Computer Graphics World

July 2009 56 n n n n Gaming Past Issues Despite the high caliber of talent and tech- nology, the game followed a very long and rocky road to release that began in 2006, when Slovenian developer Zootfly began production on an unlicensed Ghostbusters game. Although unable to secure the rights from Sony, the developer released videos of the game on the Internet that garnered an overwhelmingly positive reac- tion, so much so that now-defunct Sierra Entertainment was able to convince Sony that Ghostbusters was still a thriving mar- quee franchise (a Ghostbusters III movie is planned for 2012 release). Given the green light, Sierra hired Terminal Reality to develop the game after seeing a demon- stration of the physics capabilities of the new Infernal Engine. In 2007, Terminal Reality—armed with a script from Ramis and Aykroyd, and star power galore—began development. But a year later, when Vivendi merged with Activision, the newly formed Activision Blizzard (the publisher of Sierra's titles) an- nounced it would only release five franchis- es. Ghostbusters would not be one of them, and development was suddenly halted. e newly privatized Atari saw potential and, believing the ghost chasers could still capture and contain the imaginations of a whole new generation, stepped in and es- corted it to its release last month. Set two years after the events of Ghost- busters II, players assume the role of a new recruit hired to test Egon Spengler (Ramis) and Ray Stantz's (Aykroyd) new experi- mental equipment during a rise in paranor- mal activity. Ramis and Aykroyd crafted a new story that revisits all the key locations, spectral hot spots, and happenings from the original films, providing closure and texture for many unresolved plot points and characters, while still expanding the tale and deepening the characters. Root- ing the game in the soil of the old films "was something we all wanted to do from the beginning," says creative director Drew Haworth. "Since a true Ghostbusters game hasn't been made in a while (some would say 'ever'), we wanted people to know this really was 100 percent the real deal. Peo- ple needed to see what they know about Ghostbusters, what the characters looked like then, not 20 years later." Interactive Storytelling While both Ramis and Aykroyd are ac- complished writers, interactive story- telling was virgin territory for both, and thus they took a much looser approach to hammering out the script, collaborating with Terminal Reality, laying out the plot points, and fleshing out the characters, while the team helped them through the gameplay elements. "A lot of the interactive aspect was new to them, particularly the length of the script required to cover four major speaking roles in a wide variety of possible actions and reactions," says Haworth. "ey're used to 120-page movie scripts, and the game ended up right around 10,000 spoken lines, not counting all the lines that were recorded but not used." In return, the two writers/ac- tors provided crucial input, such as the ideal New York City locations for missions and scenes, and how the science behind the equipment—and the equipment, itself— works. ey also helped the developer stay consistent with the Ghostbusters canon, providing, along with the script, little bits of insight into the speech habits and idio- syncrasies of each character's personality. Artists developed a head-sculpting rig within Autodesk's Maya called Adam and Eve, which helped them model and light the characters, including ghostbuster Winston Zeddemore (above). Each ghostbuster, including Pete Venkman (Dan Aykroyd), is built with approximately 31,000 triangles to resemble the real-life actor who assumed that movie role. At left is the wireframe view of the Venkman game character, and right shows the viewport render of the character.

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