:10

looking at the ones I didn't get, for example. If

1:32:13

that's your thing, most of the

1:32:15

trophies and achievements are named

1:32:17

for quotes from the original

1:32:19

movie as Psycho

1:32:21

Hype attested to there. Yeah,

1:32:25

so the PS3 and 360 versions feature that

1:32:27

multiplayer mode. Players can play online with up

1:32:29

to three others in a variety of missions

1:32:32

outside the main storyline. Missions include, as we

1:32:34

just said, capturing as many ghosts as possible

1:32:36

in a limited period of time or attempting

1:32:38

to defend ghost disruptors as they are charged

1:32:41

up. Yes, the

1:32:43

PS3 version had its own servers

1:32:45

which were shut down even before PSN

1:32:47

went offline. Or

1:32:49

PS3 servers back in December

1:32:51

2012, so this was only

1:32:53

active for three years. The way you

1:32:56

describe that multiplayer definitely feels

1:32:58

like a conversation that's being had in a

1:33:00

boardroom right now. We're like, all right, so

1:33:02

there's four ghostbusters and we're going to have

1:33:04

a haunting pass, so it'll be

1:33:06

free to play. And then they're going to set

1:33:08

up their own ghostbusters franchise and then we'll set

1:33:11

up these different battle passes. Different games. Yeah, exactly.

1:33:13

So if you get the gold ghost, then you

1:33:15

get gold ghost tokens. You may

1:33:17

literally be describing the current or most recent

1:33:19

ghostbusters. I might be. I genuinely

1:33:22

don't know. Exactly. That

1:33:24

feels like a modern games

1:33:26

as a service idea tucked away in a

1:33:28

small multiplayer section of a game from 15

1:33:31

years ago. It's wild. The

1:33:34

Wii version is the only platform to feature

1:33:36

offline multiplayer with the entire single player campaign

1:33:38

playable by two players in a split screen

1:33:40

mode. See, the Wii was

1:33:43

nice in a lot of ways. An

1:33:45

adversarial multiplayer suite was advertised for the

1:33:47

Wii version as well, but wasn't in

1:33:49

the final release. The

1:33:52

PC version, even if the

1:33:54

original release, didn't have a multiplayer component or

1:33:58

any online features, however, That's

1:38:00

a good question. Because

1:38:02

there was a PSVR 2 Ghostbusters game

1:38:05

released relatively recently

1:38:07

that I keep looking at and

1:38:09

going, do I just buy it?

1:38:11

This was. Because it

1:38:13

feels perfect for VR, right? This

1:38:16

is listed as by... Oh yeah,

1:38:18

sorry. This was the

1:38:20

reason I did actually highlight this one is

1:38:22

because Ernie

1:38:24

Hudson talked about it in an

1:38:26

interview some years ago saying there's going to be

1:38:29

another video game and

1:38:31

it's by this Illphonic studio for

1:38:33

Nighthawk Interactive. So this came out

1:38:35

in 2022 for Xbox Series

1:38:38

X, PlayStation 5 and 4, Xbox One

1:38:40

and PC. It has an average

1:38:42

review score of 71. So

1:38:45

in that sort of range of most

1:38:47

people probably wouldn't bother with it, even

1:38:49

though that's actually a reasonably respectable score.

1:38:53

67 reviews, yeah, recommended

1:38:56

by 51% of critics. And

1:38:58

yet I don't think until the

1:39:01

run up to this podcast I'd thought about

1:39:03

it or been made aware of it or

1:39:07

yeah, whatever. Whether it's like

1:39:09

the one that Brian was sort of

1:39:12

imagining there in his boardroom fever dream

1:39:14

with microtransactions and stuff, I couldn't

1:39:17

tell you. Yeah,

1:39:20

the PSVR 2 ones, Ghostbusters Rise of the

1:39:23

Ghost Lord, which was the end of 2023.

1:39:27

So that's even more recent. This

1:39:29

was an asymmetrical multiplayer game. Yeah.

1:39:35

Oh, yes. Now I do remember this now. Not

1:39:37

that this just sounds like a bunch of people

1:39:39

sitting around a table. Oh yeah, that thing. But

1:39:42

I remember, if I remember

1:39:44

correctly, there was a pretty sizable presence for

1:39:46

the game on the kind of funny website

1:39:50

that I remember watching a bit of.

1:39:52

Yeah, Asynchronous multiplayer. I believe certain players

1:39:54

got to play it as the ghosts.

1:39:57

There you go. So it's one of those like in that. What

1:40:00

are the, is it like Dead by

1:40:03

Daylight type of... Dead by Daylight, Friday

1:40:05

the... And all the movie spin-off that

1:40:07

they've done, they've done Jason and... I

1:40:11

always wanted to play the Evil Dead one, I heard that was good,

1:40:13

but I think it's shuttered now. That's

1:40:15

right. I might be wrong, but yeah. Yeah.

