Ghostbusters: Now Hiring Review - Part Time Work

Okay, let's get this out of the way now. Ghostbusters: Now Hiring is the start of an episodic VR series of games taking place in the 2016 reboot universe. If that sentence turns you off then don't worry, you're not going to be missing much. If you're still with me then sit down. Ghostbusters: Now Hiring actually shows all the signs of being interesting, if a full game bothers to show up at some point.

You take control of a new kid looking to be hired by the Ghostbusters. When you show up to your interview, however, none of the Ghostbusters are around and you're instead greeted by a ghost named Mooglie. You and Mooglie spot Slimer messing around outside the Firehouse, so the two of you decide to pop in and catch Slimer yourself. There's probably more to come, but at the current time, all Ghostbusters: Now Hiring really manages is that short offering. Mooglie has a couple funny lines that made me smile, and you can mess around and listen to people call the Ghostbusters for help while a confused Kevin leaves them strange messages, but otherwise there's nothing here narratively.

That's mostly because of the game's length. Ghostbusters: Now Hiring clocks in at an absolutely pathetic 15-20 minutes long. You can maybe extend that a little more if you spend your time wandering around the firehouse to mess with the various contraptions inside of it, but you're not going to be getting more than 30 minutes tops even if you push it. I understand this is supposed to be the first episode of an episodic series, but if this is going to be the usual then there's not going to be nearly enough content per episode to justify the entry fee.

As for whats here, the game is separated into a few parts. You'll start off in the usual sort of VR experience, where you can teleport around an area and interact with the various items. Here you can check out the firehouse, listening to messages and reading about the various things the Ghostbusters are up to. I feel like I'd have enjoyed this segment more if Mooglie wasn't constantly reminding me to "stop messing around and catch Slimer" ever minute or two. Giving me the option to explore but constantly pestering me not to is really annoying.

Eventually, once I was ready to move on, I got to assemble a proton pack and catch Slimer. Assembling the pack is extremely easy, just grabbing a few pieces and putting them in highlighted spaces. After that, the act of ghostbusting was actually a treat. I got to throw a trap where I wanted and then wrangled Slimer around until I could pull him into this trap. It genuinely felt good, almost like I was actually a Ghostbuster. This is exactly what I'd want from a Ghostbusters VR game, and for a very brief moment Ghostbusters: Now Hiring actually achieved that. You catch Slimer, put him in the containment area, and the game ends.

At the very least I was treated to a nice enough looking game. The animations on the ghosts themselves are quite nice, and both Mooglie and Slimer are quite expressive. The environments looked fine, although nothing really stood out as great. Nothing really stood out as bad either, so I suppose that's a plus. The voice acting works and the soundtrack are fine but forgettable. The Ghostbusters theme doesn't play a single time, which I would probably have considered a massive failure if the 2016 Ghostbusters twin-stick shooter didn't cause me to hate that song. Overall, I don't have anything bad to say here.

So Ghostbusters: Now Hiring is only the first episode into what will hopefully become a series. It has all the ideas down, but not the content to actually tie it all together. I want future episodes to add more, and I really want this to be a successful run at an episodic series. Hopefully, there will be more ghosts to bust next time.

Ghostbusters: Now Hiring was reviewed on PlayStation VR using a copy purchased by the reviewer.