Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime Review

Movie franchise tie-in games can be tricky, there has to be a fine balance between staying faithful to the original material and somehow turning said material into an experience that provides hours of fun without diverting into new territory without good reason. Very few games have managed to do this successfully with only a few notable exceptions including Goldeneye 007, the Spiderman games and the popular Lego-movie series. There has already been a Ghostbusters official game of the movie from studio Terminal Reality which struck this balance quite cleanly. It can be said however that Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime took the same approach but made the balance so crooked that you often wonder if the entire license was stapled on as an afterthought.

Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime is a top down dual-stick shooter by Canadian studio Behaviour Interactive and published by Atari. It was released for XBLA, PSN and Windows and is exclusively for download distribution. The game begins with a flashback to 2010 B.C at the funeral of recently deceased old god; “Dumazu the Destroyer”. As a result of the god’s death, the “relic of Nilhe” shattered and was hidden across the world with the power to revive the old god should the shards be reunited. The scene then cuts to the present day where the four original ghostbusters are being given a heavy workload and thus are required to hire four new ghostbuster-rookies to help them out; that’s where the player comes in. The story is introduced and told throughout the game via the use of comic strips with speech-bubbles being added as the characters speak. The playable rookie ghostbusters have their own personality and charm but regrettably stick to their roles down the line with little breathing room, meaning that character development is practically non-existent with two or three of the characters reacting to events and dealing with them in very clichéd and predictable ways using very unfunny and often dry quips and one-liners. This is a real disappointment since the characters have the same personality types as the original team. This begs the question: Why not use the original team who have established characters and personalities instead of four brand new characters introduced for seemingly no reason?

As you would expect from a Ghostbusters game, the object of the game is to intercept and tackle all manner of ghosts and ghouls to keep the world safe using your trusted proton pack. In Sanctum of Slime, this is made significantly easier in that the ghosts are essentially colour coded into Yellow, Blue and Red with a separate weapon for each colour with the corresponding colour doing being the most effective. Levels are composed primarily of circular or square rooms linked by corridors with each main room having a wave of ghosts you must defeat whilst dodging attacks. Whilst this gameplay mechanic is fun for the first level or two, the gameplay never really deviates with 10 out of the 12 chapters consisting of this very move-lock-kill-move makeup. The repetitiveness reaches a head around the half-way mark when the game starts re-using environments with slightly harder ghosts. The game shamelessly pulls of this practice with some of the characters often making a point to mention how they have been to the area before, you’re treading tedious old ground and the game unashamedly knows it. Outside of this gameplay mechanic there are levels known as “chase levels” whereby you and your team ride a new truck introduced for the game named the ECTO-4WD, firing ghosts away from the truck whilst they give chase. Whilst the truck’s animations of driving are fluid and fun to watch, you’ll be distracted from it when you realise you’re basically playing the same game as you have before but with only one weapon instead of three.

There’s no mistake that Sanctum of Slime is difficult but it tends to be difficult in only the most frustrating and unfair ways. The source of this problem lies with the terrible AI. To some credit the AI tends to be helpful when there’s not a lot going on, making the early levels quite pleasant to play with the team co-operating in their assault and helping each other rather efficiently. However, this early shining example of team spirit dwindles later in the game when things start to get a bit more hectic and overpowering. During such situations it’s actually more beneficial to you to let the AI players die and revive them as distractions rather than keep them as the helpful team that they’re perceived to be. Sanctum of Slime’s idea of a difficulty curve means adding more and more enemies together in larger waves as the game goes through its motions. This is great for an arcade game such as itself but this added difficulty method falls flat when compared to how unfair the game is as a standard. All enemies (even from the first level) tend to be able to knock out your party in 1 or 2 hits and every ghost in the game moves faster than you. There was a point early in the game where the room was very small and since the ghosts are faster than the player, I was destined to die if a single ghost just happened to spawn even remotely close to my position. This game is more about dodging and running whilst shooting than employing any kind of strategy and team co-ordinated effort.

