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Ghostbusters: Sanctum of Slime

World exclusive interview with Behaviour Santiago.

Eurogamer How is the game structured?
David Williams

The story is told through comic sequences. The script was written by Tom Waltz, who has written a load of Ghostbusters comic books, so he was very aware of the brand and did a fantastic job of capturing the personality of the characters - even giving the new characters really good personalities that kind of matched up with the original cast.

You have your story and then you have a top down-ish camera view of each of the environments. The story says there are loads of ghosts at the Sedgewick Hotel, which is a well-known location from the other games and the movies. You start off with your Neutrino Wand, which is the well-known weapon of the Ghostbusters, and clear off that location with new ghosts coming in all the time, playing in a very arcadey style.

As you progress through the levels, in the cut-scenes you have Egon inventing new technology for you and you have new weapons to use as you progress and meet new ghosts. One of the reasons for this is, Egon's discovered certain entities have specific coloured auras around them and they are weak to certain types of energy. So we have is specific coloured ghosts, and as you play through the game you can switch to different colours and that weapon is stronger against that type of ghost.

Eurogamer So there's strategy involved in the combat?
David Williams

Yes. Each weapon does do damage against all the ghosts, it's just if you choose the right colour then it's a lot stronger against that specific type of entity.

Eurogamer Another game I've seen Ghostbusters compared to is Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, perhaps because of the perspective and the co-op. Is that inspiration or coincidence?
David Williams

That one's definitely a coincidence. We were halfway through production when that one came out. But yes, the Lara Croft game is very nice. We had wanted to do the top-down camera view because it really helps that arcadey style. We couldn't really go for third-person combat unless we were going for the previous type of game. To keep the action up we wanted to go for a top down camera so you could see ghosts coming at you from all directions and do quick rotations and try and get them.

Eurogamer You mention Terminal Reality's Ghostbusters game. Did you analyse the reception to it and learn from it?
David Williams

Yes, we did look at it at the start. It's aimed at a certain type of player. It's a full retail game and it's a bit more of an adventure type of game, doing a lot of searching and using lots of gadgets to try and find the ghosts.

Doing a game for XBLA, we wanted to go faster paced. Also, being on Live Arcade made us go for that faster paced gameplay.

Eurogamer Where are you at in development?
David Williams

We're trying to finish it. We're in at the weekends.

Eurogamer You're in the dreaded crunch?
David Williams

Yes. It's one of the things you get used to. Making games is fun. It's got to have a downside as well.

Eurogamer All three versions will launch at the same time, right? There's none of this Xbox 360 exclusivity that annoys PC and PS3 gamers is there?
David Williams

No I believe they should be out at about the same time.