In case you hadn't noticed, there's a new Ghostbusters film out at the moment, and it has endured its fair share of unfair criticism purely for having four female busters instead of four male ones. Yes, that's the kind of crazy world we now occupy.
Putting such gender-related silliness to one side for a moment, the release of this new film has given the guys over at iRetrogamer the perfect excuse to unearth another Ghostbusters outing which was subject to quite a bit of negative press when it originally launched - namely Ghostbusters 2 on the NES.
Notable for its unique right-to-left scrolling, this action title is arguably ready for reassessment - and that's exactly what the following video does. If you're a fan of the game and feel it has been treated unfairly by history, make sure you hit up the comments section below to tell the world.
Comments 68
I refuse to watch anything with Melissa McCarthy in it so I won't be watching the new Ghostbusters movie.
Not that it bothers me but it could be asked how many female staff are there at NintendoLife? 0?
"In case you hadn't noticed, there's a new Ghostbusters film out at the moment, and it has endured its fair share of unfair criticism purely for having four female busters instead of four male ones."
So...are you going to start calling me misogynistic just for not wanting to watch the movie, also?
@NintendoFan64 Why do you think they are talking about you? It's clear this movie has three kinds of haters. The ones who hat remakes.
The one who think it looks bad. (The group I'm in)
The group who has sexist issues.
They are just pointing at a specific group.
There's mysogeny, and then there's the desire for a new franchise film to tap into what was loved about the old ones. I don't care about the new movie either way--I'm not a fan of the original Ghostbusters--but ours is a society that is too quick to label other people bigots for just having a different viewpoint.
Why even talk about this garbage when New Ghostbusters 2 exists?
@faint I don't know. I just really didn't like the ride to the reboot. I mean, it's not that news outlets were looking at a specific group; it's that the sexist group was the ONLY group they were looking at, and the group that they pretty much lumped all of the anti-reboot crowd into, calling even people who gave specific reasons unrelated to the fact that they're woman in a calm manner sexist just for not wanting to see the movie (look at the reaction to James Rolfe). I guess I just would've preferred if NintendoLife didn't even mention it. Also, I'm in the first two groups. These remakes are getting pretty annoying, and the trailers were horrible.
My neighbour would never load up Ghostbusters II on his Amiga, even though I always wanted to play it. I was a big fan of the franchise, but he hated the game!
As for the new film, if people have problems with women in films, even all-female line-ups, why didn't they complain about stuff like Charlie's Angels, Bridesmaids, Absolutely Fabulous etc? I don't condone any of the abuse the cast may have been subject to, but I can understand the annoyance. It's the gender reversal as a political statement that's irritating, not that a film is mostly female.
It's not the worst game in the series... but for me HAL Laloboratory's (with coding by Satoru Iwata!) offering will always be the definitive and superior game. Unfamiliar with "New Ghostbusters 2"? Here are a couple of gameplay videos:
NES: https://youtu.be/Wj6u0OK9QQ0
Game Boy: https://youtu.be/mCWioVWhxF8
Doug E Fresh - Spirit
Best track off the GB2 soundtrack.
" In case you hadn't noticed, there's a new Ghostbusters film out at the moment, and it has endured its fair share of unfair criticism purely for having four female busters instead of four male ones. "
I haven't seen anyone accusing the movie for 4 women leads.
I've seen the actresses and director call fans sexist for not liking the actual content of the the movie/trailer.
I've seen complaints about McCarthy.
I, myeslf, have a complaint with the movie/trailer... it looks like nothing but stereotypes were cast, angry black woman, fat acceptance, women are better at everything and all the guys are dumb.
THAT IS NOT EQUALITY, NOT IS IT ACCEPTABLE!
Its just PC, liberal pandering.
"New Ghostbusters 2" makes Ghostbusters 2 look like ectoplasmic slime.
