Slashdot Mirror
New Ghostbusters Video Game in the Works
Next month's issue of Game Informer has a big, familiar symbol on its cover. On their website, they tease the announcement of a brand-new Ghostbusters video game. This isn't some knock-off, either: "Harold Ramis, Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd are getting back together and revisiting their roles to make a sequel to Ghostbusters 1 and 2 - in video-game form, and we've got the first details. Both Aykroyd and Ramis are teaming up for scriptwriting duties and are going far beyond just the typical licensed add-your-voice-to-the-game-you-had-nothing-to-do-with formula" Commentary on the announcement provided by Rock, Paper, Shotgun.
Does this mean that damn song will be coming back too?
The movie came out in 1984. It's the end of 2007 now. Are they hurting that badly for material?
I've been saying for years that they should do another movie. Provided that they keep with the spirit (pun not intended) of the first two, modern special effects combined with a good script could make for a great movie.
Given hollywood's abysmal track record in late-sequals though, I think perhaps it would be better off without any, regardless of whether it is a movie or game.
the streams cross you!
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
Well, let's say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area. Based on this morning's reading, it would be a Twinkie thirty-five feet long, weighing approximately six hundred pounds.
I can think of a few titles that I like. Star Wars comes to mind, but most kinda suck.
Here's hoping the trio are teaming up for a third go-around out of love for the franchise instead of love for another paycheck. I can think of far too many ways this project could go sour, especially since it's been, what, almost two decades since the 2nd flick? Good luck, guys. We're pulling for you.
I see an opportunity to coin a term here... when you're engaged in multiplayer, and your teammate crosses streams with you, resulting in both your deaths... we'll call that streamkilling. Or teamcrossing. I'm still working on it.
I'm waiting for a "-1 somepeoplejustshouldn'tgetmodprivileges" meta-moderation.
There was an old Ghostbusters game--I remember playing it on a PCjr, I think in the late 80s. You needed one of the joystick accessories.
(The PCjr itself, incidentally, is a remarkably funny machine. To add the second 128K RAM, you... wait for it... take a cover off the side of the case and plug in a unit the depth and height of the case that makes it about an inch thicker. There isn't a parallel port on the main case, but there *is* one on the back of the extra 128K RAM, which also takes its own external power supply, if I remember correctly...)
(And you could keep going, adding inches to the case until you had 512 or 640K or some-such.)
http://kotaku.com/gaming/ghostbusters/ghostbusters-screen-co+op--mp-info-322990.php
;-)
They've said the game is set in the early 90's after Ghostbusters II so either the Stay Puft Marshmellow Man makes a comeback or there is a flashback. Im voting he gets ressurected, or they are taking some license with the flashback since last I checked they never did and scaling of walls
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
In this game if someone asks you if you're a god YOU SAY YES!
Regards, Ian
http://cache.kotaku.com/assets/resources/2007/11/gbstaypuft.jpg
The C64 version was a lot of fun to play and can still be played on C64 emulators, if you don't mind the old graphics.
This will undoubtably be more RPG than that was, so there lies the challenge of making not suck.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Since video games manufacturers are not under WGA contract, they can write video game scripts but not movie scripts.
Yes, but this is going to be a sequel to the movie- its own storyline set in the same world, not a copy of the story. Doesn't assure it'll be good, but I think it has a better shot than the standard movie to game conversion.
Of course, they really ought to base it off the cartoon series. Slimer was always the best character in the show, and he wasn't really in the movies.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
I had heard for a while that there was going to be a Ghost Busters 3, though it would be fully CGI. I really hope that this is what became of the rumors. The film would have sucked, no-doubt. A videogame has the chance to at least be decent however. It worked pretty well for Tron 2.0 ;)
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
What about that movie that's opening up soon? or has it started already? Beowulf...
/Sarcasm
it's based on an epic from 1300 years ago!
Talk about unoriginal!
I mean it's 1300 years old! who would want to see those characters in a different medium...
As I seem to remember there was a movie about some Mario brothers that turned out to be a pretty big game.
dontcrossthestreams
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
I loved the first Ghost Busters. The second one sort of sucked. The problems with sequels is that some of the greatness of the original is the newness of the concept. Once the "newness" is gone, or you are at least comfortable with the concept, you are left with unoriginal crap.
