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Halo: Reach gets 10 new screenshots | Call of Duty: Black Ops Hardened and Prestige editions confirmed | Halo: Reach announcement revealed | Xbox 360 Slim 250GB hard drives to be sold separately | Ice-T: Hates Medal of Honor, loves Kane & Lynch 2 | Vanquish gets Casual Automatic and God Hard difficulties | Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock songlist thus far | Gears of War 3 'Save/Kill Carmine' shirts now available | OXM subscription is half-price! | Xbox 360 Slim and PS3 Slim do battle | Blacklight: Tango Down nationwide tournament kicks off next month | BioShock 2 gets patched up | Kinect no good for flight games says Ubisoft | Battlefield: Bad Company 2 gets two more maps | What has been the biggest Xbox Live Arcade seller this year? | Xbox Live Arcade overcame slow start this year | Madden NFL 11 Terrell Owens screens revealed | Microsoft defends Kinect price | Halo PC unlocks Halo: Reach item | Transformers: War for Cybertron DLC hits today | Kane & Lynch 2 gets three new trailers | Red Dead Redemption heading to Japan | THQ creating yet another WWE franchise | Lord of the Rings and Smackdown hits Games on Demand | DJ Hero 'increasing DJ equipment sales'

On the site today - News: Halo: Reach gets 10 new screenshots http://bit.ly/agUjBR

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Video

Launch Player

Mafia II ³⁶⁰

Call of Juarez: Bound In Blood ³⁶⁰

Preview

Ghostbusters

Format Xbox 360

Developer Unknown

Publisher Atari

Genre Action

18-May-2009 Busting with your friends makes you feel good.

In a fit of 80s nostalgia the other day we ended up couch-surfing through some of cinema's greatest films and we discovered a couple of things. One, like John Candy, Bill Murray makes any 80s comedy roughly 60% funnier by his presence alone. Secondly, the original Ghostbusters is genuinely scary in places, despite the aging special effects.

We're hoping that these two observations prove true of Terminal Reality's interpretation of the Ghostbusters franchise. Humour needs to go hand-in-hand with chills and after finally getting hands-on with the game in a criminally short romp through a Manhattan office building that was being attacked by the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man, we're quietly confident the developer is edging close to that perfect amalgamation.

Here's a quick-fire list based on what we saw during the pre-play presentation and the proceeding playtest. The game does handle like Gears of War but with some differences. There's no cover-system and the evade roll is replaced with a jump that while unsatisfactory, at least is in keeping with the Ghostbusters' largely un-athletic frames.

Ghostbusters edges out the competition with destructible scenery, most of which you can grab with your proton stream and throw. The Proton Packs handle differently from any in-game weapon you've tried before, as wrestling with ghosts feels like you're playing a Sega Bass Fishing game, tiring out ghosts by bashing them into scenery by tapping LT, then holding them steady above a placed trap with the left stick as they thrash to and fro. An interesting dynamic that'll work even better with two, or indeed, four.

Sadly the main story campaign is a solo affair as you control a new rookie road testing Egon's newest inventions. There are four-player Xbox Live co-op modes that are separate from this. Here you get to chose one of the famous foursome and tackle various ghostbusting jobs based around those glimpsed in the film montages, stacking them in any order you wish.

You've six job types, ranging from Survival (a Supernatural version of Horde), Protection (a twist on Capture the Flag as you protect Egon's equipment from ghosts) and the control-inspired Slime Dunk as you race to capture the most Slimers. A adaptive A.I system will mean ghosts play to your current skill level. Even though Job Mode and multiplayer campaign are co-op, there's a competitive element to it all with the inclusion of player statistics and Leaderboards.

So with the inclusions of classic terrors like the Pale Lady from the Library and a appearance by sequel main bad guy, Viggo the Carpathian new humour-tinged dialogue from original writers Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd, could Terminal Reality make busting feel good once again? Here's hoping.

OXM Staff