@Gold_Ranger I unfortunately have scene sexist comments about this film 😟
Who else has watched the AVGNs Ghostbusters episode?
I have no problem with female busters. I have a problem with McCarthy, and her lack of comedic skill.
@samuelvictor It is never my intention to plug anything I make, the purpose of my retro gaming videos is educational. Glad to have found yet another person who did not know "New Ghostbusters 2" was a thing, since there are two games on the system, most people even mix up cartridges, believing its just this game on the article.
@Wolfgabe There was also more recently a Mike & Bootsy play "Ghostbusters II" where they played the whole thing.
PS: Found it https://youtu.be/jhYLG2y8rII
Lots of men talking about the new film instead of the NES game...
@riChchestM It was brought up by the author to polarise his audience in order to make a point, after all. The proposed contention made by the author does not have to be blindly accepted as true or relevent to the article's topic by anyone. Anyone challenging or denouncing the author's subject of comparison is thus justified in doing so.
And assuming that all previous commenters are male, again, males who do not believe that this article is using a coherent analogy or buy into its assumptions have a right to defend their positions from the author's claim (ie, that "they don't like the new film because they are sexist," ergo "no one liked Ghostbusters 2 in its time for similarly petty reasons"), since this article singles them out for the purpose of its argument.
The Activision Ghostbusters games on NES were not that great, I gotta say. The HAL Laboratory-made New Ghostbusters II, however, is an awesome game and one everyone should play
@samuelvictor In Portugal NES games were not only rare but so expensive we could but dream with them. As for that other Ghostbusters game, it was released as "The Real Ghostbusters" in America, "Garfield Labyrinth" in Europe and shock horror: "Mickey Mouse IV: Mahō no Labyrinth" in Japan! For the core game puzzle action game originally developed by Kemco, that game certainly got around due to localization and licensing.
Still on topic, the NES (and more precisely, the Famicom) truly offer impressive gems, it was also many years later and dozens of Game Center CX episodes I truly fell in love with the system.
To be clear, the new Ghostbusters' issues don't all stem from the fact it's an all female cast; it's a whole lot of crap that makes this movie look bad, although an all female cast is actually a small part of it too.
From everything I've seen thus far, it's just looking to be a pretty **** movie all-round: Bad special effects (way too obvious cgi), idiotic conceits (Do you really believe a bunch of supposedly intelligent scientist types, female or otherwise, would hire what amounts to a mentally ******** secretary?), some really stupid new items (only there for the toys angle), some terrible acting (especially OTT on Leslie Jone's side of things), blatant and intentional sexism (which, funnily enough, wasn't a real thing in the first movie), and yes, even making the cast all females blatantly just to make some social commentary (this is patently obvious if you look at all the other aspects of the film; mentally ******** male secretary, shooting end baddie in **** to defeat it, girls making jokes about stuff happening "because I'm a woman or black", etc.)
Ghostbusters 2016 just looks like a **** movie; and the PR/marketing men and a mass of easily "guided" social media sheep can't deflect all that by trying to pretend it was all just because everyone's sexist and racist—they can shove that kind of ******* spin and deflection right up their ***.
It's all very much like the way this Ghostbusters 2 game was likely **** purely because it was ****.
These turds need to own their *******.
Sadly no one talks about HAL Labs PAL only New Ghostbusters 2 NES game. For me the best GB video game, HAL did a great job on it, easily outshines this and the first game by a long stretch.
Nintendolife's milked Pokemon Go for all it's worth, and now it's Ghostbusters' turn.
@samuelvictor Good tiems when the Game Boy had no region lock. Similar stuff happened to me and friends. Some had "Probotector" while other had "Operation C". The biggest shock was when we discovered that out "Double Dragon II" for Game Boy was a reskin from a Japanese Kunio game!
And speaking on that original "Ghostbusters" game... how cryptic was to play that one on ZX Spectrum when you were like... 6 years old or something? Our younger selves deserved better.
