Scribd is a free service that allows anyone to share any type of document (including PDF, Word, PowerPoint and Excel) with the world. A "Ghostbusters" search brings up 45+ pages of results - most of them crap. I spent a few hours skimming through the results to find the best stuff, and here's what I found. (If you want to download any of the PDFs on Scribd, you'll need a free account. You can get some public logins at BugMeNot.)

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Three weeks ago I put up two Scooby-Doo making-of featurettes as part of my Mary Kay Bergman tribute. I also planned on putting up screen caps from the featurettes, but I didn't have the time to do it then. Well, I found the time, so now video and images from the making-of featurettes for the Scooby-Doo movies Witch's Ghost, Cyber Chase, and Monster of Mexico can be found on the Frank Welker page; and video and images from the Scooby-Doo and the Alien Invaders making-of featurette can be found on the Mary Kay Bergman page.

I also put up the PSP trailer links and image captures, and press releases on the Ghostbusters: The Video Game page. This pretty much completes the page until I get more time to play the PC version and do screen caps and stuff from it.

Speaking of the GBVG PSP... if anyone can help, I need VERY LARGE scans of the case liner and ALL manual pages, and a medium-size scan of the disc. I need something scanned in at 300 dpi with a Descreen filter turned on, which would be well over 1000 pixels large (probably over 2000 pixels). The liner and disc scans will complete the collection of scans I already have on the site; and the manual scans will be assembled into a PDF to complete the collection of manuals I have on the site. If someone with the game and a scanner can do these scans for me, zip them all up and upload it to a free file host, and send me the link, it would be most appreciated. You would, of course, be fully credited for providing the scans. The best scans I have right now are a small-to-medium size scan of the liner and front and back of the manual given to me by KansasCityGB on the GBN forum, but these aren't really of any use for my purposes.

There were six credited writers on Ghostbusters: The Video Game: Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, John Zuur Platten, Flint Dille, Patrick Hegarty, and John Melchior (who was only credited in the stylized version). Although the marketing department heavily hyped Aykroyd and Ramis as the writers of the game, they have each gone on record to state that all they did were small rewrites and consultation. (I know Dan said it too in a text or video interview - but I can't find the link right now.) I always got the impression that Dille and Zuur Platten (you don't know how tempting it is to write "Zuul Platten") wrote the bulk of the script, Hegarty wrote a few scenes and/or dialog, Aykroyd and Ramis consulted and did little rewrites to all of that, and Melchior wrote some stuff that only appears in the stylized version. I e-mailed Mr. Dille and Mr. Platten, via their website The Bureau of Film & Games, to find out if my hunch was right, and they were happy to share with me some information about the writing of the game. With their permission, I am happy to relay this information to you, along with a special surprise.

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On his video blog last month, Penn Jillette (of the magician duo of Penn & Teller) commented on the lack of the World Trade Center towers in Ghostbusters: The Video Game, which takes place in 1991, at a time when they were still standing. This is in spite of the fact that Penn never saw the game and doesn't care to check it out to see if they are indeed missing or not.


I hate it when people talk about something that they have no knowledge of. I hate it even more when said people don't even care to find out more about the topic they're discussing... you know, so they'd at least have a little knowledge about the subject. To Penn's credit, he fully admits that he never saw the game and doesn't care to check it out. But then why bother making a video blog about it? There are many topics that he IS knowledgable about that he could have talked about.

What's interesting is that his comments are in response to a viewer/fan question. Why in the world anyone would write to Penn about Ghostbusters: The Video Game is beyond me. He's a magician, not a game developer, and certainly not a cast or crew member of ANY aspect of the Ghostbusters universe. That would be like me asking Ivan Reitman about the life of Harry Houdini.

For the record, it is true that the World Trade Center (Twin Towers) does not appear in the video game, even though it should since the game takes place in 1991. You can see this for yourself in these two shots from the opening cinematic.


I commented on this back in May. Why Terminal Reality couldn't be bothered to put the towers back into the skyline is beyond me. The towers are clearly there in both films, so they DO exist in the Ghostbusters universe. I'd chalk this up to laziness on the part of the developer, until someone at Terminal Reality comes forth with an official explanation. For what it's worth, the missing World Trade Center is the least of the game's problems - depending, of course, on which version you're playing.

