Ghostbusters Pinball Review

Remember the old warning about never crossing the streams? The phrase was originally uttered in regards to the Ghostbusters’ fabled Proton Packs, but it might have also been aptly applied to the worlds of ghost busting and pinball. Regardless of the world-altering ramifications, Farsight Studios has taken on the task of adapting the popular franchise to the pinball medium. Unfortunately, Ghostbusters Pinball isn’t anywhere near as promising as the prospects of a third film.

The house that brought us Pinball Arcade has a long-established pedigree of porting some of the most fantastic real-life tables to the digital medium. Understandably, it was exciting to hear that they had their first original table in the works, and that a fantastic brand like Ghostbusters was attached. However, instead of the fantastic new retro-inspired pinball experience that fans were expecting, what was delivered was a lackluster re-skin of the classic Haunted House table, which also just so happened to be an existing table in Farsight’s library of ports.

On the positive side, all of the interactive elements and table toys have been replaced with items such as a fully-rendered Slimer and a Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man. Additionally, sound bites from the films, a new multi-ball mode, and an actual mission also help bring the table somewhat up to par with the expectations of the audience. Despite all of these piecemeal augmentations, it's still hard to shake the feeling that this is just the 2.0 version of an existing table instead of something new and original.

As far as experimentation goes, there is one interesting new element to the Ghostbusters Pinball experience: it's completely free. That’s right, the game is a free download and players can chose to either pay for tokens to continue play after their initial allotment of dwindles, or wait for their supply to slowly respawn. A few other pinball games on the App Store have attempted this arcade emulation model previously, but none are anywhere near as high profile as this property. The problem still remains that there is very little to see beyond a few rounds, so it will be interesting to see if Farsight is able to make money on this monetization structure.

Though there was great potential that could have come from Ghostbusters Pinball, the resulting title is a rather emphatic disappointment. A genuine opportunity to reinvent Farsight’s pinball brand as a home for retro-inspired original tables has been squandered on a somewhat mediocre re-crafting of previous content. Hardcore fans of Ghostbusters and pinball may be able to enjoy the game for a round or two, but the lack of any substantial gameplay hooks and original table design elements will leave players yearning for more.