I spent £12 on Ghostbusters 2 on C64 which was probably the most expensive cassette based game I ever saw (except creative software). I couldn't figure out the first level and it took so long to load I never saw past the river of slime ☹️
@samuelvictor yeah, we pretty much got everything from UK with a few exceptions from Germany, France and Spain. "Star Fox" was a company name trademarked in Germany, that's why we all got "Starwing" over here... and that reminds me I should get back to work on my "Star Fox" tribute album.
"In case you hadn't noticed, there's a new Ghostbusters film out at the moment, and it has endured its fair share of unfair criticism purely for having four female busters instead of four male ones"
Really NL? REALLY?!
@Minotaurgamer It's Damien McFerran, what else did you expect..?
http://i.imgur.com/iWjU7RJ.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/LSF0e3i.jpg
^ Remember these tweets?
@Technosphile That is one of my faforite NES games.
I like the new Ghostbusters movie. I enjoyed most of it. I can see where people could hate it, though. They did use some overused jokes and cliches, but nothing that ruined the movie for me. Also put me in the Holtzmann fanclub. She was hilarious.
I hate when they make these movies that have the same name as the original. Add a subtitle or something, like:
Ghostbusters: The reboot that wasn´t needed
I remember hearing that Ghostbusters 2 on NES is bad but New Ghostbusters 2 is actually a good NES game. I should check that out.
When your reboot sucks worse than Other M....it's probably a crappy movie.
I finished this game earlier this year as part of my "finish all of the video games I own" project. At first I hated it but then as I got better at it I actually started to have a lot of fun playing it. It really got my heart racing at the end because getting a game over and starting over again sure was crappy. It felt so good to complete though.
I wish game website would stay out of politics.I don't go to them to read about that stuff.If I want to do that I would go to a politics website.I just want to enjoy games.
@gokev13 Wow, congrats! I can't believe you made it through THIS game. That's awesome! Both of these games were nightmarish, though.
@Shiryu It's cool that you're so humble about your work and won't plug it because, man, I feel like in the future when we have video game museums, someone's going to have to start paying you for it!
@World Funny you mention that because on this past Saturday the first Portuguese Video Game and Technology Museum just opened up shop. My channel will be 10 years old soon but its purpose remains the same as the day I started it: To make sure I don't forget all I have experienced in my youth regarding video games from the 8 and 16 bit era.
Tom (which as far as I know is the head of the NLife) does know about this kind of post and the way that this a**hole Damien talk about Nintendo followers on Twitter?
@Frank90 Tom's the editor, I'm editorial director and co-owner of the site, along with Ant and Daz.
May I be of some assistance?
@Damo Actually yes, I do access NLife daily, I think that should refrain from controversial positions like that for 1 main reason, losing readers. Right now, NLife is the biggest Nintendo related website, and it's very good even in times with almost no news, so it's a bit worrisome if the quality falls.
And now that I know that you is the editorial director it's even more worrying, especially because of your tweets. It's your personal life, and people have bad days, but don't be an *ss.
That said, thanks for the attention.
@Frank90 Stating that a movie shouldn't be judged on the gender of its protagonists is "controversial"?
@Damo I think the point that he's making is that he would have preferred that you didn't bring up the controversy surrounding this film in the first place.
@Damo As @NintendoFan64 said, this is my point. But I'll go far and say that you said the movie have "endured a fair share of unfair criticism purely for having four female busters " Did it? This is at best your opinion, but in my opinion and a ton of critics the movie is bad, the first trailer is even worst and the disrespect with the franchise (especially the first one) is abysmal.
But this isn't even the problem so far, the problem is that every single website/person raged to take a position, and now you bring yours to NLife unnecessarily. Ok, it's your website, but without readers, is just dust in the wind.
But, whatever, this discussion will take us to nowhere.
