Ghost-Busted: How a Few Poor Design Choices (and my subsequent anger) Ruined Ghostbusters

by Aaron Thomas, COMMUNITY WRITER

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

I just wanted to have fun with Ghostbusters.

Instead, Ghostbusters nearly gave me a stroke.

I was having a great time ridding New York City of ghouls. It was good fun running through the museum, indiscriminately blowing up priceless artifacts with my proton pack. Wrangling ghosts wasn't terribly challenging, but the mechanic for doing so was simple and immensely satisfying. There really was a lot to like about the Ghostbusters.

Sure, the story should have been much better. Yes, the cutscenes were sometimes awkward and in desperate need of a director's touch. I won't argue that the game as a whole could have used the ambiguous, review-friendly-crutch known as "polish."

I didn't really care about any of the game's issues because bustin' made me feel good.

And then I got to the end.

Fuck the end.

ghostbustersthevideogame2 This fun, fairly easy game suddenly turned against me in its final minutes. Ghosts are flying all around, some sort of demon guys are attacking me on the ground, and my dudes are dropping faster than I can revive them. I die a few times, but I keep trying and I keep dying.

I'm getting a little frustrated, because to this point the game had been really forgiving and dying was rarely an issue. I'm also starting to get annoyed that I can't skip the stupid cutscene where the Ghostbusters try and fail to pull a wall down. Are you trying to tell me that nobody play-tested this game and found it obnoxious to watch this cutscene repeatedly?

Although I manage to get a little further with each attempt, I keep dying and I keep having to watch the stupid cutscene over and over again. Why are all of my guys dying at the same time? Why do they run over to revive me and then stand around for precious seconds, only to die before they even start to save me? These thoughts start in my head, but it's not long before I'm yelling at the TV:

WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?! GET OVER HERE AND HELP ME! YOU DUMB SHIT-ASS BASTARD I HATE YOUR FACE! DIE!

I keep telling myself that I'm only going to try one more time, but I keep playing because I know I'm so close to the end. The whole point of playing Ghostbusters was to have fun and not worry about evaluating it for a review or trying to get achievement points. But that dream is dead. I'm now literally screaming at the video game version of Bill Murray like he just admitted to molesting one of my family members. After 30 minutes that feel more like a few hours, I eventually make it past this part and tackle the last boss.

Oh God, it's more bullshit.

sad_face Everyone starts dying in the blink of an eye; the boss is able to recharge its energy; the whole stupid encounter is terrible. It's actually not that difficult, but it is ultra-boring. I spend most of my time reviving my guys, shooting the boss from afar, and trying to stop him from recharging his energy. Of course, right before I finish him off he kills me in the blink of an eye and none of my moron comrades are able to save me. I try again and my fate is the same: dead, with idiots that can't bring me back to life even though they're mere feet away, and they know the absolutely most important thing about this game is to not have everyone die.

Remember those horrible things I screamed a few paragraphs ago? Imagine replacing all of the non-curse words with profanity -- that's what I'm yelling at this point.

Finally, I've had enough. I hit the eject button, remove the disc, put it back in its GameFly mailer, and place it back in the mailbox where the mailman can get it the hell out of my life.

A few hours pass and I start to feel bad about not finishing the game. I think about getting it out of the mailbox and trying again, but I decide against it.

I wanted to share this story with you, not to get even with, or slam the people who worked so hard on Ghostbusters, but to express my disappointment at how such a small part of the game was able to ruin the entire experience. I certainly deserve some of the blame; I think it's fairly obvious that I overreacted when the game got difficult/frustrating. Trust me; it's not something I'm proud of. I just can't fathom why the developers would leave something that's so blatantly un-fun in the finished product.

I'm dissapointed in the developers and myself.

Ghost-Busted.

Tags: Ghostbusters: The Video Game

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Alexandr Beran

August 05, 2009

"I just can't fathom why the developers would leave something that's so blatantly un-fun in the finished product." I wondered the same thing. It's so obvious a problem. And while reviving your teammates seems to only be a hindrance on the Normal and Professional difficulties, I don't like feeling locked-out of those difficulty levels because of a poor mechanic set loose.

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Michael Burridge

August 05, 2009

Man, what difficulty were you playing on? I completed the game on the normal difficulty setting and found only a few slightly frustrating parts. Though, after that last-boss, I think I should have gotten a certificate in C.P.R!

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Aaron Thomas

August 05, 2009

I played on the normal difficulty and the game was a breeze right up until the end. I'm sure I would have beaten the boss if I had fought him one more time, but I was just too darn fed-up at that point.

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Ron Dippold

August 05, 2009

This seems to be a very common problem in games. Decent game, fun, reasonable difficulty ramp, a few spikes here and there... then you get to the last battle(s) and GOOD LORD. In JRPGs this is because they expect to grind for 10 more hours first, in action games it seems more like 'Damn, how many playable hours can we claim? We need to stretch the game out.' Or maybe it's supposed to feel epic. Or maybe the devs want something that'll make even them break a sweat for the last boss, and forget they've been playing this non-stop for a year. Whatever the bad justification for it, I agree. The final boss insane difficulty spike is a stupid, stupid idea. It has only ever tarnished my good memories of a game, even if I bother slogging past it. At some point I say 'f@#$ this, don't waste my time, you twats' and go watch the ending on YouTube.

