Including the New York Public Library as a playable mission in the demo^[1] should have been a dead giveaway. As one of the signature setpieces in the film Ghostbusters, allowing players to take part in a second trip to this locale with familiar faces in tow, is essentially what Ghostbusters: The Video Game entails. It collects a series of touchstones for players to reminisce about, while attempting to tell a new story. Except the story reclaims entire sections of the film and its sequel, patching together plot points, locations and famous adversaries in what amounts to playing inside a world of Ghostbusters: Greatest Hits. You are constantly harangued by Walter Peck and the new Paranormal Contract Oversight Committee. You have to fight the Stay Puft Marshmellow Man (again). You get to destroy the Sedgewick Hotel (again). About the only thing interesting is the encounter with Ivo Shandor, the Architect of Dana Barrett’s apartment building from the first film, who remained a legend that was never really explored. In Ghostbusters: The Video Game, you discover how obsessed with the Gozerian cult he really was, as the Ghosbusters slowly uncover a plot designed by Shandor years ago, to bring about the coming of The Destroyer.

This brief incursion into Ghostbusters lore comes too late in the game, and it’s frustratingly obvious that the previous missions were filler to relive everyone’s favorite moments from the films. But as you play the game, its intentions are clear: this is not meant to be a video game as much as it is intended to be those Greatest Hits, as it was not designed for an audience who plays video games. Rather, it was created to placate fans of the movies that also happen to play video games.

As a result, both Terminal Reality and Atari are banking on this brand recognition to give the game a passing grade. Any critic or reviewer that has been paying attention over the last eight years would see this game for what it is: old, outdated, unnecessary. So why the relatively high scores^[2], respectable sales performance^[3] and praise as wistful recollections? The answer is simple: Nostalgia is a dangerous weapon used to great effect in the video game industry. It will beat people senseless – especially in a hobby that helped many people through their childhoods.

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This is the second part of a two-part series. Read “Part 1: Discovery”

I started thinking about writing full length reviews of video games in late 2001. I was still at University. I was going to make a website and came up with some generic name I thought was edgy and reflective of what I wanted to accomplish. It was going to cover more than video games. I had some things to say about popular culture.

After talking to some friends at school about my vision, there was some interest in this collaborative effort. There was already a zine floating around our faculty, but it was horrible. It was a soapbox for people frustrated with school and mostly contained their annoyingly priveleged views on an “oppressive” society. Instead of being provocative or insightful it was lampooning popular culture with pedestrian observations and half-baked philosophy. I could do better.

Of course, when you rely on friends to produce something for free, it doesn’t happen unless you get on their case about it. And I wanted to keep my friends. Plus, the whole “trying to graduate from University with a degree” thing. The project died on the vine, and I gave up the dream. For the time being, anyway.

I graduated from school the next spring, and started playing video games while I looked for work. My comptuer was getting old, and at this point the most it could muster was Unreal Tournament and Civilization III. I read the issues of PC Gamer that were mailed to me to keep up with the industry and the hobby I loved. I hung out on the internet a lot, and read too many terrible reviews that people actually got paid to write. My head started filling with ideas again. I could do better.

I started thinking about another website. Something that would capture my love of video games and provide an outlet for my brand of scathing commentary. I would call it “Tales of a Scorched Earth”, because I am an insufferable Smashing Pumpkins fan. I would adopt the handle of “Gatmog”, because it sounded cool and it provided the mystery any good internet handle should have^[1].

During this time, I started playing and thinking about video games as if it were research. I built a new desktop PC after I got a job and some money. I had a new purpose: I would record my thoughts on video games, write some reviews and share them with others. The availability and ease of use of self-publishing tools made this easier than I expected. I thought I would be doing something different than the typical weblog, and I used that as inspiration.

I wrote a lot of reviews and embarrassing posts during that time^[2]. I published most of them. It was a start.

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“If you loved the films then this is the game that you have been waiting for.” – Extreme Gamer

“If you’re a fan of the movies this alone is largely enough to look past the game’s failings.” – Total Video Games

“If you dug the movies, there’s no reason that you should be disappointed with Ghostbusters: The Video Game.” – IGN

Reading the recommendations^[1] for Ghostbusters: The Video Game (2009) is infuriating; the reviews that avoid hauling out these useless tropes are in short supply. Though I can’t blame the reviewers entirely – it’s a function of the industry, and we’ve been programmed to tolerate it. The video game industry has an entire sector dedicated to parading our childhood out in front of us whether repackaged (just look any major XBox Live release), or bundled on some compliation disc. And it always seems to garner a wistful response from the video game media.

Yeah, I remember those times, too. They were great, weren’t they?

And we all know what happened with The Phantom Menace and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. After the initial euphoria wore off from years of waiting, we saw these endeavors for what they really were: cash-ins by creators who had lost touch with their creations a long, long time ago.

