A witty pleasure

Sometimes it pays a blind purchase. Especially when a game from the full-price segment falls into the deep low-budget field. Just like with "Ghostbusters - The Video Game". Since the game has slipped priced so low a few weeks ago; at the moment it does not take long and takes just once, I thought to myself, and a few days later the game was mine. But not only the most favorable price, and the mostly good reviews from press and gamers have prompted me to, once again to purchase many years after "Blade Runner" and "Tron 2.0" a title based on a movie license. A variety of game, which I usually keep my hands, simply because too many loveless licensing scheme cucumber appear in the market that are neither just nor the film original can keep up with current standalone item (playful and technically).
The best advance: "Ghostbusters - The Video Game" is after a long time once again a (nearly) completely successful licensing product in which you realize that the game developers were having a lot of passion, diligence and patience at work.

The story is two years after the second movie. As a nameless rookie team to support the Ghostbusters in combating and curbing paranormal beings.
You meet old acquaintances like Slimer, the Marshmallow Man and other spirits and demons, while on the men side a reunion among others with Janine who Sektretärin the Ghostbusters headquarters, and Walter Peck, former employee of the Environmental Protection Agency and intimate enemy of Ghostbusters Peter Venkman, are. But in addition to the familiar, there are many new faces and ghostly apparitions, which did not exist to movie times.
The gameplay itself is the work of the Ghostbusters actor Aykroyd and Ramis himself that was responsible already for the screenplays of the films. With many references to the first film adventure, pithy dialogue-jokes and exciting script scenes the game knows how to captivate atmospherically correct.

Those who love the old cinema strip, will immediately feel at home in the game, because it comes with 100% Best Ghostbuster feeling. All original characters were taken, beautifully modeled and even the original actors and (!) Set to music -synchronsprechern. So those who prefer the US version, the voices of Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Harold Ramis and Ernie Hudson can listen, for others is the German-language soundtrack is available, where you have to take any changes into account. Of course, the typical movie sounds, the score of Elmar Bernstein and the famous theme song may not be missing, which were taken over authentic and punchier mixed.
At least as much effort the designers have given:
Whether it's the Ghostbusters headquarters, the Ecto-1 or other known film locations (including the Sedgewick Hotel or the public library of New York), and even the proton pack, the bursting of sheer fine details just so - the movie buff can Myriad easily recognize from the movies, and in an impressive quality. The same applies to the effects. Furthermore, closed premises incl. Furnishing are almost completely destroyed and thanks to sophisticated physics support easily "transform", whereby an (inevitable) remains chaotic big picture after a successful ghost hunt. Here you can see immediately that here ausgemottet no outdated graphics engine and the optical game scaffolding anything was dahingeklascht as unloving. Add to that a generous number of fantastic animated video sequences that do not produce a striking break the game graphics. However, a recent hardware equipment is advisable, because the game devours neatly computing power.
With a little more tweaking you could get more speed with moderate systems. Nor is it clear why no anti-aliasing is supported, even if they tried to force on the graphics card driver.
That said, "Ghostbusters - The Video Game" in technical terms, a great showcase example of how a license game really look. I would even go as far to say that it's the best license game that you can get at the time. Since the other developer studios to cut a corresponding disc.

Content, atmosphere and art agree now, the only thing missing is a remarkably good game mechanics to perform the play in the "must have" list. But precisely here gets the expectant players a slightly sobering damper.
The mission design is not necessarily what you would call very varied. It scans the environment by supernatural traces, fights the ghosts, it weakens the extent to they can be captured. Captured Ghosts bring the money in the till to always further improve its Ghostbusters equipment and allowing them to compete against stronger opponents.
This game principle remains unchanged equal to the end of the game, the strictly linear level design also allows no alternative approach. Too bad that you can not make trips to the Ecto-1, for example, to make the game world a bit more open. Nevertheless, one can live with this limitation, because the spirits fighting is nevertheless exciting and requires a lot of skill and speed off. The frequent change of location does not run a through always the same, barren spaces, interspersed boss fights as against the gray Lady or the giant marshmallow man standing small highlight moments that permanently talkative team members also bring a lot of life into the game.

They are apparently still: Royalty-games that are not produced at lightning speed and actually have qualities. "Ghostbusters" is a significant exception, and the fact that it is not leaning on a new film, but rather a stand-alone product is added to the game in a very special position. As a quasi-sequel to the first film, it works perfectly, and you can tell by the title, which was put a lot of time and work. Would not the somewhat meager game of not more than 8 hours, and the mission design that lacks anything more sophisticated tasks, the full game score would be in it. Four honestly earned Amazon stars are also not bad;)