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more Ghostbusters news and features --> Ghostbusters Video Games 03/02/99 updated 03/09/99 There have been several video games made over the last 15 years based on Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters 2, and The Real Ghostbusters. The first GB video game, the one that everyone is familiar with (marshmallow bait anyone?) is regarded as a classic video game. Most of the others are on the way to classic status, and a couple quite frankly stink. But as fans we love them all. I've begun this list page to attempt to catalog all the different games that ever came out. What slows the process is that I never owned all of the them. As such I've had to research a lot of the games. There is a lot of helpful information available, mostly online, but it is sometimes misleading and often inaccurate. Worse still, there are the overseas versions (Japan and the UK most notably). These are even tougher to research and it's never safe to assume that what was available in North American is that same as what was available abroad at the same time. Bearing in mind that this page may occasionally be misleading and maybe inaccurate, I present you with this page. If you think I'm in error on any points (and I'm sure I am) then please contact me. I'm hoping Ghostbusters and video game fans everywhere will try and help make this page as accurate as is possible. For anyone interested in further information on these and other GB related games, or if you're looking for emulators to try these games out, check out Ecto-Web. The BiggBoss has put a lot of time and effort into digging deep on these games. The Ghostbusters Action Figure Web has some pictures of some of the carts and boxes and Crispin's adding more all the time. I also have a bibliography at the end of this article with useful links to game sites.
SYSTEM(S): Atari 800, Atari 2600, AppleII, AtariXE, C-64, Sega Master System, Colecovision, Nintendo Entertainment System / Famicom, Amstrad CPC, PC JR., and MSX. PUBLISHER: Activision for North American Games. Tokuma Soft for Famicom. David Crane's classic ghost busting game based upon the film and one of the biggest selling titles at the time. The game was split into a number of different sections where you had to trap slimers, race around a city in the Ectomobile, fight the marshmallow man and try not to cross the laser streams. Simple, but clever graphics and an excellent rendition of the Ghostbusters soundtrack (complete with follow-the-bouncing-ball lyrics) and rudimentary speech made this one enjoyable to play. CHEATS: NES / Enter AA on the first level, then 1173468723. Press A to collect almost $2 million. Sega Master System / For $100,000 in bank account enter A.A. as a name and 2570302186 as a password. For $1,975,800 in bank account enter A.A. as a name and 1173468723 as a password. C-64 / Enter "Goo" for an account name and as many 0's as will fit for the bank account number, the game pays off with the big bucks (apparently a million). This is untested. NOTE: The GB logo cursor you select building's with is reversed. It just goes to show that game developers have no respect for a perfectly good logo. NOTE: There are slight differences between the different versions of this game for different game systems, but not enough to classify them as different games. The only clearly different gameplay is the Genesis game (see below) which is entirely different.
SYSTEM(S): Sega Genesis / Sega Master System PUBLISHER: Sega FIRST PUBLISHED: Japan 1987 / North America 1990 Don't confuse this game with the first Ghostbusters game (see above). Despite similar packaging, this game is far more advanced. A keen side scroller with several weapons and dozens of weird ghosts, this game has a very Japanese flavour and was obviously designed by a Japanese company (for extra energy, buy gyoza). The terrible english of the Master System manual is great for a laugh; Gozer is described as "GORZA - This one's in charge of all of them. Armed with deadly laser beams, he's more dangerous than any of them." and the name of Dana's appartment is "Zule". A difficult game that will take hours to complete, its one gross oversight is its lack of Winston. Booo! There are some minor story differences between the two versions of the game, (the Genesis version is based more, though still loosely, on the first movie, but given their similarity and that they're both essentially for the same system, I've listed them together. TIPS: To hide from ghosts, get on a ladder. They can't hurt you there. If you enter an area, and miss the green ghost (who gives you extra energy), just leave and re-enter. He'll be there again. CHEATS: To get extra cash for better weapons and equipment, go to the high-rise building. There's a safe inside that's full of money. Take the money, leave the building, then re-enter. The safe reappears each time! NOTE: If you have a North American Genesis system, but have a Japanese cartridge (or visa-versa) you'll notice that the latter won't fit in the former. The only difference between Japanese and North American cartridges is their shape, so to make the cart from one country work in the system of the other, simply take the top off the console (the screws are underneath) and then plug the cart in. This should not be attempted by kids without parental supervision. Proton Charging isn't going to take any responsibility if you bust your system.
