Ghostbusters II

Development and publication

Development: The Oliver Twins (Amstrad CPC / ZX Spectrum). Publication: Activision.

The named development credit refers to the original or specifically identified version. Other ports and later re-releases may have different development teams.

Making the game

In January ‘89 we were approached by Stefan Ufnowski for who we had produced Amstrad and Spectrum conversions of ISS. He had struck a deal with Activision to produce the home computer versions of the greatly anticipated sequel to Ghostbusters, one of our favourite films. He asked us to produce Spectrum and Amstrad conversions of their original game design based on the movie script. We were obviously delighted to do so and had about eight months to produce the 3 game sections that made up the overall game. In reality, we found that we need to wait for their Commodore 6 and Amiga milestones before we could proceed to convert each section. As a result, we are able to write Operation Gunship and most of Fantasy World Dizzy alongside this.

The first game section saw Ray (played by Dan Aykroyd) descend from First Avenue down an old shaft into a disused underground station to collect some mood slime, sadly it turned out to be haunted. The second, saw the ghostbusters walking the Statue of Liberty through New York to the Art Museum fighting off ghosts in a classic side-scroll shooter. The third section took place in an isometric art museum with the ghostbusters attempting to rescue Dana’s baby from Janosz who is attempting to resurrect Vigo from within a painting. Obviously the ghostbusters win the day in the movie, but the game was much harder!

We were invited to see the movie at the UK premiere in Leicester Square, London, but we were left underwhelmed by the film. It was especially disappointing that the descent to the disused subway was almost completely removed from the film which was our first level and third of the game!

There were issues surrounding the payments which was disappointing since we were proud to have written the Amstrad and Spectrum versions. Our versions reviewed really well, despite the slow scrolling of slow 8-bit pixel mapped computers. With the fantastic license and Actitivion distribution, the game sold really well and became a #1 Bestseller in the UK and several European countries.

Original documents

Archived Ghostbusters II article (PDF)

Sources

• Wikipedia