The title card for the first two episodes covering the Ghostbusters NES game.
The ending screen of Ghostbusters (NES).
Ghostbusters was a 1988 video game developed by Activision for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was based off a 1984 film of the same name. Nintendo made a spawned sequel called Ghostbusters II and it was released again by Activision in 1989.
2007 AVGN episodes[]
This was episode 21 of The Angry Video Game Nerd series.
3 episodes, were both aired on Gametrailers (February 27, March 20, and April 3, 2007) and later it was released on YouTube in 2008. The first 2 videos were reviewed for the Ghostbusters game on NES. In the Ghostbusters Follow-Up, both Atari 2600 and the Sega Master System games were reviewed by the nerd. In the Ghostbusters Conclusion, Ghostbusters II for NES and Ghostbusters for Sega Genesis games were also reviewed by the nerd. It was the first game to develop an Activision game for the NES and Atari 2600 versions.
The game is considered "worst than Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Well, maybe not that bad" by the Angry Video Game Nerd in his review.
The Nerd's Complaints[]
- The only music in the whole game is an 8-bit rendition of the Ghostbusters theme and it is always on a loop
- The idea of buying equipment, a lot of it being either useless (the ghost bait) or too expensive (the sound generator)
- In the driving stages, the other cars, called the Drunk Drivers for apparent reasons, always take a few hundred dollars away when struck
- Some ghosts are too hard to catch, making it even more tedious to get money
- The idea of having regular traps that need constant emptying despite having a super trap that is far superior as it needs not to be emptied
- The idea of running out of gas and having to pay for it when doing the car stages
- Driving faster in the car stages makes it hard to see what is approaching as the camera can't keep up, making the Ecto-1 more prone to hit drunk drivers, miss gas barrels and ghosts
- The repetitive nature of the game (catching ghosts, buying gas, going building to building and dodging cars)
- The fact that the main building (the ZUUL building) is named after Zuul, not the main villain in the movie: Gozer
- The time it takes to be allowed entry to the building and the message saying you are allowed not having a sound cue, thus going unnoticed most of the time
- The offer being available only for a short period of time and very often not enough to be fully ready for the next part
- The staircases are tedious to climb as the A button needs to be tapped repeatedly in order to get the Ghostbusters to move
- The inability for the Ghostbusters to use their proton packs on the staircase
- The difficulty of dodging the ghosts, especially on the stairs
- The staircase stage being staggering long (22 floors) and the idea of tapping the A button to move and dodging ghosts
- The disappointing end battle
- The infamous ending screen (covered in-depth in the second part of the Ghostbusters trilogy)