Friday, March 29, 2013

Ghostbusters Sim


By Grease Coakes
 
An iconic movie of the 80’s was the Ghostbusters with Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray. The movie where New York was terrorized by ghosts and the Ghostbusters busted the ghosts with laughs and chills. To most people it’s an entertaining movie. To Kheph777 Enoch he was inspired to take it one step further and create his own sim based upon the Ghostbusters movies.

 I warp in and land in the fire house and by dumb luck there’s the sim owner Kheph777 Enoch. I tell him I write for the SL Newser and he gives me a tour around the SL version of the firehouse where the Ghostbusters hang out at. Down in the basement is the vault of where ghosts are stored like in the movie and also where to buy my very own proton pack and trap. To do battle against slimer and his buddies costs 500L to buy the newest proton pack. There was also Kheph777’s friend Stabitha who helps build around the sim too.
 
I pay the 500L and Kheph777 shows me the tutorial. It’s simpler then it seems to blast ghosts and trap them. First you turn on your proton pack, (Everything is done in a simple HUD) then you grab you proton beam in your hand. You activate your stream and fire away! The tutorial only has you fight a class 1 ghost where you just zap to defeat. Kheph777 then showed me upstairs where there’s a phone where you click to automate a call. Kheph777 took lines from Janine’s phone calls in the movie typed out in text and then you know where to go to fight the fiendish ghost.
 
Fighting a mere spirit in the training was easy, but fighting a live class 3 ghost was tricky. It weaved and dodged my proton blasting for a few minutes hiding behind walls. Eventfully I got the bugger, but I still had to trap him! I had to bring in the ghost by walking my avatar close to the trap and then mouse click the foot pedal to trap him in the energy trap. The cash over my proton pack HUD went up some (cash within the game not Linden).
 
Now that I captured a ghost I have to return to the Ghostbusters firehouse to place the trap and drop off the ghost.  You flick the red switch and the drop box falls down, you insert the trap flip it back up and when the light it green the trap is clean. Fair warning you always want to clean your trap. 

Cash you use for upgrades from Egon’s equipment closet and also to recharge your pack. Kheph777 was telling me that your proton pack has an hour of real time charge so you always want to keep it off unless you’re fighting ghosts. He said it’s happened that Joe Birdsong was fighting ghosts and all of the sudden his proton pack turned off. That must be a pain in the butt I bet!
 
Various upgrades go to your trap capacity and goggles to act as radar to see the ghosts. Oh and fighting ghosts in New York is dangerous when you fight a class 6 or 7 ghost. They can attack you, causing you to lose in game hp/s that you see in your HUD. When you drop to zero and die, you’re penalized by having to recharge your pack for $5,000. Don’t have $5,000? Not to worry there’s a petty cash box in the fire house to help you out. You also have to recharge your pack when your hour of battery life is used up.
 
Kheph777 wants to create stronger ghosts like the staypuft marshmallow man to be a bigger challenge. Also there’s a lot of detail in the sim in not only the firehouse but all over like the keymaster and gatekeeper’s apartments. The call I took was at the hotel where the ghostbusters fought slimer. There’s also the library with the gray ghost lady. When I typed something I got a text message saying shhhh!
 
Kheph777 also says his sim is "light RP," meaning you can roleplay as a Ghostbuster or whatever you like. But it’s not required you can come in and fight ghosts by yourself or with your friends just being yourself. When you want to take a break from fighting ghosts there’s also a movie theater showing the first Ghostbusters film and Ghostbusters 2. There’s even the Ecto 1 car sitting in the firehouse for you to drive around to whatever location to reach your call. Zheph777 thought of everything to add realism to the Ghostbusters universe. There was even Zuul and the demon dogs.
 
There’s plenty to do here if you want to try something different even if you’re not a fan of the Ghostbusters. This is the right place for die-hards too who love the series as there’s even voice emotes you can activate from your proton pack HUD as the speech balloon icon. Oh by the way for kicks I tried to trap a ghost in my trap when I already had a ghost. There was a white explosion as my pixel Grease Coakes fell over and died. Luckily I had enough cash to recharge my pack Stabitha kept saying “I want to see him die!” To see my digital death I’d say it was worth blowing the $5,000 in game cash. 
 
The sim itself is loads of fun to play around in I recommend checking out this exciting sim.
 
The Ghostbusters sim and "Light RP" is at Slime Square, Whatever Burg (77, 92, 27). The group has a page on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/GBRPSL . The sim was also featured in a Ghostbusters fan website last month, ghostbustersnews.com (article here).
 
Grease Coakes
 
 

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