Take the Marx Brothers movies, someone watching them for the first time today will find them boring because *everyone* has ripped off the Marx brothers to the point where they are not even funny anymore. Everyone knows every punchline to every joke because we've heard them all already a million times.
Now, what could be original about a new ghost busters? What would grab our imagination, and twist it sideways and make us laugh. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a new ghost busters movie on par with the first, but I don't see what they could possible do to make the scary funny again.
Hah, this won't hold a candle to GhostBusters DooM2!
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters II
A couple of games.
As from your example, there are LITERALLY CENTURIES of material available.
Yet we seem to keep getting rehashes of the same things. I'm not talking about the same plots. I'm talking movies that were already done.
I loved that game as a kid. I remember how you could upgrade your car to add cool effects. You had to avoid the ghost at first then when you're driving. Then once you got the vacuum upgrade you could suck up the ghosts as you're driving by them.
As awesome as that Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man screenie looks, this game just HAS to come out on the Wii.
This better be on Wii. I better be able to catch a ghost with my Wiimote, and slide a trap out with the nunchuck. Otherwise, I'll take a big pass as every other GB game has been awful.
Uh... the movie was based on the game. Not the other way around.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Actually, there was a Ghostbusters game written for the Commodore 64 that I can recall playing back in about 1984. Surprisingly good graphics for the standards of the time, and considering the machine could only user 8K of RAM for video (and that 8K it had to steal from the 64K RAM total in the machine).
As I recall, the program was a little over 30K in size. Hmph. These days a "hello world" executable can run 1.7 MB.
Yes, Its true this man has no Dick.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
when I remember playing a ghostbusters game on my Apple //e?
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
Awww, I thought it was gonna be He-Man.
I think Ghostbusters was the first BIG game on the C64. Yeah, there were a lot of successful titles, but when it came out almost everyone had to play it.
I think it set a lot of expectations early in video games that people would just buy stuff named for a film or a tv show. There were a lot of games that were utterly horrible and unplayable to follow.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The Wii was designed for a game like this. Imagine the potential of four players with Wiimotes. If they don't design this game from the ground up for the Wii, it would be a major travesty.
...in the videogame store
Just because you can, does not mean you should.
> So what if it did? Who ya gonna call?!
Song Busters!
Depends, if a game doesn't try to replicate the story of the movie and instead focuses on telling its own story in the same universe there is a good chance that it can be good. The bad movie games are most often those that try to mimic the movies story and that kind of never works.
We know nothing about this game except that it will be a sequel to a movie and you claim it was meant for the Wii? What on earth are you smoking and how deep is that Wiimote up your ass anyway?
It could be an adventure, it could be a sim, it could be a management game, it could be a shooter, it could be a stategy game.
What makes this game a Wii game? Take one look at the released screenshot, does that look like something the Wii can pull off?
About the only Wii connection I can think of is using the remote to control the beams, possibly a fun way of doing it, but nothing you couldn't do as easily with a mouse.
Anyway the story so far is that it is going to be on all the platforms. This usually means the game is going to suck some major donkeyballs as it will have to fit to the restrictions of ALL the platforms.
If anything, I hope that this game will have some bloody humor in it for once. The hotel shootup in game form, oh yeah, I pay for that.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
And what movie do you think Mario Brothers was based off of???
It was a HELL of a great game. Didn't precisely mirror the movie, but damn fun to play... over and over again.
Far too few games are fun to play over and over again these days. Most of them are "ok I'm done, now what?"
Let's hope it's better than this one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fIDV8xbdTI
Too bad they can't pull off a movie. Before they really get too old someone should make one most ghostbuster movie.
The first one kicked ass. Still one of my fav movies.
has about as much to do with the original story (or even modern revisions) as I, Robot had to do with the novel or even Asimov's creation.
And it'll probably be just as shitty a movie too.
The fact that you even saw that movie and didn't know the game existed many years before means that something is wrong with you. The movie made absolutely no sense without the game. You would just be like "is this some kind of metephorical reference to gayness with the fungus and everything?".
quick name the last FUNNY movie Dan or Rick made.
yeah, I've had two kids and 4 jobs since then.