@Frank90 What also doesn't help is that the writing is supposed to suggest that the rage is ONLY because of the main cast, when really, there's also the reasons you've stated. Besides, when you get down to it, the people who're hating purely based on the cast's gender are pretty much in the minority. I mean, if there really were this many people against the idea of women getting a starring role in movies, then where was all the rage in the countless other films where the main character(s) was female?
I don't have any interest in seeing the new movie, but I did recently watch both original Ghostbusters movies for the first time courtesy of Redbox. There's a lot of bad 80's hair and some mediocre special effects (although some of them are still pretty good even by modern standards), but I enjoyed them and think that they're both overall pretty good movies.
@NintendoFan64 Indeed, I hate this movie, I think that the humor is forced at best, but I love female characters, just not these four, and by the way almost in every single game that I play I do prefer the female cast, specially rpgs, but because Ghostbusters is bad, now I'm a women hater.
One sentence. It was one sentence in a story. Please tell me that some people here could make it past the first sentence without taking it personally and using the comments to describe why they're both a) not interested in or dislike the Ghostbusters film, or refuse to see it, and b) not sexist. Maybe that's true. Great! To the rest: it's not everyone, but some people need to ask themselves if they doth protest too much. After that, don't reply to me about it. Lock that answer away and revisit it in ten years, when maybe you've grown up a bit.
@Shiryu Nice videos, thanks for the share. These games should come to 3DS VC.
oh boy look at everybody go! hahaha
@Shiryu That's cool! But yeah, you definitely do good work. I've heard of probably half of the games you show off, and even then I always find I learn something and/or get tempted to go find it on eBay...
@Minotaurgamer As a woman, I can' t believe how many dudes fell for this fake feminist narrative clearly created by the marketing team ...so annoying! I won't go to see the movie if they pay me to do it.
"In case you hadn't noticed, there's a new Ghostbusters film out at the moment, and it has endured its fair share of unfair criticism purely for having four female busters instead of four male ones. Yes, that's the kind of crazy world we now occupy."
Seriously NL?
People are mad because they are taking a beloved franchise and turning it into a hollow, throwaway movie.
I haven't seen all this nerds getting upset about the Force Awakening having a female lead! Don't fall for this diabolic narrative set up by Sony Pictures and Amy Pascal
@pandarino I am probably the biggest Ghostbusters fan that my friends and family know. Saw the new film. It was nothing that will change the world or set your heart on fire, but it was a lot of fun at the movies. It shouldn't be compared to the original film. In fact, the film felt more to me like The Real Ghostbusters cartoon show (or at least it expanded on ideas set off in that show). New ghost-catching weapons, lots of action. Love the cameos from the original cast. I thought the film paid loving homage to the original and at the same time showed us something new. Oh, and it was FUNNY. Had me laughing throughout. Was it better than the original? Of course not! But was it the mess that every fanboy on the internet thought it would be? Not at all.
Saw the new movie over the weekend and thought it was great, I'll probably try to see it again before it's gone.
I revisited Ghostbusters 2 on NES just two weeks ago, and liked it a bit more than I was expecting to. I don't think I'd played it for about 10 years before that. And I finally beat the darn thing! That last level is hard (and the Statue of Liberty level goes on forever). All in all though, it was fun and had nice variety in the levels.
@RetroTyGuy I am glad you liked it. I don't like Paul Feig's comedies, the trailers were atrocious, I am disgusted by the marketing campaign and bummed by the fact that we got this reboot instead of a proper sequel that was in the work for years - so I am not going to see it. Just not interested. Being female at least I won't have to be called a sexist just because I am not going to see a movie that I think I wouldn't like.
No one I've heard have critisized the movie for sexist reasons, and as far as I can tell that's just some bs journalists have came up with. It's an unwanted remake, the effects are terribly bad, and the black lady are handled racist by the movie.
The only reason this movie exists serm to be that the lads at Sony wanted to replace the men with women, and replacing a gender with the other gender simply for the sake of it are actual sexism. I disgustingly hate the thought of replacing men with women or women with men in remakes.
