Ghostbusters on NES (I think a very similar game came out on other contemporary systems). While the Mega Drive ghostbusters game was hard but it was worth playing, I don’t understand what they were thinking with this one. (What were they thinking?) For people who have played it, back then or now, do you think it has any redeeming qualities? The only thing I can think of is the AVGN episode that came out of it.
I never really figured out you had to drive as fast as possible and that the fuel level was actually a countdown timer. I was crazy about the cartoon and remember being so disappointed with the game.
I liked the game loop.
Catch ghost upgrade weapons and accessories to help catch more ghosts.
I just gets boring after a few loops.
The Atari 2600 version is impressive though.
NES < C64 < 2600
How was the 2600 version impressive? I can’t imagine a 2600 version of anything being impressive, so I have to ask.
The Master System version is a fun time for a while and improves on the c64. The NES version though seems to have no redeeming factors.
I still remember the disappointment when I rented the NES game one weekend back in the day.
I can’t believe you’re forgetting that amazing voice clip, everyone remembers the first time they heard that clear, beautiful voice clip say:
Ǥħ๘sŧƀᵾsŧɇɍs
Yeah this was the first thing I thought when I saw that image. That + the AVGN vid makes it worth it for this game to exist.
The most positive thing I can think of is if you turn the system off, the game stops.
Maybe the commodore 64 game this was based off of was more entertaining lol. Can someone who played the original reply with some feedback on it? Like what was good about it
I played on the C64, I was so high in the Ghostbusters theme, I loved the game, I even finished at least a couple of times. It has some light resource management, some light arcade ghost capture and it was fun, I had a fond memory of it.
I sometimes loaded the game just to watch the menu, where you have a ball that bounces over the lyrics of the song while it plays on the background.
Seconded. I played this on the C64 for a month or so. The intro voice saying Ghostbusters and laughing was pretty surprising given the tech (Impossible Mission also had really good voice samples but you had to complete the whole game to hear the best ones). I also enjoyed watching the bouncing ball on the lyrics (and one of my parents told me about Mitch Miller doing the same kind of thing decades before that).
My memory was that it was a fun game. Thanks to the C-64 SID chip, the “Ghostbusters!” voice and music was decent (even though I suppose it got repetitive after a long play). Gameplay was good once you figured out what you were trying to do and prevent, and initially it was slow enough to allow mistakes. I do remember at the end it got basically impossible to keep up, so you would always have an endgame, and I guess I didn’t get to that much since I don’t remember exactly how that goes without finding a video of it (but of course know how it should go, since I know the movie well).
The music did get repetitive, but that went for any C64 games that had background music. All of the tunes from Ultima IV are still burned into my brain after MONTHS of playing that game.
It was a rush job.
The NES and pretty much all home versions of the game were essentially ports of the Commodore 64 game which was the original version. After the films release Colombia Pictures was all “holy shit, we have a hit, we need to capitalize on this ASAP and keep pumping out merch while it’s hot”. Colombia then went to Activision and offered them the license. Colombia Pictures didn’t give a rats ass about the design, the content, or anything the ONLY stipulation they had was get a game out on as many platforms as possible and get it out like yesterday. So what you’re playing on the NES is a grand total of a month and a half of work when at the time a game would typically take 6 months to produce.
It’s not supposed to be good. It’s not supposed to look good. It was simply made to so that something with the name “GhostBusters” was on the shelf in toy stores and sold. and it sold VERY well. it was one of if not the best selling Commodore 64 game of all time…most pirated too.
wow I just feel bad for the people that paid full price for this. Granted we had renting of games back then, but imagine being a kid on christmas and getting this for the master system or something.
I believe it was released on the C64 a couple days before Halloween and then on the NES and every where else shortly there after so yeah, just before Christmas.
But I mean that was just a common thing for the early to mid 80s when it came to videogames. Just get something out before the holidays with a hot franchise on the box and who gives a rats ass what the game is about or if it’s even any good. it’ll sell.
I suspect the master system version was slightly better than the NES, as the stairs part wasn’t a stupid “mash A and B while being completely defenseless”, you only controlled 1 dude and could shoot the ghosts, and it wasn’t 20 actual fucking flights of stairs, though the music was the exact same from start to end.
So this means that the lesson of the E.T. game wasn’t learned or remembered.
Not fucking one. I’m waaayyyyy too young to be the AVGN’s target audience, but I fell in love with him after I saw his review of this piece of shit that my mom owned.
