Ghostbusters for the Commodore 64 - Retro Review
I'll never forget the surprise when opening screen the game loaded, a crystal clear speech of a ghost (I assume) exclaiming "Ghostbusters" followed by a demonic laugh. This lead into a near perfect rendition of the Ghostbusters theme tune from the movie, well, if you excuse the fact there were no vocals.
Ok, so on to business, "we're ready to believe you". The first task was to choose your car and equipment. You had to choose between 3 cars, a beetle, the hearse from the movie or a pink sports car. It seemed that the hearse was the best all rounder as you needed to keep some cash spare for your equipment. Some of the equipment were 'nice to haves' and some were essentials. One essential item was a trap which you needed for capturing the ghosts you caught at each location. You also needed a paranormal detector so you could see where a ghost within the town was most likely to appear.
Once you had caught as many ghosts as you could hold, you would then have to return them back to Ghost HQ before hitting the streets again. As activity got stronger and more intense, you could see the gate keeper and the key master moving faster and faster through the town to try and make that fateful rendezvous. As you no doubt know from the film, once they meet then things really start hotting up.
As you progress, you notice that all of the ghosts seemed to be heading for one location situated in the centre of the city, Zuul. As much as you try to prevent this, eventually things get to hard to handle. The infamous marshmallow man starts to appear and deals huge amounts of damage to buildings through the city. If you'd spent some of your starting money on bait then you could keep him at bay for a while.
However, it would soon get to the point of no return and the gate keeper and key master would finally join forces. Once you found the location of the Stay Puff marshmallow man, then it would be time to pay him a visit. This is where the hardest part of the game presented itself. In order to get to the top of the building of Zuul, you first had to get at least two of your men through the legs of Mr Marshmallow.
If you succeeded to do this then you found yourself at the top of the building. Where you had been trying to avoid "crossing the streamers" throughout the game, now was the time to through caution to the wind and give it a try against all odds...
If you haven't ever had the chance to play this before then check it out, there is also a great remake available on the net. There is now also a sequel to the original game and movie planned for next generation consoles staring the original cast of the movie.
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