Another awkward part of the game had to do with the reviving of team members and mission failure. Not all ghosts are pushovers; therefore, you'll often fall in battle. Luckily, you can be instantly saved by a teammate who trudges over to your position with just a press of a button. However, if all of you fall at the same time, you will fail the mission. While I enjoyed the fact that there was a penalty for poor play (i.e. having to restart from the last checkpoint), having to sit through a lengthy load-screen and often suffer through the same cutscene several times got to be tiresome and is present throughout the game. As such, this game probably shouldn't be played on the Hard difficulty setting. Even the Medium setting, though it featured balanced combat, was regularly plagued by the waiting game. I suppose those players that want to just experience the story will be best served by cruising through on Easy, so that restarts and pauses don't muddle the experience.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game features quality cutscenes, detailed environments, and great character and creature modeling. Whether you're charring Stay Puft, destroying relics of Gozer, or burning your initials into the floor, the game does a great job of communicating the visual experience of Ghostbusters. Unfortunately, in-engine clips, especially during conversation segments, are quite poor. The lip animation is never in-sync, a fuzzy, grainy filter is bothersome, and animations often look stiff and unrealistic. I would have liked to have seen a lot more polish in this regard.

Though no local co-op is available, players can get online and cruise through the campaign with friends. Even though the friendly A.I. does a great job supporting you through the single-player experience, it's always more fun and more efficient to tackle the game with humans. Consequently, I was surprised the game didn't include local co-op. However, a tricky camera could have killed this game, so I'm glad a slapped together co-op mode wasn't on offer.

Additionally, players can also play in a surprisingly vast array of multiplayer modes outside of the campaign. In total there are six "Job Types" including Survival (waves of ghosts), Containment (capture ghosts within a time limit), Destruction (destroy possessed objects and their denizens in a time limit), Protection (protect PKE disruptor control points), Thief (ghosts try to make off with precious artifacts through slime portals), and Slam Dunk (a competitive mode that has players trying to dunk as many slimers as they can into traps). A lot of time and effort went into making this a unique multiplayer experience. A bunch of power ups, more challenging ghost types and behaviors, player ranking and statistic tracking, as well as leaderboard support help to extend the fun well after the story finishes.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game largely accomplishes what it set out to do by telling a humorous tale and bringing fans back into the fold on the franchise's 25th anniversary. The game is full of fun elements, sports an in-depth multiplayer component, and is loaded with fan-service. While I think this is a solid title for anyone interested in action gaming and solid storytelling, it is certainly not a must-buy. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. Besides, where else can you blast Class 5 Full Roaming Vapors?

By Jonathan Marx
CCC Editor / News Director