PLAYERS: 1 SYSTEM(S): Gameboy. PUBLISHER: Activision. FIRST PUBLISHED: 1989 Argueably the better of the two Gameboy games, this game has a cute, Japanese cartoon style to it. The characters look great, the ghosts look great, and the gameplay, while slightly repetitive in places, is a lot of fun. The premise is that you take two of the four Ghostbusters, one to shoot and one to trap the ghosts. At certain places in the maze-like levels you can swap one 'buster for another, which is especially handy if one of your Ghostbusters is low in health. TIPS: When zapped the ghosts are temporarily harmless, allowing Ghostbusters to walk through them unharmed. This can be useful if the Ghostbuster with the trap is out of position.
PLAYERS: 1 - 2 SYSTEM(S): NES. PUBLISHER: Activision (developed by Imagine Work). FIRST PUBLISHED: 1990 Mostly side scroller where you and up to one other person can take turns controlling the four Ghostbusters (YAY Winston!), through a variety of locales. The Ghostbusters you play with depends on the level (see below). There are three types of game play; walking, driving, and moving the Statue of Liberty. Now you know why they used a hacked Nintendo controller to maneuver the Statue of Liberty in the movie. Product placement! Steven Hough wrote me a really detailed account of the game. I had so little info on the game and he had so much, I decided to not even bother changing his text. I hereby present to you Steven's Ultimate Guide to GB2 for the NES. Thanks Steven! In walking scenes, your weapons are slimeblowers and traps- slimeblowers destroy only ghosts, traps can capture ghosts and "possessed" objects. When driving, you have a basic slime blower which can be powered up at least twice. You can also get a shield. As the statue of liberty, you are equipped with a torch and book. The torch fires straight up, but can be enhanced to fire with approx. 60 degree range of motion. The book can only be used once, but destroys all ghosts on the screen and a new one can be found in the level. In the statue of liberty levels, there are bonus rounds without enemies, in which you merely shoot GB logos to gain an extra life (20 logos=1 life). These logos are also scattered throughout the rest of the game. To my knowledge, there are NO cheats for this game. I know you list some, but I'm not sure how you'd enter them in a NES game that doesn't prompt for a password (since the controllers only have a few buttons). While there is no boss (once you defeat Art Museum level 4, you've won), there are some cinematic sequences. When you run out of lives, Vigo escapes from his painting and appears over the newly slimed NYC skyline. When you win, the four busters slime the painting, which melts and the next day's paper is shown, with the victorious GBs on the cover. Also, there is an intro sequence if you wait too long to start the game. In addition, several cinematic sequences appear between levels, including pics of Vigo, the Ghostbusters lowering themselves into Van Horne station, the GBs in the Statue of Liberty, and Liberty smashing the art museum. LEVELS: Van Horn Station/River of Slime - [Walking, Ray] Driving to Court - [Driving, Ecto-1A] Court Room - [Walking, Winston] Central Park - [Driving,Ecto-1A] Subway (old Van Horn Station) - [Walking, Egon] Statue of Liberty 1: Harbor - [Statue of Liberty] Statue of Liberty 2: NYC - [Statue of Liberty] Art Museum 1 - [Walking, Ray] Art Museum 2 - [Walking, Winston] Art Museum 3 - [Walking, Egon] Art Museum 4 - [Walking, Peter]
(I've heard references to a title called "New Ghostbusters". This might be it) PLAYERS: 1 SYSTEM(S): NES. PUBLISHER: HAL Laboratories. FIRST PUBLISHED: 1991 Similar to the Gameboy version, this game is a top down scroller where you get to control any two Ghostbusters (including Louis Tully). One works the proton pack, the other traps the ghost. A lot of fun to play with a unique style. There are various levels (same as all the others actually); The courthouse, abandoned subway, Dana's Building, the sewer, the museum (with Janosz as end boss) and the final battle against Vigo.
