Whose franchise you gonna screw?
I’m beginning to think the greatest weapon of the 21st century aren’t nuclear bombs or global terrorism, but nostalgia. Threatening the west with bombings and burnings will get nothing but a desensitized murmur, but kidnap David Hasselhoff and threaten to shave off his mane and the world will be all ears to your demands. Though the golden age of entertainment is dead and new ideas are becoming scarce, executives are still trying to prod life into bygone franchises. Though it does pay to remember that it doesn’t matter how many times you revive a long gone franchise, it will still leave behind an ever decaying corpse. Ghostbusters 2 along with the Ghostbusters game released a few years ago dealt some horrid blows to the franchise, and Ghostbusters:Sanctum Of Slime provides that final twist of the knife in the heart of your inner child.
Abolishing Ghostbuster rule number 1 about crossing the streams, Sanctum Of Slime is a top-view ‘shoot-’em-up’ which actively encourages splaying plasma across the many, many, many similar looking boxes of environments. The wisecracking paranormal misfits Peter, Egon, Raymond and Winston all know that they’re charms are being beaten out of them by contempt for half decent writing, and so open up their doors to four new trainee ghost hunters to bring down a new ghostly menace. It seems that the original crew are a fair bunch of egomaniacs, however, as the fresh four practically mirror the original crew. There’s the untimely sarcastic one, the buffoon of a coward, the smart one and the black guy who doesn’t say much for ethnic equality purposes. What unfolds is a generic battle against the paranormal, with cookie cutter characters and a lack of charm which even Ray Parker Jr’s jaunty cheesiness can’t save.
Even if you play on your own, your ghost evaporating amigos will constantly follow suit, and all are required in order to drain away the life of ectoplasmic beings quickly. Waves upon waves upon waves upon waves of ghosts surround you in a mixture of age old games of Asteroids and Space Invaders, and by repeatedly concentrating energy on ghosts enables them to vanish away. It’s a dull procedure which already drains on your very consciences as you first slip into your Ghostbusting shoes. Your A.I. pals usually do well in singling out beings and destroying them, but it’s when Sanctum Of Slime attempts to even do something vaguely complex that the crew become bewildered and befuddled. As the game progresses, weapon ‘upgrades’ open up to mix up the firepower, but even though the focused streams, widespread fire and bouncy ammo are meant to add a bit more variety, it actually constrains you even further. Each different mode of gunplay is dipped in a corresponding colour, and must be used for the appropriately coloured ghosts. Juggling these colours about just feels like a severely forced way of jamming in some form of strategy to proceedings, and confuses the computer puppet allies with all the rainbow fun. Cyber teammates will constantly switch to the wrong type of ammo in ‘assistance’ and as team-work is pretty important in order to not face game over, this is an incredible frustration.
These juniors aren’t even the real Ghostbusters for Christ’s sake.
Recycled ghosts from the previous game don’t exactly fight strategically, dog-piling the nearest player into into submission, and when you’re equipped with the health bar of someone with brittle bone disease you will constantly be knocked out. Your A.I. counterparts actually provide some valuable assistance, healing you back up on your feet with no delay. Unfortunately should you play with human friends, you’ll be forced to batter down the A button in a frenzy to heal, endangering a whole group of players to succumb tot he same fate. It’s a system that doesn’t feel like it’s been thought through entirely well, and is sure to leave your pals begging to play something else in frustration. Heading over to Xbox Live doesn’t exactly help matters, with games cutting out half way through levels and the frustrating lack of a drop-in/drop-out features sending players all the way back to the start of levels. A quick revision of these online features didn’t exactly bode well recently, as it seems that everyone’s simply given up on online lobbying as if Sony entered the room. No one wants to play a shoddy take on Left 4 Dead as it seems they’re all playing Left 4 Dead.
The tame gameplay actually proves to be the strongest asset of Sanctum Of Slime thanks to the awful comic book strips that guide the story between levels. Overindulged comic book cutscenes drag out the storyline through dreary writing and blocky animation, and ghost busting leads you through several levels filled with rooms and open environments each looking as similar as the last. Some driving segments in the new Ectomobile help break up the dire shooting galleries, but just isn’t enough to deter anyone from the endless bouts of repetition.
Whilst playing Ghostbusters:Sanctum Of Slime, I was repeatedly asking myself where the hell the Ghostbusters element should come in. It only seems to provide an element of intrigue which players are soon to regret once they jump into possible one of the worst shooters on XBLA. The corny one-liners are trying so hard for forced laughter I can practically feel the phantom hand dragging giggles from my soul. The cast do nothing to differentiate themselves from the original crew except to dumb up the place, the plot is told terribly through such ugly means and the ‘fresh’ gameplay ideas just serve to confuse and frustrate. There are much better bird’s eye view shooters on the downloadable marketplace, don’t let this one drag you in due to the namesake. These juniors aren’t even the real Ghostbusters for Christ’s sake.
The Bad: Repetitive combat even with attmepts of variety, environments do to little to differentiate themselves throughout, New crew are incredibly unlikeable, Comic book strips tell a very bad story through bar writing and bad animation
