The co-op modes include Destruction, Containment, Survival, Thief, Protection, and the aforementioned Slime Dunk. Slime Dunk has been discussed, and the rest are pretty straightforward: Containment is a timed match that has your team capturing a certain amount of ghosts as quickly as possible; Thief is a capture-the-flag of sorts, wherein ghosts will try to make off with four artifacts that you must protect -- returning them is a matter of using your capture stream; in Protection you must activate three PKE stations, one at a time...meanwhile, waves of ghosts attack you and the station; and Destruction sets paranormal artifacts in various areas of a map, each of which spawn baddies until you destroy the artifacts. Survival is the mode we've been excited the most for, probably, and it doesn't disappoint; players work together to trap and blast waves of ghosts and creatures, each wave more difficult than the last. After ten waves, you've successfully survived the onslaught, and you can breathe once again.
You can level up by earning cash, rising to the rank cap of 20 eventually. Along the way, you'll unlock new uniforms, which are automatically displayed on your character. Sadly, there are no other persistent upgrades, meaning that you'll start off each match with your basic proton pack and work up its effectiveness as you play. Aside from a good number of Achievements and Trophies available online, there is also an impressive list of Most Wanted ghosts that will appear randomly in certain maps and game types; when one arrives, the game will give you a heads-up, and once the Most Wanted ghost is captured, everyone present can check them off. It's a neat way to provide some extra incentive to keep playing, even after reaching level 20.
Overall, I'm very happy with the game. It's not revolutionary, but I don't think it ever tries to be. Much in the way that Indiana Jones games reclaim the Tomb Raider premise through lore alone, Ghostbusters crashes the action game genre by reminding us why we love games that try to recreate our favorite classic action moments, be it on the big screen or in our backyards. Much in the same way that Richard Petty would draw interest at a Dale Earnhardt Jr. victory bash, Ghostbusters will turn plenty of heads for the time being. That said, I don't think that the online-only co-op modes are going to be enough to steal co-op fans from our current favorites in any long-term sense; Ghostbusters will help us to appreciate the roots of entertainment, and then will be fondly remembered as more original games inevitably trump it. Most gamers will get $60 worth out of it; the single player experience is top notch. There's really no excuse for not having that campaign available to player cooperatively. Perhaps it was a design decision to keep things a bit spooky, but we're advocates of players choice.
Verdict
Co-Op Score
The Co-Op Experience: Online-only co-op allows four players to bust ghosts, earn cash, and level up together through a variety of familiar and unique instant-action game modes.
Co-Optimus game reviews focus on the cooperative experience of a game, our final score graphic represents this experience along with an average score for the game overall. For an explanation of our scores please check our Review Score Explanation Guide.