Honey, I shrank the Blues Brothers 2000!
-- Sig under construction...
Actually, the movie "Super Mario Bros." was a real-life documentary recounting the every-day struggles of a couple Italian plumbers living in the big city. That it had everything in common with the video games released almost a decade before was entirely coincidence.
And that has changed how? Look at the crap like Spongebob Squarepants games or games based on various Disney Channel or Nick shows. It's just changed so we aren't watching the shows/movies they make the cheap and crappy games about as much.
What about the fourth, African American Ghostbuster? Won't HE be back too?
Yes, have some!
I really dislike the idea that because the WGA is striking, everyone else tangentially connected to them should stop what they're doing as well in a "show of support" for the strike. If you do, in fact, support the strike, good for you. But this criticism of people who don't stop what they're doing really kinda pisses me off.
If you're not a member of the WGA, they do not represent you and you therefore do not represent them.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/11/15/161235.shtml Ghost Busters?
There's a way more informative article with additional screen shots here. Looks like Ernie Hudson (Winston), Annie Potts (Janine), and William Atherton (Peck) are signed on!
I'm going to the casino. Don't gamble.
SFX had an article a few months ago about ghostbusters. Apparently in the third film the ghostbusters would venture to hell- which was basically a ghost/demon inhabited manhattan. It never got off the ground because Bill Murray was not interested, and without Venkman, why bother? apparently Ackroyd will also be doing motion capture for this http://www.sfx.co.uk/page/sfx?entry=i_ain_t_fraid_of
Kids! Bringing about Armageddon can be dangerous. Do not attempt it in your home!
I don't see anything in his post criticizing them for not supporting the strike.
I just see some commentary on why these Hollywood writers might suddenly be writing for a video game.
One game that's been hanging around my local Gameworks for years is "Brave Firefighters", a Sega game (in Gameworks, so that part isn't surprising) which involved the player using a fire hose apparatus (decorative; it was essentially a standard light gun past that) that strapped over the shoulder in an effort to stop a raging fire in a mansion.
As soon as I put this thing on my shoulder, I looked at what I was wearing: what looked like a long blaster with a hose extending behind me. Past that, there was one thing I couldn't get out my head. If you combined that with the Time Crisis footpedals (to spring the traps), you would have Ghostbusters the arcade game.
Now, I'm well aware this that we're talking about is going to be a console and/or PC game, most likely, but I still think that, using Brave Firefighters as a physical model, you could make a pretty sweet Ghostbusters arcade game. Then again, if they, say, made this for the Wii and had a proton pack and trap adapter that you could plug a Wiimote into...
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn't have to produce anything! You've never been out of college! You don't know what it's like out there! I've *worked* in the private sector. They expect *results*.
This is like a wet dream especially if it does not suck like the previous games. Hell it would even make me consider a ps3 if needed.
The world needs this almost as much as mother3 in english maybe even a little more!
HE-MAN!
The pain was excruciating and the scarring is likely permanent, but that just means it's working.
If you ever see another post like the parent, which seems too stupid to be true, please assume it is humour.
;)
Just a hint.
Unfortunately, I am not Wil Wheaton
I really dislike the idea that because the WGA is striking, everyone else tangentially connected to them should stop what they're doing as well in a "show of support" for the strike. If you do, in fact, support the strike, good for you. But this criticism of people who don't stop what they're doing really kinda pisses me off.
The term is "sympathy strike." They've more or less vanished in modern times due to the Wagner and the Taft-Hartley Acts (which turned unions into their modern guise of semi-ineffectual bureaucracies which pretty much just debate things politely with employers, rather than the old-style unions, two-fisted fraternities that could really go toe-to-toe), but sympathy strikes were a force to be feared back in the day. A railroad baron could laugh off a strike by his rail workers, but if the dock workers and the miners who worked to load his trains and build his rails (subsidiary divisions were just about invented by the railroad guys) joined in, his entire chain of production would grind to a halt, and the employer would suddenly feel roughly the same hardship that the now-unpaid union men went through when they resorted to a strike.