So why Ghostbusters? When you think about it, it’s been close to 20 years since a proper Ghostbusters game has even been made^[2]. Ghostbusters is the next logical target, waiting like some vein of precious metal to be exploited. Is Ghostbusters: The Video Game intended for the demographic of gamers who are slowly losing interest in the hobby because it no longer speaks to them? Digging up a beloved franchise is the easiest way to draw this audience back in; it’s clearly working for Hollywood lately^[3]. There was also plenty of turmoil surrounding who would actually publish Terminal Reality’s tribute. Originally to be published by Sierra, the merge of Vivendi with Activision in 2008 ejected Ghostbusters: The Video Game into publishing no man’s land. The internet erupted with righteous fury. It was obvious why people wanted this game: it represented their youth, a comeback of sorts for a franchise that never seemed to get the treatment it deserved.

The game was eventually picked up by Atari, and released last month. Which also happens to be the 25th anniversary of the 1984 theatrical release of Ghostbusters. I think the whole thing was staged.

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When Red Faction: Guerrilla’s friendly tooltip “Hit LB while near a wall or an obstacle to take cover” popped onto the screen, my eyes were rolling to the back of my head in pre-emptive disinterest. But I played through the demo anyway, and discovered there is something more to this game. Or at least, developers Volition deserve a lot of credit for making it seem that way.

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Wanted (2008) was a certified entry into the category of brainless entertainment. It is gun porn with bending bullets, for those that still enjoy watching movies with physics defied at every turn. Wanted expressed every subjugated office worker’s fantasy of escaping the life they have made for themselves by settling. Yet despite its pandering to such puerile fantasy, Wanted still worked on some level as a joyride through an adolescent’s brain after they’ve been given a gun and permission to set things right in the world with it.

After I saw the movie, my first thought was where is the video game? This is material positively ripe for exploitation with the medium. Forget The Matrix, because Wanted paints that overwrought philosophical morass with spattered brains and spent casings.

There is one scene in the Wanted film in particular that takes headshots to a new level of disturbing: Wesley, the main character, shoots a man in the eye, jams the muzzle of his pistol into the gaping eye socket and continues to shoot at the remainder of his adversaries through the back of the dead man’s head. How he is able to drag the body attached to his gun like that is a question saved for the same people who thought up the flying leap at the beginning of the film, or how someone is able to shoot bullets with another bullet – but this is beside the point. Wanted: Weapons of Fate could have capitalized on the graphic violence and physics-bending gunplay. But it didn’t. Instead, it comes across as a reheated misson-based shooter that copies the latest trend of duck and cover with bullet-time effects.

The best developers GRIN could come up with for someone’s introduction to the game is running from the cargo area of a passenger plane to the cockpit, while some guys with guns block your way. Who are they? Are they the bodyguards of the man you just killed? It’s a passenger plane, so there’s no way it would be a political figure. This obvious question is never answered. The game just wants you to shoot, and ogle the bullet curving and slow-motion as you jump from cover to cover. And settle.

The controls are clumsy. They ignore conventions set by previous games. The primary reason I even set aside time for this game is to see how they implemented the bullet-bending mechanic that was made so incredibly fascinating by the film. It’s there, but it’s fucking terrible. Bending bullets should be seamless. I should be able to fire a bullet around the corner at hidden adversaries without an early onset of carpel tunnel syndrome. Directing the curve with one of the analog sticks while holding the right shoulder button and releasing it to fire is contradictory to the regular fire, where you actively pull the right trigger. The angles of bullets are also limited. Yes, you should be governed by your current position, but I want more flexibility. Rotating the curve of the bullet feels incredibly closed in, almost as if the flight path was dictated by the environment and not your character’s viewing angle. And you should be able to have a distance gauge, to be able to move the curve closer or farther. We are working in three dimensions here, right? There was also little regard for materials used for cover. If I want to shoot at a guy behind a wooden crate, the bullet should pass through. Or at the very least, the crate should be destroyed after a few shots. This is basic game design, GRIN. I have only seen one portion of the first level and already the game is behind.

There is a crippling lack of creativity in presenting the film’s gratuitous violence in this game. Instead, Weapons of Fate plays it safe and creates a generic third person shooter. Except we don’t need any more of those. Take the licensed property seriously. You are supposed to be an assassin with preternatural skill in this game. How about planning missions out, like it was in the movie? Stalk the quarry, gather intel – fight off minions to get to him if necessary. Kind of like Assassin’s Creed. Make the final assassination satisfying by creating a varying set of moves and skills to use, that should come with being an assassin (Not like Assassin’s Creed). The scope of this game feels so limited, I can’t help but feel that it was a complete waste of the license.

Weapons of Fate should feel glossy. It should have the top notch production and attention to the details of killing people in impossible ways that were in the movie. I want to see teeth flying out of mouths when I pistol whip them. I want to see a trail of brains coiled around a bullet when I shoot adversaries point blank (thank you, Team 7). Wanted could have been the gaming world’s next Soldier of Fortune. Instead, it settles for the uninspired goal of joining the Gears of War and Killzone club. But why? It had a solid premise to build upon that gave ample opportunity to create a shooter needing no excuse for egregious violence.

There are three difficulty levels for this game: “Pussy”, “Assassin”, and “The Killer”. It’s pretty obvious which one reflects the developer’s ambitions.