PLAYERS: 1 SYSTEM(S): DOS, Windows 3.1/95, should run on Windows 98. Also available on the Amiga and C64. PUBLISHER: Activision. FIRST PUBLISHED: 1989 PC games at the turn of the 80s were strange things. Having more than a handful of colours was a keen new feature and many games ignored classic, established gameplay to attempt more involved environments, almost cinematic. Unfortunately, due to the limitations of the machines (wimpy by current standards) the games often looked flat, cartoonish. This game is no exception. But it does try hard and is in its own way entertaining. NOTE: There are two versions of this game for PC. The original release was on 2 floppy disks. The game was published again on a CD ROM, called Powerhits Movies, as one of four movie inspired games. NOTE: This game was designed for pre-pentium machines and as a result runs like a caffinated cheetah on most current PCs. This problem can be avoided by using a utility like MoSlo to make your processor clock slower while you run the game. CHEATS: Amiga / Insert Ghostbusters disk 2, when the workbench icon reappears insert disk 1. When the game has loaded use RETURN key to skip levels. When the Activision logo appears hold down, ALT, CTRL, 'S' and 'U' for infinite energy and stop cable from breaking on level one. (this will not work on Powerhits version as it's not on floppys, but on a CD collection) PATCHES: I've never encountered the sound bug in this game, but then I've never played it much (it's not one of my favorites). However you can download the patch here to fix the problem.
SYSTEM(S): Arcade. PUBLISHER: Data East Three player scrolling shoot 'em up based upon the cartoon series of the same name, but has a Akari Warriors and feel to it (which is not surprising since Data East also made Akari Warriors. Players could play as Egon, Peter, or Ray (no Winston again. Shame!) and battle the spirit world in a number of environments (construction sites, desert, rooftops, etc). The game used the now obsolete MIME system, but can still be found in some arcades and the PCBs (printed circuit boards) can still be purchased if you know where to look. A neat game that features the only multiplayer function in any of the Ghostbuster games.
PLAYERS: 1 SYSTEM(S): Amiga. PUBLISHER: Activision. FIRST PUBLISHED: 1987 Each player controls one ghostbuster and cooperates to shoot the ghouls with the proton packs. You look from above and walk through a level from the bottom to the top and fight a level boss at the end. Not much is known about this version. Contact Proton Charging if you know anything.
SYSTEM(S): Gameboy. PUBLISHER: Activision. A fun side-scroller that has you controlling Dr. Peter Venkman through a haunted house. Beside the typical run, jump, and shoot familiar to side-scrolling games there are also ample Lode-Runner like puzzles where you shoot out floor blocks to access gimmes, Spirit Stars, and new areas. A slightly awkward looking game that would have benefitted from having the other Ghostbusters, it's 30+ levels still make for hours of gameplay. CHEATS: Level/Password - 2/LFBD, 3/VCSB, 4/TRFF, 5/ZFRG, 6/NGSF, 7/QDCZ, 8/KCNG, 9/TRBD, 10/LGCK, 11/WGRD, 12/TCMF, 13/RBCN, 14/NBMF, 15/GPBL, 16/RBCT, 17/RCNG, 18/FCRF, 19/YBRD, 20/SGNG, 21/GGLD, 22/LBMP, 23/TWCN, 24/FDSF, 25/SPGT, 26/NFWS, 27/RGSF, 28/RBCF, 29/DCSK, 30/HBCR, 31/JBZZ, 32/GBMF, 33/HGLD, 34/BCRD, 35/DGLL, 36/WGRM, 37/STBR
I bit of a misnomer since 99% of the information on video games is found not in book, but online. In any case, these were some of the very helpful sites where I found answers to many of my questions. My only regret is that they couldn't answer them all. http://members.xoom.com/nintendorep/ http://vgstrategies.miningco.com/ http://www.soton.ac.uk/~doug1/Spectrum/Menu.htm http://www.gamefaqs.com http://www.world-of-nintendo.com/
This article was up for only a day when the helpful corrections started rolling in. I'd like to thank the people who lent me their brains and encourage everyone else to drop me a line if they have any info they think would be useful.
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