OTOH, the sympathy strike should be properly targeted. If you were writing for a game company that has no connection to film or tv conglomerates, a sympathy strike would just be a goofy excuse to take a vacation. OTOH, if you're writing for, say, Sony's games division, it would be a brave act of solidarity, that could have an impact on the WGA strike. (And if you were to attempt unionization later down the road, the WGA might support you in turn.) If you don't want to do that because you're afraid you'll lose your job, that's okay. There's no obligation for you to do so, but you are a bit cowardly.
- mantar
Ah, Ghostbusters. I remember that on the Spectrum. The weird crackling noise at the start which someone explained to me was meant to be a speech sample. Driving around the map running over ghosts so that later (in what now seems a masterpiece of boring gameplay) you could suck them up with your ghost vacuum. The boxing glove on a spring which jumped up to catch ghosts (was that in the movie?). The rather anticlimactic Marshmallow Alert when all you had to do was put down ghost bait and you could run him over on the map screen. And what was the point of the game anyway? It ends when the ectoplasm count reaches 999, but should you try to slow that down or speed it up by letting ghosts reach Zuul so you can get to the end quicker?
Good theme music though.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
It's motherfucking Ghostbusters man.
Damn.
The flowers are still standing.
Exactly. Also, there is no way Ramis and Akroid are not WGA members.
What I remember about Ghostbusters was... it was really hard to crack the Atari version!
You'd think you had it cracked, but in the middle of driving or moving on the map... crash.
-- thinkyhead software and media
Wait, wait, wait... you mean the movie actually makes sense if you play the game?!
This is news to me.
FWIW, there was an amateur "Retro Remake" done of this classic not too long ago. Updated graphics, sound, with the same core gameplay:
http://www.remakes.org/comp2006/screenshots.php?page=4
Fortunately, it's one of the better ones on the site. Enjoy.
Ayckroyd and Ramis will be playing themselves, as ghosts. They are dead, right? http://www.deadoraliveinfo.com/dead.nsf/pages-nf/main
For starters, they should make Slimer more evil than friendly. That really seemed to be too focused to the kiddies in the second film.
Another thing they really must do is get Rick Moranis to make out with more women. Maybe the blonde from his party in the original. Sure, it's more of an adult theme, but it would make for a better movie.
Lastly, there should be no "passing of the torch" crap. We all know the original cast is old, and not getting any younger, but there is no need to introduce someone like Jimmy Fallon as Venkman's nephew or some crap like that. Make us BELIEVE that the ghostbusters we know and love will be our ghostbusters FOREVER.
"it could be a management game,"
Forget what he's smoking!! MANAGEMENT GAME?!?!? What are YOU smoking? Can I have some of it?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I always liked the video-game version of Scarface - Vice-city. At least that's what it looked like to me!
Hey, ghosts in space! captured by phasers! ghosts using transporters to go places! it would be cool!!!!
welcome our new protoplasmic overlords!
This stirs up a pocket of long-unused brain tissue... I remember that one of my favorite games for the Sega Master System was Ghostbusters. And it was so much better than the Nintendo version that my friends had (I can't remember why I thought so). Never could quite beat Zuul, though.
SMS was a great console. I always get weird looks from people when I bring it up, but it seemed years ahead of the Nintendo at the time. I had a game that used 3-D glasses! Never saw that on the Nintendo.
... When the light is green, the trap is clean!
If it doesn't come out you can always play Elebits...
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
If movies have taught me anything, and they haven't, the game of mario brothers was based on ancient sumerian texts called the Supa(sic) Koopa Cousins.
"Do you suppose that's why God lives in the Heavens? Because he lives in fear of His creations?" - Steve Buscemi
Check it out here.
It looks pretty swell if you ask me. It's just snippets of ghost catching (and the occasional sliming) gameplay, but I'm sure there'll be a whole lot more. What is shown looks promising. Next-gen ghost catching never looked so sweet. There's also a main site up for the game already.
n/t
All anyone should be concerned with is the fact that Harold Ramis and Dan Ackroyd are actively apart of this projects development and they should be supported in their efforts in getting as far as making a game based on such a great license. I believe they have been pursuing something like this for years now. So one should not look at this as a bad movie to games tie in, but as a game with great potential especially since the original cast and writers are involved, something that can't be said for other movie based games and vise versa. The only thing we all can take a sigh of relief about is the fact "EA" will not be developing it.