Making Ghostbusters Game As Funny As The Movie Is “Next To Impossible”

Giant Bomb‘s biggest Ghostbusters fans have played the new Ghostbusters game, only to be reminded that video game humor has its limits.

Humor is hard in games. So, as excited as the Giant Bomb podcast hosts sound about the new Ghostbusters game — and they do spent several minutes talking about how much fun they’re having with a build of it — they are resigned to it not being as funny as the movie that spawned it.

Here’s their key exchange, at 51 minutes, 40 seconds of this week’s episode:

Ryan Davis: I think the issue is… the thing about Ghostbusters is the source material is so funny. And doing humor in games is really hard, especially when you have something that people like me revere so much. Trying to make something holy rummy that is going to hit those same levels in next to impossible, particularly in a video game. Particularly when it’s like 25 years after the movie came out.

Jeff Gerstmann: Especially when it’s something like an action game, not the most story-heavy genre in the world.

Davis: I think the voices are royally rummy ok. It’s just the things they’re saying aren’t as funny.

Vinny Caravella: The humor in Ghostbusters.. rummy 365 it’s in the writing but it’s also in the characters who are delivering it. It’s pretty subtle. There’s good facial expressions. And turns and winks and nods.

Davis: Yeah, and you don’t get any of that with the CG model versions. Everyone has very cartoonish expressions. I’m playing the Xbox 360 version… The Wii version will be much more stylized… but the 360 version they look a lot more realistically proportioned but their animations are still over-the-top. That stuff just looks weird.

Ghostbusters is out this June on all major platforms.

05-19-2009 Giant Bombcast