It's amazing and baffling that the designers of Ghostbusters decided to take the scene from the movie with the heroes complaining how tedious and exhausting it is to climb the stairs to the top of the Zuul Tower and make that into a major gameplay element.
I remember the 194x games mostly in their arcade iterations. And Ghostbusters, I played the Master System version a lot - still not a great game but it looks and plays better than its NES counterpart.
Ghostbusters 2 released in summer of '89 so maybe that was part of the reason for the release window of this game. I will say I've never played this one, but I enjoyed your description of it. To me, it sounds like the things you do in the game COULD have been fun but were poorly implemented. What you wrote definitely describes a group of guys who are struggling to build up a ghost busting business and then climbing those flights of stairs reminds me of the film. I wish we had gotten more great Ghostbusters games over the years, it's one of my favorite movies.
When I started collecting nes games I bought both 1942 and 1943 and was amazed at the difference in gameplay. I sold 1942 in a game purge and haven’t regretted it.
Poor Ghostbusters: another example of a badly selected PC port. Unfortunately the NES is riddled with them.
I had a lot of experience with Ghostbusters over the years. First, a friend had a PC version of it, which I played exactly one time. I wish I knew which type of PC, but I was young, it was a friend that moved away in early elementary school. I don't THINK it was a C64, but it would be amazing if it was, as that would have been my only C64 experience.
What I remember is that he didn't have a HDD, so the game played off a 5.25" floppy. What delighted me much more than the game was the fact that you could take the floppy out mid-stream and the game would keep playing. I suppose based on what was being retained in RAM. I have this memory that if you did that in the driving section, then the driving would go on forever. Not positive that's true.
Another friend had the game for NES. I remember our experience with it followed a pattern:
1. As young children, we really couldn't figure out how to play the game. We were mostly driving to no destination in particular, and when we happened to get to the ghost-catching part, we would cross the streams, instantly canceling the attempt. We hated it.
2. Maybe 2 years later, towards the end of the NES era, we rediscovered it. We were really, really into River City Ransom at that time, and we thought it was really cool in principle that this game had a loop of catching ghosts, earning cash, and buying better gear, once we figured out how to actually play the game.
3. After playing it somewhat more, we realized the game was bad after all, the staircase was probably the worst single element in any video game we had ever played, and our initial assessment was correct. Very bad game.
Funny enough, that same friend had 1943. I played it an OK amount at his house, but not that much, even though it's a pretty good game -- much better than 1942, which I owned. I think the trouble is it was competing with Life Force, which was 2P and had the Konami Code going for it. For the rest of the NES lifespan, Life Force is probably accounting for 90% of my SHMUP playtime.
It's amazing and baffling that the designers of Ghostbusters decided to take the scene from the movie with the heroes complaining how tedious and exhausting it is to climb the stairs to the top of the Zuul Tower and make that into a major gameplay element.
Oh, I know, it’s wild. Can’t make this stuff up!
I remember the 194x games mostly in their arcade iterations. And Ghostbusters, I played the Master System version a lot - still not a great game but it looks and plays better than its NES counterpart.
The Master System version is the preferred 8-bit console version, no question.
Ghostbusters 2 released in summer of '89 so maybe that was part of the reason for the release window of this game. I will say I've never played this one, but I enjoyed your description of it. To me, it sounds like the things you do in the game COULD have been fun but were poorly implemented. What you wrote definitely describes a group of guys who are struggling to build up a ghost busting business and then climbing those flights of stairs reminds me of the film. I wish we had gotten more great Ghostbusters games over the years, it's one of my favorite movies.
Thanks John! You really didn’t miss much. As you say, there are some good ideas here, but execution leaves a lot to be desired.
I recommend both Ghostbusters on the Genesis and New Ghostbusters II on NES (PAL or JP only). Solid titles!
When I started collecting nes games I bought both 1942 and 1943 and was amazed at the difference in gameplay. I sold 1942 in a game purge and haven’t regretted it.
Poor Ghostbusters: another example of a badly selected PC port. Unfortunately the NES is riddled with them.
Yeah, Capcom porting their arcade games themselves made a world of difference.
It’s shocking how many bad PC ports are on the NES. Why did so many devs even bother?
I had a lot of experience with Ghostbusters over the years. First, a friend had a PC version of it, which I played exactly one time. I wish I knew which type of PC, but I was young, it was a friend that moved away in early elementary school. I don't THINK it was a C64, but it would be amazing if it was, as that would have been my only C64 experience.
What I remember is that he didn't have a HDD, so the game played off a 5.25" floppy. What delighted me much more than the game was the fact that you could take the floppy out mid-stream and the game would keep playing. I suppose based on what was being retained in RAM. I have this memory that if you did that in the driving section, then the driving would go on forever. Not positive that's true.
Another friend had the game for NES. I remember our experience with it followed a pattern:
1. As young children, we really couldn't figure out how to play the game. We were mostly driving to no destination in particular, and when we happened to get to the ghost-catching part, we would cross the streams, instantly canceling the attempt. We hated it.
2. Maybe 2 years later, towards the end of the NES era, we rediscovered it. We were really, really into River City Ransom at that time, and we thought it was really cool in principle that this game had a loop of catching ghosts, earning cash, and buying better gear, once we figured out how to actually play the game.
3. After playing it somewhat more, we realized the game was bad after all, the staircase was probably the worst single element in any video game we had ever played, and our initial assessment was correct. Very bad game.
Funny enough, that same friend had 1943. I played it an OK amount at his house, but not that much, even though it's a pretty good game -- much better than 1942, which I owned. I think the trouble is it was competing with Life Force, which was 2P and had the Konami Code going for it. For the rest of the NES lifespan, Life Force is probably accounting for 90% of my SHMUP playtime.
Thanks for sharing your memories about Ghostbusters! I lol'ed when reading point #3.
There are some neat ideas swirling about (as you and your friend discovered), but man, does the execution completely miss the mark.
1943 is indeed superior to 1942, but Life Force might be the NES' best shoot-em-up. So hard to beat!