Ghostbusters (2016 video game)
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 "Who ya gonna call? Someone else."
— Ray Stantz from Casper | ||||||||||||||||||||
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"I legitimately don't know what's worse, the insulting, unfunny cash-in 2016 Ghostbusters film, or all of the awful, low-effort tie-in games, that are inevitably spawned from it. Case in point, Ghostbusters. No subtitle attached just, you know, the word Ghostbusters, as if to purposely confuse the hell out of buyers, and pretend that like this 2016 film, that actual good Ghostbusters media, like the 2009 Ghostbusters: The Video Game, doesn't exist. For $10 right now! And that this lazy, low effort, is your only option, for $50. 50 f**king dollars, for this piece of shit!? With $4 DLC for the original Ghostbuster outfits that everyone loves? F... *Long extended censor beep*"
— Angry Joe
Ghostbusters is a video game based on the eponymous reboot of the franchise developed by FireForge Games and published by Activision for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. It was released on July 12, 2016, in North America, and July 15, 2016, in Europe and Australia, as a tie-in for the film. The game was reported to be made in only five months.
After Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan, this was the final licensed game published by Activision.
Why It Still Can't Answer the Call
- The only reason this game was made was to give a "band-aid solution" to FireForge's financial problems after two previously failed projects involving both Tencent and Razer due to disputes between the companies, and it really shows, as FireForge would file for bankruptcy three days after the game released on store shelves.
- Poor grasp of the source material: The game's story claims to be a sequel to the 2016 reboot of Ghostbusters movie (just like SpongeBob HeroPants was claimed to be a sequel to The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water), but the story doesn't have any connection to the movie. With how it stars virtually four OC Ghostbusters (Chaz, Meadow, Megan, and Bobby), it feels like a fanfiction that will never be acknowledged.
- False advertising: The Ghostbusters on the boxart do not resemble the Ghostbusters in-game. Instead, there are four original Ghostbusters don't have very much personality or character development and feel like fanfic characters.
- The game is nothing more than just a top-down fixed camera co-op shooter, similar to Rocketmen: Axis of Evil and other famous examples such as Smash TV, but with a Ghostbusters skin over it, with their proton packs serving as laser guns with very little depth to boot. There are no secondary weapons or unique abilities in this game at all.
- Poor graphics, despite running on Unreal Engine 4. At best, it feels like a low-quality Unity 3D game than something you'll see on Unreal Engine 4.
- Every stage plays out in the same way; just shoot your way through enemies in monotonous hallways till you get to the end with very little difficulty.
- Generic stage music, which goes for the generic cartoon horror style with piano, violins, and trumpets (though thankfully, it has the Ghostbusters theme).
- Unfortunately, much like the NES game, the Ghostbusters theme is the only song playing on the menu screen, and it repeats over and over again, which can lead to it becoming annoying.
- Just like the menu music, the gameplay itself is repetitive and gets boring quickly.
- Terrible dialogue, cringeworthy humor, and laughable voice acting. One of them is where they go like "I am the MVP of EVP", which is an example of the game trying to be hip and cool at times.
- The pre-rendered cinematic cutscenes are at a lower than acceptable framerate, lower than the cinematic 24fps.
- Excessive padding: Like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan, the game is padded out by excessive waves of enemies that make the levels drag on too long, up to around 30 minutes. Difficulty-wise, it is the opposite of Mutants in Manhattan (where in that game, the turtles die too quickly forcing you to revive them over and over), this game has a huge lack of difficulty as most of the ghost enemies have the same strategy of easily dodging all of their attacks until they die, repeat. Levels have absolutely zero variety as it comprises of different same-y corridors with different enemy placements and environments.
- The game itself has no mini-map feature, which can make navigation harder (though by pressing and holding B or Circle, it will show an arrow to tell you where you're going).
- The AI-controlled characters do not gain any XP when they kill enemies. This prevents them from leveling up to upgrade their skills and means they struggle later on. Think of this as a JRPG where only one party member out of four gains EXP per battle.
- Dull gameplay. You must shoot a ghost with your weapon until its HP reaches 0. Then you and your teammates use the proton beam to capture the ghost multiple times. In a single level, you must do this eight to ten times due to how long the levels are.
- After that, you trap the ghosts in a button-tapping mini-game that only gives you a score multiplier.
- The cherry on top however, is that you can put the controller down, and there is no penalty for it! The ghost doesn't try to escape, the trap doesn't break, you don't even take damage!
- Secret rooms are just entirely filler, as it just gives you points for finding it and sometimes an extra ghost to trap.
- Game-breaking bug: Sometimes, ghosts end up moving their way inside walls, causing them to get stuck and unable to be defeated. This isn't a big deal in secret rooms, but it can happen in normal stages and once that happens, you pretty much have no choice but to restart the game.
- Each character has a starting weapon (dual pistols, shotgun, machine gun, assault rifle) that is underpowered and cannot be changed. You also cannot directly upgrade the weapon aside from the extra stat boosts on each character's skill tree.
- Even worse is that some of the weapons' projectiles have very poor hit detection, causing them to fly straight through enemies.
- The "Ghostbusters HQ" has a code system for some reason, but it's completely useless and broken, as the game doesn't give you any codes.
- As discovered by Eric Chillbert on Twitter by digging through the game's code two years after release, there was a code you could use, known as "PAPA", which, upon using it, gives all characters a Papa John's Uniform (most likely as a reference to the product placement of Papa John's in the 2016 film). Alongside that, he also found some unused assets that would indicate that the game would originally have the code to give the Ghostbusters a Domino's Pizza Uniform.
- The point system is broken. It has limitations on the maximum amount of points you can get.
- When you first boot up the game, you have to agree to some Activision terms of service regarding online co-op, but as it turns out, there is no online co-op in this game at all, only couch co-op. Given by this terms of service, its very likely that the developers were going to implement online co-op into this game but decided not to, resulting this terms of service being misleading and pointless.
- The final boss, which is basically the only actual boss in the game, is poorly programmed and can be beaten easily. You just shoot him from the corner behind him and he will never be able to hit you. And his healthbar takes several minutes to whittle down.
- At the time of its launch, the game sold for full price, which in the United States was $50. On top of this, it had $4 DLC for the "Original Ghostbusters" outfit (however the only thing it changes is taking off a colorful stripe from the basic outfit).
The Only Redeeming Quality
- At least the next Ghostbusters game, Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed, was a massive improvement over the 2016 Ghostbusters.
Reception
The PS4 version has a Metacritic score of 30 based on 22 reviews and a 1.4/10 from users, with the most negative scores being a 2 out of 10 from Metro GameCentral, among others. The Xbox One version has 32/100 from 10 critics and a 3.8/10 from users. It's the fifth game that Angry Joe gave a 1/10 score (After Star Trek Trexels Review, and later in his Top 10 Worst Games of 2016 he ranked it as number one.
Three days after the game was released, FireForge Games filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, citing debts of $12 million. The game would eventually become delisted along with its Steam page in January 30, 2019.
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