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Jason Jackson

August 05, 2009

I hate that in games. Tarnishes what the game was throughout the experience. It's bad design. In Killzone 2, I had this same problem. The only difference was that I didn't "get to the scripted events" but instead found a place that I could duct and shoot the big boss without worrying about the meager common soldiers. Spent 20 minutes shooting at the boss and then realizing I had to kill the 4 guys on the ground first. Annoying as hell. I like how Resident Evil 4 did it. Make the game difficult at the start, and then slowly bring it down towards the end.

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Ryan Schuster

August 05, 2009

the end boss was cheap but I liked it a lot besides that.

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Michael Burridge

August 05, 2009

Like pimpin', Ghost-bustin' ain't easy.

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Scott C

August 05, 2009

Um....the game was great. For it being an unofficial "movie" game, its execution was far more than I (& most people) expected...and I'm not even a die-hard Ghostbusters fan so my opinion is far from biased on the game. The only real problem areas of the game was the area near the end w/ the stone cherubs you gotta kill with the slime tether and *maybe* the library boss you gotta kill by using the teleporters strategically. Both were a bit too frustrating for my liking. Aside from that though, the voice acting was great, the CG cutscenes were well done and the story was amazingly well-scripted. I mean, if Ghostbusters 3 existed and had used this game's storyline for it...it would have kicked butt as a real film. In short, it's a great game. Probably the best "movie" game ever, simply because of how well so many of its parts work together. People who don't like it either don't like Ghostbusters at all (and obviously aren't the intended audience) or at just nit-picking. I also played the PC version (1680x1050 baby!) and even the absence of multiplayer & trophies didn't diminish my enjoyment of the game. Honestly, up to this point in '09 I'd have to say it is my favorite game so far this year. Maybe not the best in every area or revolutionary...but certainly the most fun to play. On a side note, the Wii/PS2 "cartoony" version is complete crap and the PS2 port is one of the buggiest games I have ever played in my entire life. Seriously.

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Scott C

August 05, 2009

BTW - If you want something TRULY frustrating --- play PSP's Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero? I literally crushed the UMD and set it on fire.

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Jason Wilson

August 05, 2009

After reading this, I'm not sure that I want to play Ghostbusters.

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Gerry Corcoran

August 05, 2009

I feel your frustration with the end of the game. I did manage to slog my way through it but the section where you have to get the gate open with the angels flying around, I threw my controller once and yelled several things that made my housemate look at me funny. The difference with this scenario versus others I've run into is that I knew the game was by Terminal Reality and unpolished, glitchy titles with poor design choices are par for the course for them. The one frustration of this game that I have seen duplicated in many titles is the inability to skip cut scenes and in particular, checkpointing you right before a cut scene so that you have to watch it over again every single time you die. I appreciate that some people worked really hard on it but forcing me to watch it repeatedly only creates resentment. I can live with not being able to skip it the first time but after that, it should be up to me whether or not I see it.

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Demian Linn

August 05, 2009

Rage quit!

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Brian Shirk

August 05, 2009

I know [i]exactly[/i] what you mean. I hate it when a game is a lot of fun, then all of the sudden, a huge curve ball is thrown your way. The exact same thing happened to me with Star Ocean 3. I was having a lot of fun, and I didn't find it too challenging [i]until[/i] I reached the third-to-last dungeon. Then the enemies were as difficult as the game's bosses. I can't remember what game it was, but I played a game a few months ago that had me swearing up a storm, too. It sucks when games aren't balanced properly. Sometimes, it seems that they just haven't had enough testing. I wasn't planning on playing Ghostbusters, but now I'm definitely going to avoid it.

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Aaron Thomas

August 05, 2009

I don't know if people should avoid the game just because I had some problems with it. I'm just sharing my frustration. I hear it's pretty fun on easy; I guess I should have tried that. I always play games in their default difficulties though. I'm old-school like that. Maybe I need to change.

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Scott C

August 05, 2009

^^^ Normal mode takes about 7 hours to finish. If ittakes you significantly longer than that...without sounding mean...maybe it's just a game you're not very good at and you do need to tone down the difficulty level. With shooters I usually attempt to play the game at first on Normal only to have my butt handed to me. I then typically retreat the Easy mode until I get a good feel for the game, weapons, stages, etc. It's possible you just weren't very good at this game. The teammate reviving thing wasn't that bad and the level design (despite a few annoying battles) was really good. I think Ghostbusters is just a love it/hate it game...and a lot of people's opinion about the game is based on their feelings of the movies.

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Rob Savillo

August 06, 2009

Who would've thought that the revisit to Ghostbusters would be so oddly reminiscent in its frustration of the final part of the NES [i]Ghostbusters[/i] game. [url=http://www.gametrailers.com/video/angry-video-screwattack/17324]Angry Video Game Nerd sums it up well[/url]. Starts at 10:55. I guess developers of Ghostbuster games haven't learned anything in 20 plus years.

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Tony Capri

August 06, 2009

Didn't play the next-gen versions, but midway through the Wii version, I came across some very serious glitches (no clipping for walls and such) that seemed like they would bring the story to a halt. I muddled through it with a bit of luck, but I don't think the game should have hit shelves in such a state.

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Christopher Quach

August 06, 2009

I feel your pain! What's with the extreme difficulty curb in the last minute? especially when the game was so forgiving in the early stages. I bought the game for my partners brother who is a big Ghostbusters fan. Did you ever play the commodore 64 version? i had an awesome time on that, would have thought this new franchise would have built on that success. I fear he's going to face the same fate as you did - he will never trust my taste in games ever again!