I really enjoyed the MD Ghostbusters game back in the day, though that could be rose tinted goggles of course.
I remember it being quite tough too?

I'll go through what I've got on the Pi tonight.  Was never a fan of the MD game, didn't play it until a few years after release and it struck me as something that you had to be in for at the time.

New Ghostbusters II (NES)

At its core this game has all the makings of being an 8-Bit classic. The gameplay consists of picking two Ghostbusters out of five (Louis is an option which is a nice touch), your main one shoots the proton pack with the A button and the secondary one follows in your footsteps and uses the trap with a push of the B button. It works well and is good fun.

It's got a couple of minor oddities such as being able to shoot and capture ghosts through walls, and Winston is green thanks to the low colours on screen of the NES. Also the secondary Ghostbusters AI can get stuck behind walls at times. It happened twice to me in my hour play through, neither resulted in death fortunatley.

They're forgivable imo, but unfortunatley what isn't is it's far to short, easy and simple for its own good.

The game basically consists of going into an area, clearing it of ghosts, then following an arrow telling you where to go next. Now it didn't need Zelda levels of puzzles, but a few simple ones chucked in and some optional collectables etc would have helped flesh it out and keep it more interesting.

The bosses are also poor for the most part, two were ok but the final boss was terrible.

Despite all this, I really enjoyed it. The basic mechanics are fun, and it does a decent job of feeling like a Ghostbusters game instead of something more standard in Ghostbusters clothing.

I really feel with a bit more time and effort it could have been a great game, as it is it's merely good.

3/5

My Reviews

I'm happy to move on, MD one was a bit pish, NES one was ok.

Anyone else check any out?

Some N64 racing games I recently played in the 52 games in a year thread:

Cruis'n USA (N64)

An undeniably bad game that I find oddly enjoyable to boot up every few years.

It has about as much depth as the sprites that make up most of the scenery, and it was never as good as it's arcade contemporaries in 1994. By the time it launched on the N64 (1998 In the UK!) it was basically a historic relic of the early Ultra 64 hype machine.

If 1/10 Is a broken game, and 2/10 is something so bad you cannot bear to play it, I guess this comes next. As bad as it is, it's not offensively so imo, and the credits were rolling before I'd had enough.

2/5

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Cruis'n World (N64) 

So after playing Cruis'n USA again this year, curiosity has got the better of me and I've decided to play the two sequels before deleting the ROMs.

The positives? It's nice and colourful, I wish Top Gear Overdrive had this much vibrancy to be fair. Erm, thats about it.

The pop up is even worse than in USA, possibly the worst I've seen on the N64. Outside of that it's essentially an expansion pak to that game, all new stages for what its worth.

So yeah, terrible. I'd say worse than USA simply because this came out years later and made no improvements, and USA has a bit more significance in the history of the Nintendo (Ultra) 64.

1/5

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Cruis'n Exotica (N64)

To be fair just about everything in this game is better than the previous two. Pop up is still bad but not as bad. Controls are a bit more responsive but still poor. Tracks have more to them, alternative routes and better design all round but are still sub par.

At the end of the day it's cut from the same cloth, and the incremental improvements the series made only made it fall further behind the competition, which were doing much more.

1/5

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Top Gear Overdrive (N64)

The fifth generation of consoles was the last pocket money generation for me, so there was plenty of games I wanted that I never got around to playing. Unlike 8/16-Bit consoles though, I never felt the urge to collect for my PS or N64 after they were contemporary.

Since purchasing the PlayStation Classic and an Everdrive for the N64, I'm finally getting around to checking out some of those games I spent hours reading about in the monthly mags.

After initially booting up Top Gear Overdrive I was quite optimistic it was indeed one of the good games that I'd missed out on back in the day. The handling had a nice weighty arcade feel to it, so it was one of the ROMs that made it pass my initial cuts. Unfortunately, the more time I put in the less I enjoyed it.

For a game of its era it looks pretty good. There is literally no pop-up from what I saw, something that plagued the era for the most part. Everything is nice and solid and the car models are decent, there's also some nice light effects, but what lets it down is the drab colour palette. There's no fog and the fuzzy™ N64 graphics aren't to bad here at all, but unfortunately everything just seems brown or grey and it really makes the whole thing feel lifeless.

The music is what it is, its all done by a grunge band called Grindstone. Whilst not awful, its all to similar so I soon muted it. Unfortunately the sound effects aren't the best either, so from an audio perspective its a bit of a dud.

The game is set out in six seasons, there are only seven tracks, which is bad by todays standards but about average for the time. The game employs the usual tricks of the time to lengthen the experience, alternative routes, reverse and mirror modes and weather effects. It works well enough to be fair.

Where it really fell apart for me though was the crash physics. If you go over a hill to fast you simply fly off into the horizon and explode. This is manageable with a bit of track memorisation, but what isn't is the inconsistency in crashing. Sometimes you bump into a wall at 120mph and be fine, others you'll tap your bumper and simply explode into a ball of fire. This also happens when landing after a jump, 20ft drop? No problem. 5ft drop? BOOM!

Fortunately crashing isn't the end of the race and you restart from the scene pretty quickly, but a few of these unfortunate crashes in a race will result in it being impossible secure a top 3 finish, it happens far to often and really takes the shine off an otherwise decent racer.

At the end of the day this is a bit of a deal breaker. If the air and crash physics were better this would have been one of the N64s better racers, as it is its unfortunately not one to remember.

2/5

I've somehow played 600 odd minutes of Dr. Mario through that.

Convenience plus one more go gaming is a dangerous combination.

It is great, up there with Tetris Attack/Panel De Pon.

I never got round to trying any Ghostbusters but I've a week off now so am up for a new challenge, any suggestions? I'm throwing Pocky & Rocky into the hat as I fancy trying it out.

I'm happy to do any game tbh, Gain Ground a MD? Will give me the push to get an MD emu on my smini if so.

What needs doing to a PS mini to sort emu out? I could try to set you up tomorrow if needed.

nick_md wrote:

What needs doing to a PS mini to sort emu out? I could try to set you up tomorrow if needed.

I need a usb stick and something else I've got a link for. Haven't ordered yet.

davyK wrote:

Operation Logic Bomb is one I remember reading about. Think it was quite rare. No idea what the genre is though.

I suggested that on here a while ago, anyone else up for it until @Moot_Geeza gets his emulation sorted?

It's a top down 8 way shooter, played ok from the brief 5mins I gave it.

https://youtu.be/khbUa-8_88E

They did True Lies didn't they :eyes:

Beam software are awesome. Loved their work on SNES SmashTV and Shadowrun. That explains the interest in True Lies.