It’s time for part 2 of the trio of Ghostbusters game reviews that James Rolfe did for the Angry Video Game Nerd series. Part 2 gets a little more in depth on just why the NES Ghostbusters game was so terrible, but still does so in a comedic way. Really, who can’t read that ending message and not laugh at least a little bit at just how horribly its written?
Following that the second half of the episode is devoted to covering the Atari 2600 and the Sega Master Systems versions of the game. The Atari 2600 version is honestly impressive, for how relatively limited the console is, but that’s to be expected – this actually shows that the NES port was really more of a cash grab than anything else, as the game was clearly designed for the older pre-NES consoles, hence it’s very archaic gameplay experience.
Ghostbusters on the Atari 2600. It’s only just as bad as the NES version.
Moving on to one more console the game was on, the Sega Master System, we find a somewhat decent version of the same 8 bit game. At the core, it’s still the same game, but it’s been improved quite a bit with more options, a better overall appearance, and new game elements thrown in as well as changes to already established scenes, like climbing the tower to fight Gozer. Still, it isn’t that much better. All in all, the 8-bit Ghostbusters game in all its versions is just poorly made. Playable, sure, but much better could have been done.
The end of game stairs on the Master System version. Better, I’d say.
Final Rating: 4.0/5
While this episode is a little more serious on criticizing the games for valid reasons, James doesn’t hold off on cracking jokes where possible (such as his sing-along to the “gherstbushers” theme ) and where he has to be critical, he still delivers it with a snark that is somewhat unique to this episode – sometimes it shows in other reviews but this episode has a unique charm about it.
For video sharing, I’m actually linking to the original upload here, as the “high quality” upload has color issues – it also, like many other HQ uploads, skips the opening theme and I felt it worth having in again because, well, why not?