Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime Review
If there's something strange and it don't look good, who do you call? The Ghostbusters of course! But in this game, it's not necessarily the Ghostbusters you're used to. Still, there's nothing wrong with taking a stab at recreating the world of Ghostbusters in a slightly different light, and that's exactly Behaviour Interactive has done in Ghostbusters : Sanctum of Slime. It's not all that successful though.
To give a bit more detail on that though, the original quartet of Venkman, Stantz, Spengler, and Zeddemore aren't really in the story at all - something which may put off die-hard fans instantly. Instead, they have decided to hire some rookies to help out. You can choose between Alan Crendall, Samuel Hazer, Bridget Gibbons or Gabriel Sitter, although in the end there really isn't much difference between the four in terms of playing style.
By reading the comic strip cinematics, you gather that the original team has asked these rookies to handle the jobs that they just were too busy to get to. This means that you'll end up running through hotels, sewers, and so on killing dozens of ghosts along the way until you finally reach Dumazu the Destroyer and show him how the Ghostbusters do things downtown.
It's nice that they've tried to incorporate some new characters, but it would have been much better had they teamed up with the "senior" staff instead - much like the Ghostbusters game released in 2009. The story even tells you that they're off doing more important things while you're doing the menial jobs, it doesn't exactly send the right message. To make it worse, the new characters have very little personality. Aside from the occasional one-liners, there isn't much to bring the rookies to a loveable standard. The title would have had a lot more character if the original cast had been more present, or if they were just the main characters.
The gameplay is fairly simple; it's a top down shooter and so you use the left analog stick to direct your little ghostbustin' companion and the right one to use your weapon. You have a choice between 3 different weapons, however, depending on the color of ghost, it will be more or less effective. For red ghosts, use your proton blaster, for yellow ghosts, use your scattershot weapon, and for blue, use the last of your weapons which shoots out blue orbs that gain power by ricocheting off walls.
One thing to consider though, is that Ghosts aren't necessarily scattered about the environments. They come out once you and your AI companions have been safely locked in a room. Defeat every ghost in the room, and the door will unlock leading you to another room where you will have to do the same thing over again throughout the game's . There are no lives in this game, nor do you need to worry about health packs. If you or one of your companions die, they can be brought back to life instantly by spamming a button.