This isn't the first time the World Trade Center appeared or didn't appear when it should or shouldn't in a piece of Ghostbusters media. As I mentioned in my review of 88MPH's Ghostbusters: Legion comic mini-series, the World Trade Center (Twin Towers) is seen in Dravenhaven's slimy rendition of Manhattan in issue #4. Since he had newspaper articles on his room's walls in the psychiatric institution, he would obviously be aware of the towers demise. So, does this mean that the story takes place prior to September 2001 or is this just a goof?

Heck, this isn't even the first time that Penn talked about Ghostbusters. Penn & Teller did an episode of their Bullshit! television series series entitled "Ghost Busters" in which they haphazardly debunked the field of paranormal investigations by using an unprofessional team as their proof (I guess TAPS turned them down). That would be like trying to debunk the field of paranormal investigations by interviewing Jake and Eddie, instead of Peter and Egon.

As previously mentioned here on Spook Central, the only unlockable "outfit" in the stylized version of Ghostbusters: The Video Game is the Gozerian Rookie Outfit. It's not really a new outfit, just a different colored version of your regular outfit and skin & hair. When it was first revealed that the Wii/PlayStation 2 version would have cartoony graphics, many fans had hoped that the developers would make the characters look like those in The Real Ghostbusters animated series. When that turned out not to be the case, they then hoped that the multi-colored outfits from the series would be unlockable in the game. Although that wasn't meant to be either, that didn't stop one fan from visualizing what that would look like.


The above image came from the Ghostbusters Italia website (translations here and here). I have no clue who actually made that fake, but it's a damn good job. It's fooled some people into thinking that the outfits are in the game. Of course, it didn't fool me because I knew instantly that it was a modified version of an official screenshot (below). If anyone knows where to the find the full-sized RGB mock-up image, please let me know.


[UPDATE - 8/31/2009]
Lanny D. Crepit has let me know that the picture was done by one of the more artistic members of GBFans, but that he doesn't remember which one. He did provide a link to a bigger version of the picture, which is linked to the smaller copy seen above. I did a little digging - okay, a quick Google search for the filename in Lanny's link - and I *think* that I found the artist. It appears that it's forum member JayM who originally posted the image here.

I don't know why, but I was inspired the other day to do a whole bunch of multimedia from the PlayStation 2 version of Ghostbusters: The Video Game. For starters, I redid all of the 30-odd audio files I have on the game page, plus I added about 30 more! I pulled whatever I could directly from the game files. Having already completely the PS2 game, I can see that there are TONS of dialog audio files on the game disc that the game doesn't even use. I'd bet that the PC game doesn't use all of it either. There's stuff that's supposedly from the parade scenes, and stuff spoken by cameramen, boom mic operators, firemen, reporters, bellhops, crowds, and more - plus lots of stuff from the regular cast. I think that I can safely say, at least for the PlayStation 2 and Wii versions, that there's more audio on the disc than is actually used in the game!

I did image captures of the Start-Up Logos/Screens, Gozerian Rookie Outfit, Firehouse Tour, Miscellaneous, Level Start Screens, and Level End Screens. Links to all of these galleries have been added to the top of the Images: PS2/Wii section on the game page. However, I am going to spotlight two of the galleries because I wanted to add some commentary to them. Sorry the screenshots aren't the best, but there aren't any CodeBreaker codes for "Player Is Invisible" and "Hud/Reticle Off" and maybe Zoom In/Out if possible (all would need to be toggleable on/off), all of which would help to make better screen shots. And I'm limited to 640x480 as that is the maximum resolution I can pull from an analog source (the PlayStation 2's composite outputs were connected directly to my computer's video capture card).

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Here's a side-by-side image comparison of the shots that match up in the opening cinematic between the realistic (PC/PS3/X360) and stylized (PS2/Wii) versions of Ghostbusters: The Video Game. What's interesting is that in the stylized version, the opening cinematic doesn't give the year "1991" like in the realistic version, which means that theoretically the stylized version could take place at any time after Ghostbusters II. Videos of the two openings are up on YouTube: Realistic Version and Stylized Version. The Stylized shots below were pulled from the PS2, which is why they are of such low quality. The Wii gets a nice widescreen image, while the PS2 is stuck with letterboxing. Why? I don't know. The PS2 is capable of outputting in 16:9, but the developer chose to stick it in 4:3. I could go on this whole rant about how PS2 games that preceded Ghostbusters were capable of much more graphically and gameplay-wise with much shorter loading screens, but that's a rant for another day.