1:40:19

But actually, this Spirit's Unleashed

1:40:21

got a spread of review scores

1:40:23

in that 71 average. There

1:40:26

were some strong notices in there from people

1:40:28

who had a good time with it, so...

1:40:31

Fair play. But yes, we're not covering that one

1:40:34

on this podcast or any other podcast.

1:40:36

I just thought I'd mention it. And yes, there's

1:40:38

a VR one. Do you know how

1:40:41

well did that do critically, the VR one that you

1:40:43

mentioned, Carl? I

1:40:46

think it seems to fall

1:40:48

down that trap of the

1:40:51

average of around seven in the 70% like all

1:40:54

the other... Ghostbusters games seem to.

1:40:56

Right. Except

1:40:59

the 2016 one, which

1:41:02

I assume came out in

1:41:04

the wake of the then movie, which

1:41:08

has a 30% recommended by 0% of critics, which I don't...

1:41:14

Painful. Again, don't know what kind

1:41:17

of game it was. So

1:41:19

yeah, utterly useless podcasting. However...

1:41:22

Yeah. Rise of the Ghost Lords

1:41:24

is currently set at around 64. Okay.

1:41:27

But I guess your mileage may vary

1:41:29

dependent on your enjoyment of VR.

1:41:32

Whereas it sounds like the 2016 game that

1:41:34

is just called Ghostbusters, probably your mileage

1:41:36

won't vary based on the fact that

1:41:38

not one critic said this is any

1:41:40

kind of fun at all. You

1:41:43

know, but you may be the outlier. Anyway,

1:41:45

so that's just a little look in at

1:41:47

some other Ghostbusters video games that have happened.

1:41:50

But I think I'm still going to say I'm going to

1:41:52

stick to my guns and say I think we've looked at

1:41:54

the right ones. Yeah. As

1:41:56

I say, there are some

1:41:58

others that are... worth checking out

1:42:00

but I'm sure mega Ghostbusters fans will be

1:42:03

aware of all those. Evil

1:42:06

Ninja Phil from the forum says, Overall, I had

1:42:08

a great time with Ghostbusters, the video game. Both

1:42:10

as a fan of the old media and coming

1:42:12

to it as a new game, the way it

1:42:15

ties into the original film makes sense, and all

1:42:17

the nods, winks and easter eggs are great. It

1:42:20

overstretches itself in parts and gets somewhat

1:42:22

repetitive but that doesn't negate the fact

1:42:24

that busting always makes you feel good.

1:42:29

Well, let's see how this goes. Three word reviews as well.

1:42:33

Eddie Van Helgen says, Bored

1:42:35

Bill Murray. Alex 79.

1:42:37

I prefer David. Sean

1:42:40

Thomas says, Surprisingly good story.

1:42:43

Andy Nill, A better final.

1:42:45

Or is it better finale? Yeah, it's

1:42:47

a better finale, I think referring to

1:42:50

the movies that came after. And

1:42:54

Brendan Agnew says, Solid Ghostbusters 3.

1:42:57

Okay, thanks everybody. Just

1:43:00

to summarize then, I think we'll start

1:43:02

with Carla's simply it's been the longest

1:43:04

since he played it plus his throat

1:43:07

is knackered. Thank

1:43:09

you very much. Yeah,

1:43:12

I think my

1:43:14

thoughts looking back and hearing the stories

1:43:16

of you guys have been played through

1:43:18

it and having done my research prior

1:43:20

to the show and my own memories

1:43:23

of the experience is

1:43:25

that I do think it is a game

1:43:28

of two halves and the first half is the

1:43:30

stronger. I feel like the

1:43:32

second half of the game is a little

1:43:34

bit too gamified and away from what is

1:43:36

the the the ghost

1:43:39

busting experience. If you will, I feel

1:43:41

that the first few levels absolutely

1:43:43

nail, especially the Sedgwick

1:43:46

Hotel, which a

1:43:49

little aside, I was actually going to go and stay in.

1:43:52

But I got the holiday cancelled due

1:43:54

to COVID in 2020. So yeah, that's

1:43:56

the Millennium built. I was actually going

1:43:58

to go to the tour. to

1:48:00

play this. You may have it in your Epic

1:48:02

account if you add the free games as I

1:48:04

do every week if you want to play

1:48:06

it on PC. Otherwise, yes, if

1:48:09

you really love the original Ghostbusters movie

1:48:11

or movies, the first couple, then I think you

1:48:13

kind of have to play this if you like

1:48:15

video games. So I'd recommend

1:48:18

kind of, yeah, grab it in a sale or

1:48:20

whatever and see where Aquod and Raimis were at

1:48:22

least sort of

1:48:24

partly thinking of heading the story. But

1:48:27

yeah, don't go out

1:48:29

of your way necessarily if you haven't by

1:48:31

this point played it. But

1:48:33

it was a really interesting one to see and

1:48:35

talk about. Tony.