Genuine worst game I had as a kid, and I had Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
@eru777 The bitcrushed to shit “ghost busters!” on startup has to count for something, maybe
ghertbusterz
Agreed. That was an incredibly hard thing to get the NES to do
The NES has a dedicated DPCM audio channel. But yeah, RAM restrictions were brutal.
I played this on the C64, very confusing game.
The good: the music!
Thank you sid chip!
I had the Atari 800 edition.
I didn’t know what the fuck the “enter your account number” was at the start. Young me didn’t realise it was a thinly veiled password system. Quite clever actually
Wasn’t it done in David Crane’s heyday too?
edit: wow, I didn’t realise quite how bad the NES edition looked, though I’ve never played it. Seems that doubling of RAM paid off for the early Atari 400 platforms. The Atari edition did miss that final tower ascent section though.
I ended up cracking my copy of it (which was pirated anyway) and gave myself a ton of money at the start as well. Fun game for kid me, not really a classic.
I also cracked SimCity and 688 Attack Sub but I had legit copies of those, I just hated keeping track of an extra piece of paper to play them.
The NES version specifically, I can’t defend. But the DOS, C64, and SMS versions are interesting, because they’re really proof of what would be codified as the Covert Action Rule, or the simple adage of programming, “do one thing, well”. Note that in the NES port, none of the minigames are done well. But I think David Crane created a pretty solid concept, hampered by a number of unfortunate factors.
The start of the game is a business simulation. The game doesn’t want you to actually think about the business side of things, but wants to make money important. This ends up contributing to a bad idea, because rather than looking at the economy as a core element, it ends up getting shoved to the side. Frankly, it would be better if you started off like, say, Animal Crossing, or SimCity, where you have a loan you must pay off, but you’re given the tools you need to do so. The PC versions feel less clunky in this respect, because the business side is more front-and-center.
There’s a lack of real clarity about what’s going on in the map minigame. There’s a lot of moving parts, but not a lot of rhyme or reason behind them. The PKE doesn’t really react to player actions, but nor is it a steady timer. Central Park West (the Zuul building) doesn’t really have any significance. And frankly the driving minigame is pointless if you don’t have the vacuum. It’d be better to just have to buy gasoline.
The ghost-catching minigames are short and annoying, but are actually the only part of the game worth any time investment.
Then you have the dreaded tower climb. On the NES, the controls for that section of the game are simply inexcusable.
The big fight at the end doesn’t feel conclusive, and the ending is… well, it’s awful, let’s be blunt. That’s why it became a meme.
And yet! It’s stuck with people because it’s so awful a game but so near the edge of being good if it was made with more focus. I haven’t played any version of the game in several years, but I remember every step of it. I remember the Ecto-1: traps, proton packs, ghost vacuum. Vacuum for money, grab free-floaters to stop them from forming Stay-Puft until you’re in the black. Then Stay-Puft, the stairs, and Zuul.
Consider that Crane went from Pitfall to all of that. Seriously, in terms of game design, it’s a huge leap forward, and yes it stumbled hard. Oh, and if you want a fair comparison, look at Autoduel for the C64 (one of Lord British’s pre-Ultima games), since the Ghostbusters game was built on the bones of a Car Wars game.
I really appreciate this comment. Your opinions are grounded and also respectful in that you don’t insult what has come to be known as one of the worst NES games.
I wonder if there are ROM hacks that address any of the issues you mentioned.
I will gladly throw myself upon the “8-bit Ghostbusters could be fun” hill!
- The driving bits with that soundtrack were dope.
- The in-front-of-building ghost catching mini game was fun, after learning how to play it through relentless soul crushing trial and error.
- Chiptune “he slimed me” was amazing the first time, and almost didn’t get old.
- Being able to upgrade tools and vehicle was rare back then. And with enough experience, it could even (rarely) be done without making a game ending financial mistake.
- Marshmallow Man’s formation was right up there with the Ski Free Yeti as a metaphor for everyone’s inevitable creep toward death. (Except we didn’t know to buy a ghost bomb and press “B” rather than not knowing to press “J”.)
Disclaimer: We didn’t have that many better game options back then.
Edit: I’m actually not sure if the NES version had any way to escape the Marshmallow Man, since the controller doesn’t have a “B” key?
The best thing about this game is that it wasn’t one that I owned as a child. I believe I played some other poor souls copy so my limited allowance of video game purchases and rentals were unaffected.
It boots right up. No loading screens!
The best thing this gave us was the AVGN review of this game, which was great.
