For the video game fans in the house…

I beat the new “Ghosbusters” game within 24 hours of picking it up.  It’s a moderately fun game, though not at all interesting from a story stand point.  I bring it up because, after all, when Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis began developing the game, they did so with the intention that it would be, essentially, the third “film” in the franchise.  But ultimately the narrative, which could have been quite ambitious given the medium, was simply rehased plot points from the first movie.

Writing at the Wall Street Journal’s Speakeasy blog, Jamin Brophy-Warren has posted an interesting item, however brief, detailing the game’s road to fruition.  I just wish there was more thought put into the actual plot.  However, there is an awesome sequence in the game that echoes both the cartoon series and the “Ghostbusters in Hell” concept that almost made it to theaters in the 1990s.

But here’s the real question: there was an “E.T.” game on Atari back in the day?!

Here’s a taste from the article:

The “Ghostbusters” game is a moment of redemption for Atari. Originally Terminal Reality pitched a different game to Sierra Entertainment, the game’s initial publisher, before being told that the Ghostbusters franchise might make a better fit. However, when Sierra’s parent Vivendi Games merged with Activision, the game was tabled while Terminal looked for a new publisher. Atari quickly stepped in, seeing an opportunity.

“Overall, there’s too much risk in the “see the movie, play the game” approach,” says Atari CEO Jim Wilson. “We’ve always thought to approach the franchise to see if you can expand upon that to further the experience.”

To do so, Mr. Aykroyd was active in the development of the game, tweaking the language that the Ghostbusters use to describe their work and advising developers. Because the game was not tied to a film, the developers had time to add extra polish and, more importantly, add more voices to the film, such as Rick Moranis’s and Bill Murray’s.

And some gameplay footage.  It’s worth picking up if only for the glee of pulling ghouls into the trap.  So satisfying:

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