If you know anything about me, you know that I am a Ghostbusters fanatic.   From the age of 5 it has been my favorite movie.   I have almost all the lines memorized and if I had the time and money I would build a replica proton pack and uniform to wear at Halloween.   So, you can imagine that when I heard about the development of a new Ghostbusters game over a year ago, I was really excited.

The game was slated to be released in October 2008.   However, the video game studio switched and Sony also decided that it would be best to wait to release the game until June to more closely coincide with the Ghostbusters 25th anniversary.   Needless to say, it was frustrating after waiting six months, to have the game pushed back another 6 months.

However, I got the game on June 12th, the date of its US release, and beat it in a week. Here is my review, and, keep in mind, I am highly biased.

Story:

The year is 1991 and after a new Gozer exhibit arrives at the Museum of Natural History, all havok breaks loose.   You, as an equipment testing Ghostbusters recruit, are tasked with helping the guys with battling this latest threat to New York City and the world.

Gameplay:

The game itself was actually harder than I thought.   The idea seemed so simple, initiate your proton stream, cause tons of property damage, snag the ghost and pull it into the trap.   Easy, right?   Wrong. It actually takes a bit of time to get used to capturing a ghost.   You initially use the proton stream to wear the ghost out, then the capture stream is initiated to lasso the ghost.   The tricky part is getting your ghost positioned in exactly the right place over the trap for it to open, and then holding the ghost there long enough for the trap to close.   It is a bit difficult to figure out at first but, once you get the hang of it, there is no problem.

As you progress through the game you get new weapons added to the proton pack, as well as valuable upgrades to the equipment, making it better and easier to meet mission objectives.   My personal suggestion would be to upgrade all of the original proton pack items first and then upgrade the slime blower items next.   This will be crucial in de-posessing people that have been possessed in the Museum levels.

The game brings a lot of nostalgia with it.   The first two missions visit some of the old locations and enemies from the first movie.   You get to fight slimer in the Sedgewick Hotel ballroom and Mr. Stay Puft in times square.   However, there are also a variety of well-designed and new ghosts for you to take on as well.

There were some difficult parts later in the game, where you really had to think hard on a strategy in order to beat a certain enemy on your own or with only one other Ghostbuster to revive you.   There were several times that I was defeated for 45 minutes straight before I could beat certain parts of levels.    The hardest part was a level in a cemetery having to do with stone angels attacking you.   I won’t get into details on it but, trust me when I say you will be extremely frustrated with that portion of the game.   Hint: Use the capture stream, not the slime tethers.

The game itself isn’t that long.   I beat it in just over a week.   However, I also played in 2-4 hour sessions at a time…

Note: While the PC version is cheaper $29.99, it doesn’t have multiplayer or co-op modes.   You may want to spend the extra $20-$30 to get the Xbox360, PS3 or Wii versions.   I actually got the Wii version for co-op but, haven’t played it yet.

Graphics:

The graphics in the game are absolutely incredible.   The environments are highly detailed and really allow you to dully interact with them.    The pre-rendered cut scenes are at a higher quality than in-game cut-scenes but, this doesn’t really bother me too much.   There were some lip-sync issues in some of the pre-rendered cut scenes but, again, I only found this midly irritating.

The only difficulty I had was that the environments were so complex that at times my gameplay was choppy.   Now, my video card isn’t top-of-the-line but, is still pretty good, and couldn’t handle some of the more complex scenes without some lag.

The proton streams are really well done and truly make you feel like you are a Ghostbuster.    The other Ghostbusters bear a close resemblance to the way that the real actors looked in the original 2 movies.   The fact that the script and voice acting were done by the original actors and writers helped a lot as well.

Bottom Line:

Ghostbusters: The Video Game is an excellent gaming experience.   Despite some technical flaws and some difficult objectives, the game really stays true to the Ghostbusters franchise and characters.    It is a visual treat and also brings back a lot of memories.   The best part is, it brings the awesomeness that is Ghostbusters to the current generation of gamers and movie-goers.   I’d highly recommend it.

As many of you know, iTunes is a wonderful program that allows you to directly purchase new music and iPhone/iPod touch applications on-line, organize and download your existing music collection and best of all, to find and download great podcasts. It also allows you to make custom “smart” playlists for your music and podcasts as well as allowing you to rate the stuff you listen to.

So, lets say you have had your computer for a few years, and it is time to upgrade. You install iTunes on the new computer, sign in to your iTunes account and connect your iPod. If the iPod is set to sync automatically, you will watch in horror as everything except your purchased music is erased from your iPod. all of your custom playlists, music ratings and self-ripped CDs are now gone. Time to dig out the CD collection and start over, right?

Not necessarily. There is something you can do to prevent this from happening, prior to installing iTunes on the new computer.

Here’s what you do:

1. If you can connect the old computer hard drive to the new computer, this will make things much easier, but if not, prior to turning your old machine off for good, find your iTunes music folder. If you are using Windows it is usually in Documents(My Documente)/Music/iTunes .

2. If you have the old hard drive connected to your new computer, simply create a new iTunes folder in the same location on your new hard drive. Go to the old drive and COPY (ctrl + c) the entire contents, folders, .xml files (especially important)…EVERYTHING…and paste (ctrl + v) it into the new folder on the new hard drive. DO NOT drag and drop the iTunes folder to the new drive…for some reason this won’t work.

If you don’t have the old hard drive connected, you need to get a USB external drive or flash drive big enough to hold your entire music library. Create an iTunes music folder on the external drive, then, COPY (ctrl + c) the ENTIRE contents in the iTunes folder and paste (ctrl +v) it into the folder on the external drive. DO NOT drag the iTunes folder onto the external drive!

Shut down the old computer and set up the new one. Create a new iTunes folder in the exact same place as it was on the old computer. Connect the external drive and open the iTunes folder on it. Again, COPY and PASTE the entire contents from the external drive to the new computer’s hard drive in the iTunes folder.

3. Install iTunes as normal and BINGO, all of your playlists and data are there.

Here is the reason why this works. In the iTunes folder there are 2 xml files that hold all of your playlists and settings for iTunes, as well as indexing information for your library of music. By copying all of the music and these files over to the exact place where iTunes normally sets them up, the new install of iTunes recognizes the data and imports it.

Alternatively, there is a free program that can also assist you in doing this. http://www.get411.com/ However, I had no problems simply moving the files myself.

Here’s to not sitting at the computer for hours re-ripping music CDs. Now you can just re-connect your iPod, download the latest Catholic podcasts and away you go.