Ever since video games began game programmers, directors,  and publishers have saught to translate movies into games and games into movies.  This would seem like the a perfect marriage between the media, but as history unfolded most movie to game translations and vice-versa were horrible!   Jim Sterling over at Destructoid has done a pretty good job of summing up why movie-games fail so much so I won’t rehash his work here: Why Do Video Game Movies Fail So Much?

My most recent experience with this media is the newly released Ghostbusters: The Video Game.  This adaptation is known as the official Ghostbusters 3 as we will more than likely never see a movie of this title.  Aykroyd and Ramis wrote the script for this installation and each of the actors who portrayed the Ghostbusters in the films, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Bill Murray, and Ernie Hudson, provided their voices and likenesses to the characters.  When I found out the game was written by the original writers and that all the stars would be back I knew this would be a special game translation.  Not many movies-to-games get this special treatment, and not many have a budget to back them up.

When I popped the disc in and started my Xbox 360 up the familiar Ghostbuster’s theme song came on and the game already had a feel that it was not going to be a movie-to-game flop.  I was defnitely not afraid of no ghosts!

The game is set during Thanksgiving of 1991 almost 2 years after Ghostbuster’s 2. You begin the story as a new recruit that his hoping stay on the team.  During your orientation a large scale PKE shockwave travels through the city and frees Slimer.  Remember Slimer? Once freed, the chubby green ghost heads back to Sedgewick Hotel where he was first caught in the original Ghostbusters. This begins a small journey through memorey lane where after capturing Slimer again you end up fighting the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man! All this in the first hour of the game and I was hooked!

I finished a level of the game every other day on and off for the last few weeks ( a level takes about an hour).  After about 8-10 hours of game play I finished the game last weekend.  Usually, I never finish a game this quick, but the acting/voiceovers and graphics were so good it really kept me wanting to see what happened next.  This is definitely one of the best movie-to-game translations I have ever played if not THE best!  The only failure of this game is that there is no multi-player during the campaign mode. I understand the need for this as all the other characters are key to the movi-like feel of the game, but 4 player multi through the campaign would have been epic.  Hey, I’m not complaing, htough. I wish more developers would put out movie based games like this.

I highly recommend this game to gamers and fans of the movie series.  You will not be disappointed when Stay-Puft is looking down at you like you’re a camper with graham crackers and Hersheys in your hands!