"It's a sign!"

At Midnight tonight I will finally be picking up the longed for Ghostbusters game for the X-box 360. So it only makes sense to talk about the greatest Ghostbusters game to come out for any console or P.C. to date....Ghostbusters for the C-64.

This game has a slight RP element to it as you are the proprietor of a new Ghostbusters franchise and your first act is to use your rather limited resources to purchase a vehicle and equipment for that vehicle. Like the ghost vacum, or additional traps to hold more ghosts before having to rush back to your HQ to deposit them in the containment unit, and you just can't survive those mean streets without a good supply of ghost bait...because you want to stop them spooks and spirits from converging over that building or it just might become 'spook central'.

The game was split up into three mini-games, driving around the city with the overhead map trying to combat ghosts that would pass over Ghostbusters symbol, it would then switch to a top down view of your vehicle, you had to avoid obstacles and hitting your joystick button every time a ghost passed over you. The city would pay you for each ghost collected naturally.

When too many ghosts converged on a particular spot you would jump out of your car and by controlling two Ghostbusters, which took a bit to get used to as the controls were opposite...so if you wanted to move your man forward you pressed backwards, positioning your proton stream to capture it while a third Ghostbusters employee would throw out a ghost trap and with a quick tap of the button you would have the ghost in one of your traps and hopefully you had used your money to buy more than one. I will admit when I first played the game I kept buying the sports car because it was faster and would allow me to reach 'hot spots' quicker...but with only one trap it was kind of annoying to keep going back to the HQ.

Finally the PK energy of the city builds to a catastrophic level and Zuul makes an appearance. You have to rush to the building and try to slip under a jumping Stay Puft marshmallow man...and then was where you generally lost the game because you had to time it perfectly, which could be hard to do when using the joystick. If you send in three of your employees the game is over and you are given a code, one that will allow you to keep all the money you've earned and equipment, so that you buy better stuff on the new game.

I stumbled onto an interview from 1985 with David Crane who programmed the game...and it also has David Lebling from Infocom talking about games in general. I hope you enjoy.