@Zach "But some people need to ask themselves if they doth protest too much."
Boom.
@NintendoVideoGa You begin by saying that the whole gender thing is "BS" created by journalists, then immediately disprove that stance in your second paragraph. That's too perfect.
"In case you hadn't noticed, there's a new Ghostbusters film out at the moment, and it has endured its fair share of unfair criticism purely for having four female busters instead of four male ones. Yes, that's the kind of crazy world we now occupy."
So let me get this straight - you are saying the only reason for the unfair criticism is due to the decision to replace the guys with the gals..really? the only reason? How about its not funny, the effects are sub standard. The director was on a hiding to nothing trying to remake this - he himself admitted that get this wrong and expect a barrage of criticism. Prophetic somewhat i would think. Nintendo Life loses some cred with me here i am afraid.
@World When I look up current prices, I'm just glad I picked up most of them over a decade ago... Y_Y
@roy130390 Sadly licensing issues means it will probably never happen... =(
@Damo
Too perfect, that you went on twitter 5 minutes later to post a screencap to your followers.
https://twitter.com/DamienMcFerran/status/756052314893541376
You're being disingenuous when you claim the negativity towards the new Ghostbusters film is 'purely' because of its female cast. You're trying to stir things up, and you know it.
Just like the barrage of Pokemon Go stories of questionable relevance, I see this only as a way to generate clicks. However, as questionably relevant as what a Sony exec may have to say about how they beat Pokemon Go to the punch, or a handy new life hack to hatch pokemon eggs faster, hopping on the Ghostbusters/Misogyny bandwagon seems to me like a cheap ruse to facilitate repeated visits to the page.
Especially since Nintendolife's actual contribution to this article is three short paragraphs.
For me, the issue on the new movie is based upon nostalgia. We have all of these calls lately to change characters for whatever purpose i.e. make fem Link, the Ghostbusters are now fem, etc. I like remembering the original movies for the created characters. Dan Akroid and Bill Murray are easy to remember in those moments for their other comedy as well. That is why I don't care to see the new movie. Similarly, since the 80's the Link I was introduced to was male. Every iteration of him since, the whole timeline, features him as male. I want him to remain that way, not become some far east idea of a "Link" in time as opposed to the hero that saves the princess.
Lastly, all of the recent remakes make me wonder, "Were the 80's the golden age of movies?" Gene Roddenberry, Steven Spielburg, Mel Brooks, etc.
Great game, I played the hell out of it as a kid, I loved the music and driving the car. I did get to the statue of liberty on a couple occasions. I also loved the first Ghostbusters NES game but unfortunately climbing the stairs at Dana's apartment was impossible without game genie
Using a (an?) NES Advantage makes this the closest anyone could get to actually playing a movie back in the 80s! Good video!
@World I cannot believe I got through it either. It wasn't a game a played as a kid, I aquired it later in my life and when I started it I thought I might not actually finish it, but I guess determinaton won out in the end. Watching some walkthorughs on the interenet helped too.
@Damo You misunderstod me.
What I meant was that it's BS to paint the critizicers as a bunch of misogynists whom hates the movie simply because they hate seeing anything else than men star in movies.
In reality, all people I've heard critizing the movie due to it's the female cast and myself in general don't give a damn about which character has which gender as long as the characters are well-fit for whomever plays it and the story is good.
The original movie could very well have been good even if it had featured women, but this ain't the original movie. It's a remake of it whoose only purpose is to switch the genders of the actors only for the sake of it which is not only actually sexist, but a family-friendly political message aimed at kids whom are too young IMO to have political messages aimed at.
@edhe Well said. I myself discuss politics alot, but IMO Nlife and other people in the entertainment sector must accept that it's not their field in cases like this. Entertainment should never politics, and almost everyone wants to keep it that way.
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