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NYCC 2009 - Ghostbusters Wii

All New York Comic-Con weekend, there was sure to be a huge crowd at the back half of Atari's booth. What was causing all of the hubbub, distracting from Ready 2 Rumble Revolution, The Chronicles of Riddick and the nearby masseuse? Ghostbusters: The Video Game, of course! All three current-gen console SKUs were up and on display, along with the crystal Slimer seen at right and, of course, dudes in jumpsuits and proton packs. Graphical polish aside, the PS3 and XBox 360 builds looked just about the same as when we saw them last May (though the 360 version seemed to be flaunting more bloom lighting), so of course I was most interested in the Wii version. Come on, you know you've wanted Ghostbusters on Wii ever since you first saw Elebits! In my mind, Wii is the only platform worth making a Ghostbusters game on (though PS3 gets a pass as Sony owns the rights to the films).

I was fortunate enough to chat with developer Red Fly Studios' James Clarendon, a programmer and designer on Ghostbusters for Wii, as he played through the ever-popular New York Public Library level for me. Atari are still keeping a relatively tight grip on in-game footage, which relieved James as he told me repeatedly that the game as he last saw it two days before the Con looked "totally different" from the demo, which used the game's build from December.

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.