This unfair difficulty strategy mixed with the terrible AI in hectic situations actually ends up leaving the single player unable to be completed. Around about chapter 10 I encountered a wave of ghosts that were a real challenge to defeat, taking about 30 tries to complete. This was mainly because the AI had no idea what to do when things took an unfortunate turn. They will try to revive you but see a ghost coming towards them and give up half way, then seconds later try again with the ghost still present, causing an endless cycle that’ll eventually see them die. The AI also often gets confused about which ghost it wants to fight, often switching ghost colours and therefore weapons rapidly to try to kill two ghosts at once, leaving themselves open to die having not actually dispatched either. Finally, the AI will occasionally just panic and run into a corner whilst shooting seemingly random weapons at the ensuing ghost wave. Due to the above reasons and many more unfair mechanics, I eventually gave up on single player after trying no less than 60 times on a subsequent chapter-10 segment. Frustratingly, the game seems unashamed of this difficulty spike, with one of the characters jokingly informing the rest that “Things are stepping up a notch”. It’s almost as if the testers were fine with spiking the difficulty out of nowhere to the point of it being near-impossible, a real disappointment for anyone actually willing to progress.

As a team-centric game, Sanctum of Slime has it’s fair share of multiplayer modes and additional content to download. The game includes offline and online co-op for friends to help with the aforementioned difficulty spike but the online tends to be laggy and difficult to control, making the challenge only marginally easier for the players, focusing less on dumb AI and more on actually trying to perform your motions accurately. Additionally, the game has no way of dropping in and out of play; meaning that if you’re far into a frustrating section and a player has to drop out or a friend wants to join in and help, the only way of being able to replace them with the AI or to add them is to restart the level from the beginning. Annoyingly, this feature actually is actually present with online coop with players being replaced with AI if they disconnect, it’s bewildering why the same method isn’t available in offline co-op where players are more likely to be liable to leave or join. The game does have reasons to play beyond the story with additional collectibles being hidden in the destructible scenery and downloadable chapters and other content. There’s also leaderboards for score, time and other factors, it’s a shame however that a lot of this content will be practically impossible to access due to the difficulty spikes and the AI leaving you unable to complete the story the additional content is directly linked to (for example, collecting all the items hidden in the levels).

Presentation

The game is quite comical and fun to immerse in with the comic-book-told story and the familiar movie characters. However, the dry and unashamedly re-used environments, the repeated 3-4 music tracks and the repetitive room-corridor mechanics make you wish that there was more to look at and enjoy than occasionally switching your weapon colour for the umpteenth time whilst going through the same level backwards.

Graphics

The world is very colourful but not very detailed considering the importance it has on the experience. The environments tend to be only a few colours and in some cases only see a variation of this with fire adding a tint of red. The destructible scenery does add some detail and flavour to the environments but; as an afterthought to the main gameplay it isn’t exactly savoured. The bosses do look detailed however with the game making clear that they’ve had the most design time amongst every other enemy.

Sound

As a ghostbusters game, the familiar title music is prominent in menus and other non-gameplay parts but the other music is somewhat forgettable. Each environment has it’s own ambient music but since the game repeats the same environments there isn’t really a great deal to listen to. The battle sequences/waves have the same music track more often then not so you often hear the same music and sound effects for the entire game experience, only adding to the already existing feel of repetition.

Gameplay

The gameplay is very simple and enjoyable but nothing especially challenging or engaging. After the first 2 or 3 levels the game ends up being a mix of “match the colours” and “dodgems” with stacked odds. Later in the game however difficulty spikes and unfair mechanics make a very primitive gameplay mechanic into something that’s cheap and frustrating.

Replay Value

To it’s credit, Sanctum of Slime has had some additional content for players to enjoy with the story, with downloadable challenges and items to collect in the shape of a small cute stay-puff, there is a reason to keep playing after watching the credits. The only problem is you’ll be unlikely to utilise these extra features or be even willing to begin them due to the story-mode’s many faults.

Overall

Unfortunately, even for the greatest fan of the movie, there’s not much to be had here. The game adds, removes and changes a lot of the things that makes this game a ghostbusters game, making the license essentially seem like a tack on rather than a main point to enjoy. Bad AI, re-used environments and lacklustre, simplistic gameplay means that you’ll most likely be unimpressed at best and controller-smashingly frustrated at worst. If you’re a big fan of the movie, I’d recommend getting the official ghostbusters game by Terminal Reality. You can be sure that in that game at least, you’re actually punished for crossing the beams.

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