I got to the New York Comic Con this morning and the first thing I did, the very first thing, was rush to the back of the show floor and grab a Xbox controller in order to play Ghostbusters: The Video Game.

The demo is relatively short, and if you've seen the video that came around the time of E3, then you know exactly what happens. You'll run through a building filled with marshmallow monsters, make your way to the roof and battle some construction worker type ghosts and then be greeted by the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. That's where it ends.

Graphically speaking, the game is everything you thought it would be after the recent batch of screenshots. Yes, in motion, Ghostbusters looks amazing. The gentleman walking around the booth was Glenn Gamble, Senior Artist for Terminal Reality. Glenn actually granted me an interview which will be posted in the coming week. The environments are detailed and the engine within the game makes the transition from indoor to outdoor incredibly seamless. I'm talking seamless as in better than GTA's work. Not that GTA IV set the benchmark for indoor and outdoor transitions, but it is some of the best.

The environments are destructible in a way that makes sense. If it's thin, it bends and breaks. If it's light and paper-like, it blows around. After you've blasted the area a bit with your Proton Pack, it looks absolutely decimated. You'll feel like you've just decimated the courtroom in Ghostbusters 2, and that happens everywhere.



Glenn Gamble -- I mentioned him above -- actually designed the Proton Pack. The first thing I noticed on screen was the pack itself. It really stands out. On it, players will find their basic hub. According to Glenn, the pack covers almost everything you need to know… except for money earned. Money buys upgrades to weaponry and equipment. With money, you'll actually be able to determine what kind of Buster you want to become.

The pack absolutely pops. It smokes and flashes lights; it looks amazing. It's replicated to look exactly like the ones in the films, so all you buffs out there can get super psyched to pause the game and reminisce.

New York as a backdrop looks good, too. The vista itself is rendered well enough to prevent all kinds of pop-in and fuzziness. You'll look out into the distance and be delighted, which is a great sign as well.

On the gameplay side of things, well, Ghostbusters fares pretty well. While there are some minor issues that detract from the whole picture, it's not enough to tear you away from the experience. It's third person in perspective. You'll control turning with the right stick and move with the left. Firing, aiming, locking on, and moving are all done well. It's when it comes time to trap a ghost that the game gets a little wonky. Hey, this is an early build; the kinks are sure to be ironed out when the time comes for release (this June, in time for the film's anniversary, more on that in the interview due out later).

When trapping ghosts, you have to lasso them in and pull them over an open trap. The more teammates you have working on the same ghost, the easier it is to control. You'll be able to slam ghosts onto the ground in order to bring them closer to the trap itself. But when it comes to actually getting them to get sucked into the trap itself, well, it's sort of testy. You have to be close, but not too close. You have to stay tight and focused on the trap itself, but you also have to work on balancing the ghost's chaotic movement. Like I said, this is totally a beta build and the devs, who've done an awesome job so far, will likely have this worked out. When you do trap the ghost, it's definitely rewarding.



Glenn revealed some storyline elements as well, but you'll have to wait for those. The game isn't open world, but the linearity isn't so extreme that you won't be able to explore individual levels. Linear like Halo, not linear like a sidescroller made 3D.

I'll leave you with this… Ghostbusters: The Video Game is looking incredible. It's the game for which we, as fans, have been waiting. Dan Aykroyd, who has been involved the whole way through, played an old version of the game and wasn't all that impressed. He played something close to the version we got at the con and simply couldn't put it down. Now that's an incredible sign. Keep looking forward to Ghostbusters, it looks that good.