In the summer of 1984, the only pop-culture question more common than ”Where’s the beef?” was ”Who you gonna call?” The dream trio of Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis was the epitome of sarcastic comedy cool, battling slimy ghosts, the nosy Environmental Protection Agency, and a giant Stay-Puft marshmallow man.
The commenting pedants don’t agree - haters. Thanks to Nevil for the spot.
Ray Parker Jr. performed Ghostbusters on Japanese TV, backed by a Japanese boy-band… I think.
The man looks good - it has to be said. Thanks to Andreas and mp3j0ker for that one.
The January 27th release of the first of the individual DVD sets for Time-Life’s Real Ghostbusters collection has been pushed back to the end of March, according to TV Shows On DVD. This shouldn’t mean much to most fans, as the collected set (see links at the side) are still available, and are - at the lower cumulative price plus extras - the better deal. However, we thought you might want to know.
Better news is that Amazon has listed the IDW collected trade paperback for their Ghostbusters: The Other Side mini-series. The book, containing all four issues, will retail at $17.99, but Amazon is taking pre-orders at $12.23 - the only downside is that you have to wait until the May release to get it. Thank to Mr. Cardwell for the heads up on that.
(check out the film scout blog that the image came from, here. And thanks to Aaron for the heads up!)
It’s been a busy 2008, with some big steps forward and then a couple of steps back, and then some big steps forward again - both for Ghostbusters and for Proton Charging (Ghostbusters the video game had to do some last minute publisher hunting and PC’s code was starting to show its age - but the game has a new home at Atari and PC is humming away happily, thanks to a Wordpress template overhaul by Chad at Ghostbusters.net!)
I will be online from time to time - I haven’t had an xmas holiday yet that didn’t have at least one thing to post - but for the most part I will be laying low. So, stay warm everyone, and enjoy the break!
While delayed, thanks to snow, oh, everywhere, issue three of IDW’s four-part Ghostbusters: The Other Side finally made it onto shelves yesterday and today. And the sneak-peek at the cover of the final issue is reason enough alone to pick it up (it should be out mid-January.)
The January issue of OXM put out in England has starting appearing in people’s hands, and you can’t miss their top pick on their must-play-in-2009 list, with Mr. Stay-Puft staring out from the cover. The issue is hitting the newsstands right about now, but if you can’t wait (or can’t find it), OXM UK has a two-page sampler (complete with some nice images) at their website! Thanks Dan!
Thanks to Matt R for sending this in - the title says it all. In an interview with MCV magazine, Atari president Phil Harrison said outright that he wants to make Activision-Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick regret dumping Terminal Reality’s Ghostbusters video game. There’s a reason to pre-order if I ever heard one.
“What Bobby, perhaps unhelpfully said, was that those games were franchises which wouldn’t make $100m of revenue and generate sequels.
“If that’s his benchmark, then fine – and we’d love to aspire to the same benchmarks. But you know what? I would love to turn Ghostbusters into a $100m franchise, just to prove him wrong.”
Kikizo has an interview with Terminal Reality dudes, Drew Haworth and the incredibly misidentified Mike Fetterman (not Mike Douglas. Just substitute Fetterman every time they say Douglas.) It’s a good read, particularly for those of you that don’t see the benefit of waiting until Summer 09 to get the game.
Haworth: We’re no exception - we’re very happy with the interval. Some of the cinematics need work, and we’re adding a more fluid animation system for the NPCs, working on the sound levelling, and for the most part just improving the experiential aspect of the game. Pacing can be changed, stuff like that, but we haven’t added any new features, just improved on features.
Douglas: We’re not going crazy with it. At the time the transition actually happened, we were actually pretty close to being near final, so what we’re doing is we’re making a pass through all the levels, taking a good hard look at every single one, to make sure they all have the same attention to detail, the variety of gameplay… not just fighting ghost after ghost after ghost but there will be environmental interactions, puzzles and other interesting things to do that are within the remit of what Ghostbusters are expected to do… We’re just pushing that through all the levels, really taking the time to do it right.
Big thanks to Mr. X for the tip (and pointing out the Fetterman issue - I’m so sleepy right now, I would have started calling him Mike Douglas too.)
So, it’s been a couple of weeks now without any of the loading pain that plagued the site on and off for the last six months. And a big part of that is thanks to Chad at Ghostbusters.net for taking my old, legacy-code-filled theme, and properly updating it. There are still a couple of things that bug me, and we’re working to tweak those into shape, but for all intents and purposes, the site’s running like a top (knock on wood.) Heck, archives are, once again, up and running! Just in time for 2009!
Game Reactor has a video of Atari’s presentation of the Wii Ghostbusters gameplay - check it out here! [via GBFans]
NOTES:
-Same storyline as Next Gen systems.
-Unlockable concept art (Wii only)
-2 player split-screen co-op (Wii only)
-Male and Female Rookie character
-Gestural controls during capture to take advantage of the Wii nunchuks.
-A bit more focus on puzzle and exploration in the Wii game.
-You can hear the “That’s your cue, Killer” line Ray has in the Atari trailer.
The January issue of OXM put out in England has starting appearing in people’s hands, and you can’t miss their top pick on their must-play-in-2009 list, with Mr. Stay-Puft staring out from the cover. The issue is hitting the newsstands right about now, but if you can’t wait (or can’t find it), OXM UK has a 
