ince we revealed Ghostbusters: The Video Game in December of 2007, fans of the franchise have been in an unending euphoric state, greedily eating up any new information about the title. Excitement mounted when it was announced that Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson – the original four ghost-busting buddies – would lend their likenesses and voices to the project. Even more electrifying was the news that Aykroyd and Ramis were once again penning the script for the game, as they did in tandem on the pair of feature films. Recently, that excitement was dampened when it was announced that newly formed Activision Blizzard was dropping its position as publisher on the project. Still, even without the mega-publishers support, Sierra assured everyone that the Ghostbusters game is in no way canceled. That confirmation in combination with our recent hands on time should help to quell fears and bring some of that excitement back about the upcoming title.

If you need a refresher on the basic premise of Ghostbusters: The Video Game, look no further. In the beginning of the second Ghostbusters film, the paranormal team was feeling the heat from the citizens of New York, who began to believe that their tactics caused more harm than good. By the end of the movie, things had turned around for the group when they were able to stave off the resurrection of a massive evil and save the city from disaster. After such a feat, the city of New York stopped harassing and started heralding the Ghostbusters. Convenient.

The game begins in 1992, two years after the end of the second movie. Now, not only is the team well respected, they are doing so well financially that they hope to start a franchise in order to cut back on their aggressive work weeks. However, they need the permission of the city mayor before they are awarded a franchise license. The result is an oversight commission watching the Ghostbusters to see how they conduct business. This means that former EPA agent Walter Peck will be returning to the scene to watch over your shoulder while you hunt baddies.

The demo began with us in the shoes of a new recruit – who remains unnamed at this point – and joined the team dynamic as a guinea pig for all the new inventions they cooked up. Evidently, we joined the crew at just the right time; a cloud of evil has infiltrated the city and upped the paranormal activity tenfold. We started out on the stairs of the New York Public Library with a large crowd of New Yorkers cheering us on in the background. Following the new recruit from a third-person perspective, one of the first noticeable things in the demo was the lack of a HUD. Instead, we got a detailed view of our character’s Proton Pack – which used lights and indicators to clue us into paranormal activity. There was no health meter, because health auto-regenerates over time, and there was no reason to keep track of ammo – only avoiding overheating with repeated use of the Blast Stream. After taking a few steps we heard chatter from our teammates, fully voice acted by the original cast members of Ghostbusters. Their likenesses aren’t bad either – something that is sure to make any Ghostbusters fan giddy. Ray shouted that a pair of class-two animators were on the loose, and worse, were agitated. He switched on the team’s Proton Packs, and as we entered the building the real action began. After chasing the pair of animators into the building, we were prompted to use our PKE Meter to hunt down their hiding place. The PKE Meter functions as a divining rod and lights up and creates noise as it gets closer to some sort of paranormal entity. We found one of the animators as it fled from its hiding place in a wall, knocking us down in the process. Conveniently, the creature left a traceable path of ectoplasmic residue in the air, which we were able to follow into a large library after equipping our Paragoggles. 

We met up with our other teammates in the library and immediately encountered our first real threat. Surprisingly, even while being attacked by otherworldly entities, our teammates couldn’t keep from geeking out. The comedic chatter in the background was gold, and it was fun to listen to Ray and Winston get overly excited about their craft – even when in danger. Cornering the animator, it lashed out and began to attract random items – primarily books and lamps – to its body in order to increase both his mass and threat level. This is where we got the first chance to really try our hand at ghost-busting.

The process of capturing a ghost is simple in theory, but proved to be tricky at times when attacking a particularly squirmy entity.  First, we used our right trigger to launch the Blast Stream, which releases a concentrated stream of protons at the target. It also causes massive property damage – something you might want to keep in mind. Second, we used the left trigger to activate the Boson Dart and do more heavy damage – which worked but quickly overheated our pack and left us vulnerable for a moment’s time. With enough roughhousing, we took out the ghost without trapping him, but learned that capturing ghosts has its benefits. If you keep the Blast Stream on an entity for enough time, it will activate a Capture Stream, which will allow you to wrangle with the ghost and knock them around until they are dazed. Once dazed, you can lure them toward a Muon Containment Trap and earn money for purchasing upgrades and other items.

Moving on, the next entity was a bit more menacing. The lights went out as we walked into another room, and a ghost violently separated us from all of our teammates by moving large bookshelves. The room became cold and we could see our breath – a sure sign that something was about to go down. Seconds later, we were attacked in a narrow corridor, but managed to deal with the creature on our own. Not bad for a rookie. Moving on we joined up with the rest of our teammates for one last stand with the second attractor entity we saw at the start of the level. This guy was a bit tougher, summoning hordes of flying book creatures to attack us while our back was turned. Still, we managed to take it down as a group, locking it away in our handy containment trap. And then the demo was done. Over much too quickly for my preferences.

While our demo was short, it highlighted enough cool features to get us excited about the game. The voice acting is solid, the graphics are fluid and the controls are tight – if a bit complicated at times. Our only real concern stemmed from the physics engine that has been promoted so heavily since the games announcement. At times walking through a library of de-shelved books felt more like kicking around leaves than weighted objects. Bumping a table resulted in it sliding a few more feet than it realistically would and somehow we were able to move around massive chunks of marble as if they were pebbles. Being that this is just a build, we realize there is still time in the development process to tighten things up a bit. Let’s hope we get more hands on time with the ghost-busting team soon. I know there is a certain ravenous green blob some of us are itching to see.