1:48:38

Yeah, I think for me, it's a classic case of some

1:48:41

of its parts are probably better than the

1:48:44

whole as a gaming experience. I think if

1:48:46

you look back in 2009, the idea that

1:48:48

it just re-kick start

1:48:51

in the franchise that had, you know,

1:48:54

had had a troubled history after

1:48:56

the Ghostbusters 2 to kind of become

1:48:58

more culturally relevant. And I remember it

1:49:01

upon its release, there was a bit of

1:49:03

hype around, I guess from people like me

1:49:06

that loved the original franchise and wanted to

1:49:08

see more. I think probably the

1:49:10

issue of playing in 2024 is it feels

1:49:12

very much like a game of its time.

1:49:14

It sticks very close to a pattern. I

1:49:17

tried and tested pattern. It

1:49:19

doesn't really break any new grounds, although what it does

1:49:21

is perfectly fun. And certainly,

1:49:24

as Carl said, I think the start of

1:49:26

the game is a lot stronger on the

1:49:28

back of the game. I was thinking, you

1:49:30

know, about the final boss battle and how

1:49:32

that's more of a case of just, you

1:49:35

know, whittling down a piece of health and

1:49:37

bottleblowing some crystals around the outer ring. It

1:49:39

feels like that could been from any game,

1:49:41

but rather than a Ghostbusters experience. And

1:49:45

yeah, as other people have said, you

1:49:47

know, I'd imagine a modern day Ghostbusters

1:49:49

with, you know, the power of the

1:49:52

new generation behind even the particles and

1:49:54

the special effects. And I could

1:49:56

just see the lights bounce off the wall,

1:49:58

could be something truly spectacular. but

1:50:00

then as we've seen with a

1:50:02

lot of the media

1:50:05

from that era, you know, we all like it,

1:50:07

but there's a new generation it's probably not worth

1:50:09

putting the money towards to see it kind of

1:50:12

come to fruition, which is sad, but you know,

1:50:14

you could have worked with what you got and

1:50:16

I think, as

1:50:19

it was five, six hours long, I played

1:50:21

through the remaster and I kind of just

1:50:23

got to anything and think, well, yeah, that was

1:50:25

fun enough, which, you know,

1:50:28

it's an odd thing to kind of come here, like it

1:50:30

didn't really insult me and I

1:50:32

probably preferred it more in 2009, just because it was kind

1:50:34

of maybe a bit more grounded for them but

1:50:38

in 2024, yeah, it

1:50:40

passed a couple of evenings just enjoying

1:50:44

busting some ghosts, but not a lot more than that so

1:50:47

for me, yeah, it's fun enough,

1:50:49

worth a play if you're into Ghostbusters or

1:50:51

just want to, maybe your kids want to

1:50:54

experience what a Ghostbusters game is but

1:50:56

also looking in 2025, there's

1:50:58

a number of elements I do wish it could have

1:51:00

expanded upon and it isn't

1:51:03

quite maybe the cultural piece

1:51:05

I remember it being from them, so this

1:51:09

game probably slightly less troublesome

1:51:12

for showing to children than the original film

1:51:14

as well less

1:51:16

smoking, less swearing and

1:51:20

less scenes involving Dan

1:51:23

Aykroyd having his trousers removed by a

1:51:25

spectral button It would be interesting

1:51:27

to actually see how the new Indiana Jones

1:51:29

does in the modern era as well, to

1:51:32

a young man similar

1:51:34

themes Let's

1:51:37

wrap up with our biggest Ghostbusters fan, although he

1:51:39

hasn't read the comics, Brian Ah

1:51:42

yeah, I've been exposed Yeah,

1:51:47

it's hard to summarize this game because I think

1:51:49

everything that all three of you said is completely

1:51:51

accurate I don't know if

1:51:53

I can say that this is a pretty, this is

1:51:55

a good video game I

1:51:58

enjoyed playing through the remaster over a couple of days couple nights.

1:52:01

I believe it's still on sale for something like 30 or 40

1:52:04

dollars. It's pretty steep. If

1:52:06

you didn't already have it I would say both

1:52:08

in the time that you'll get out of it and the quality of the

1:52:11

experience you'll get. The thing that makes me both

1:52:13

happy and sad about this game and recording

1:52:16

this episode is that it

1:52:18

makes me happy that this game exists because it's

1:52:20

a nice historical like kind of piece

1:52:23

about what could have been with the next Ghostbusters

1:52:25

movie. If you're a fan you get to see

1:52:27

some things that you wouldn't have got to see

1:52:29