Realistic	Stylized

The PC version of Ghostbusters: The Video Game has very little in the way of unlockables. All there is to unlock are 8 Art items and 11 Videos. As the game doesn't state what the unlocking requirements are, I assume all will be unlocked through the course of the game. This seems to be true for the videos, which appear to be nothing more than the pre-rendered cutscenes that exist as video files on the disc. In the Videos section below, the files names in parenthesis are the names of the videos on the disc.

I've come to realize that the game is coded to pick and choose assets, including text, regardless of how it's grouped in the files. If you look at the Missing Features page, you'll see reference in the text assets to a grouping of Extras menu items. As you can see in the screen shot above, only three of these items actually appear on the PC's Extras menu. I had assumed that "Ghostbuster Challenges" would be the PC's version of Achievements/Trophies - and looking at the text assets, maybe that was originally the case - but I roasted the ham in the ballroom and did not unlock the "Kosher" challenge/achievement/trophy. So I guess that's another thing they nixed from the PC version.

If you've unlocked all of these, please post a comment to state when each is unlocked in the game or if you had to do anything special to unlock any of them (like maybe the art). I'll update/correct this list as I progress through the game.

### ART ###

1. Hotel Sedgewick - Complete the Hotel Sedgewick.???
2. Times Square (NOT PERSONALLY CONFIRMED)
3. Public Library (NOT PERSONALLY CONFIRMED)
4. History Museum (NOT PERSONALLY CONFIRMED)
5. Return to Hotel Sedgewick (NOT PERSONALLY CONFIRMED)
6. Lost Island (NOT PERSONALLY CONFIRMED)
7. Central Park Cemetery (NOT PERSONALLY CONFIRMED)
8. Miscellaneous (NOT PERSONALLY CONFIRMED)
9. Firehouse (PROBABLY DELETED)
10. Thanksgiving Day Parade (PROBABLY DELETED)

### VIDEOS ###

1. Ghostbusters (gb01.ogv) - Get past the first loading screen to the opening video of Ray & Egon.
2. Stay Puft Intro (gb02.ogv) - Complete the Hotel Sedgewick.???
3. Stay Puft In Times Square (???.ogv) - (NOT PERSONALLY CONFIRMED)
4. Librarian Lair (???.ogv) - (NOT PERSONALLY CONFIRMED)
5. Museum Party (???.ogv) - (NOT PERSONALLY CONFIRMED)
6. Black Slime Chairman (???.ogv) - (NOT PERSONALLY CONFIRMED)
7. Travel to Lost Island (???.ogv) - (NOT PERSONALLY CONFIRMED)
8. Escape from Lost Island (???.ogv) - (NOT PERSONALLY CONFIRMED)
9. Central Park Cemetery (???.ogv) - (NOT PERSONALLY CONFIRMED)
10. Mayor Revealed (???.ogv) - (NOT PERSONALLY CONFIRMED)
11. The End (???.ogv) - (NOT PERSONALLY CONFIRMED)

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE YOU INSTALL

• The system requirements can be found here. I can personally confirm that the game will NOT run on Windows 2000. Maybe someone on the Windows 2000 Gaming Site can create a Win2k fix for the game, and maybe they can't. I forgot what the error message was under Windows 2000, but that error wasn't present when I upgraded to Windows XP.


• The system requirements specifically state that the game requires a video card with 512MB or more of RAM on it, and further states that "video cards that have only 256MB of RAM are not supported." GBN forum user Vezner says this isn't true: Just as an FYI for anyone that has a vid card like me (8600 GT w/ 256 mb), I bought the game on Steam and it seems to work just fine on my comp with a few tweaks of my graphics settings (mostly lowering shadows). I don't know why they say they don't support cards with 256 mb on their vid card because it works fine for me. For me personally, the game would not go past the first loading screen until I upgraded my video card from one with 256MB to one with 1GB (I opted to skip past 512MB as I figured more RAM was better).


• The installer is broken. You must install using the defaults (Easy Installation) if you don't want any problems. That will install all files to
  C:\Program Files\Atari\Ghostbusters\
  (the full list of correctly installed files is at the end of this post).


