Ghostbusters: The Video Game - Reception

Reception

Ghostbusters: The Video Game met with generally positive reception. Greg Miller of IGN gave both the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions an 8.0 out of 10. Miller describes the game as a "love letter to Ghostbusters fans", saying that it "makes you feel like you are really a Ghostbuster". He lauds the CGI cutscenes as a positive feature, but finds fault with stiff character animation and bad lip sync in the other cutscenes. Miller gave the Wii version a 7.8 out of 10. Unlike Miller, fellow reviewer Matt Casamassina believed that the aiming system in Ghostbusters was better than the aiming system in Resident Evil 4. PSM3 gave the game a score of 85 out of 100, stating that the game was "too short, but packed with quality and imagination." The A.V. Club gave the game a B-, noting that it was the best Ghostbusters game. Kevin VanOrd of GameSpot rated the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game a 7.5 out of 10, listing the ghost-trapping gameplay and multiplayer mode as positives and frustrating spots in the game and repetitive gameplay as negatives. He also reviewed the Wii version and gave it a 8 out of 10 stating that "Ghostbusters is such riotous fun that you'll forgive its short length."

On both the PlayStation and the Xbox 360 version of the game, there are trophies/achievements that are impossible to get for many players. This is not due to difficulty, but apparently to technical glitches in the programming of the achievements. A patch was released for the PS3 & 360 version of the game on December 1st 2010 that was designed to fix this, but the achievements still remained permanently broken for people who played pre-patch. In fact only a small amount people who played the game post patch and did not get any single player achievements stated they could earn all the multiplayer achievements, but even with this method some reported they still had some multiplayer achievements glitch on them or had achievements unlocked before they met the criteria or after completing the criteria multiple times. Despite player outcry, Terminal Reality denied the report of the patch not working and periodically removed threads on their forums that complained about the issue, thus leaving the issue unaddressed to this day.

Ars Technica has reported graphical differences between the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game. Despite the fact that both versions were developed simultaneously by Terminal Reality, Ars claims that the PS3 version appears to use lower quality textures compared to the Xbox 360 version.

Reviews for the Windows version of the game have tended to be more mixed. In general, reviewers have praised various elements of the gameplay, story, acting and graphics in a way consistent with the other platforms, but have expressed regret for a lack of multiplayer support and sometimes problematic digital rights management implementation. While the Windows version received a generally positive review from GameSpot's Kevin VanOrd, it received a slightly lower score than the comparable Xbox 360 and PS3 versions due to having no multiplayer features and exhibiting "...noticeable signs of console porting, such as minimal graphics options and keyboard-centric menus." Axel Cushing of Armchair Empire glowingly described the gameplay and overall execution, but ultimately awarded the game only a 6.0 out of 10 due to an issue he encountered with the installer and the SecuRom DRM scheme on the boxed version, which he described as "obnoxious as hell."

According to Terminal Reality, the game has sold over one million units by mid-July 2009.