Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed review

Another 80s movie classic is turned into a 4 vs. 1 multiplayer game, but is the world of Ghostbusters really a good match for the formula?

Every time we review a new Ghostbusters game, we end up saying the same thing: why has no-one ever made a business sim based on the franchise? That was the whole point of the original movie; the parts that didn’t directly involve ghostbusting were all about setting up and running your own business, with a very Reaganomics era view on capitalist excess and government agencies getting in the way of profit, with all their weak-willed talk about health and safety.

The original 1984 Ghostbusters game realised this, but every other video game has just been some variant of lacklustre actioner. You could have action elements in the sort of game we’re imagining but the core element should be running a business, which in turn would allow a lot more time for comedy to be inserted in a more organic manner. But alas, there’s never been anything even remotely like that.

This latest game only vaguely touches upon the idea of running a Ghostbusters franchise, since it’s really just another of those interminable 4 vs. 1 multiplayer games based on 80s horrors movies, that has so far included everything from Predator to Friday The 13th. The last one we played like this was Evil Dead: The Game and, as usual, despite being filled to the brim with fan service it got old within just hours. So welcome to Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed…

Apart from the fact that the original Ghostbusters is not an action film, the problem with turning it into an action game is that the process of catching a ghost, as demonstrated in the movies, doesn’t translate very well to a video game. You tire the ghost out by shooting it with your proton pack and then trap it, and that’s pretty much it. This works perfectly in the film (where the climax was basically four men shooting a door) but as a video game it lacks dynamism and variety.