• If you absolutely must install to someplace other than the default directory, even if it's some other place on the C: drive, this is what Atari says you must do:
  1. Use the custom install option to select the destination you would like to install Ghostbusters on your PC.
  2. Once the installation is complete please re-run the installer. This time select the C: drive as the destination location. The second install should only take a few seconds.
  3. When the second install is complete, copy the 7 files created in the "C:\Program Files (x86)\Atari\Ghostbusters" folder and paste them into the "Ghostbusters" folder you originally selected for your custom install.
  4. You will then be able to run the game normally.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW AFTER YOU INSTALL

• The game stores its settings in this plain text file:
  C:\Documents and Settings\[WINDOWS-USERNAME]\Local Settings\Application Data\GHOSTBUSTERS (tm)\settings.ini
  
  Replace "[WINDOWS-USERNAME]" with whatever your username in Windows is. If you can not access this folder, then you probably need to tell Windows to show hidden files and folders by going into Control Panel -> Folder Options, click on the View tab and select "Show Hidden Files and Folders".
  
  There are two commands in here that can't be changed through the game's menus, which could prove useful to you (in the "Graphics" section of the file):
      runWindowed=0
      frapsMode=0
  
  For the full list of everything in settings.ini, consult this page.


• The game stores its Save and Profile files here:
  C:\Documents and Settings\[WINDOWS-USERNAME]\My Documents\GHOSTBUSTERS (tm)\
  
  GAME0.SAV is the game save, PROFILE.SAV is the profile. I don't know what data is specifically stored in each file.

LIST OF PROPERLY INSTALLED FILES

C:\PROGRAM FILES\ATARI\GHOSTBUSTERS\
common.pod
GameuxInstallHelper.dll
ghost_w32.exe
ghost_w32.fpt
lang.ini
language.pod
paul.dll
readme.rtf
w32art.pod
w32art02.pod
w32desnd.pod
w32ensnd.pod
w32essnd.pod
w32frsnd.pod
w32itsnd.pod
w32model.pod
w32musnd.pod
w32set.pod
w32set02.pod
w32sound.pod
xinput1_3.dll

C:\PROGRAM FILES\ATARI\GHOSTBUSTERS\VIDEO\
attract_vid.ogv
cs_cem_02.ogv
cs_cem_06.ogv
cs_cem_07.ogv
cs_ext_01.ogv
cs_fh1_01.ogv
cs_fh1_01a.ogv
cs_fh1_02.ogv
cs_fh4_01.ogv
cs_fh5_01.ogv
cs_h1_05.ogv
cs_h1_06.ogv
cs_h1_07.ogv
cs_h2_01.ogv
cs_h2_02.ogv
cs_h2_03.ogv
cs_li_01.ogv
cs_li_02.ogv
cs_lib_01.ogv
cs_lib_04.ogv
cs_lib_05.ogv
cs_mus_01.ogv
cs_mus_02.ogv
cs_mus_03.ogv
cs_mus_03a.ogv
cs_mus_03b.ogv
cs_par_06.ogv
cs_par_07.ogv
cs_ts_05.ogv
cs_ts_07.ogv
cs_ts_08.ogv
extras.ogv
fh02_scene.ogv
fh03_scene.ogv
fh04_scene.ogv
fh05_scene.ogv
gb01.ogv
gb02.ogv
gb03.ogv
gb04.ogv
gb05.ogv
gb06.ogv
gb08.ogv
gb09.ogv
gb10.ogv
gb11.ogv
gb12.ogv
home.ogv
load.ogv
loading.ogv
logo.ogv
options.ogv
---
END

I just checked the Atari Press site and they added a page for the PlayStation Portable (PSP) version of Ghostbusters: The Video Game. Oddly enough, instead of putting it on the main page, they hid it in the Product Archives section, where the other game versions have gone to die. There's no assets there yet, but there is some basic information, which includes the PSP North American release date!

Title: Ghostbusters: The Video Game
Format: PSP
Release Date: 11/03/2009
Age Rating: E 10+
Developer: Red Fly

Recently the PSP rating was re-added to the ESRB website on the page for the PS2 and Wii versions. As you might recall, a few months before the June 16th release date, the ESRB rating covered the PS2, Wii, and PSP versions - and then the "PSP" notation was removed. Well, now it's back. So this November PSP owners will know who to call. [Paul groans at the bad pun he just made.]