As you
may have heard Vivendi's Ghostbusters: Ghost Trap mobile phone game is out now. Considering Activision (who owns Vivendi) dropped the license for the console games, it's quite a surprise that this one was quietly snuck out.
In this
silent video clip of the game in action, you can see that it looks like the video game equivalent of those water basketball games you used to have as a kid. Pump the button to "float" the ball through the water into a basket. Same principle here.
It will probably come as no surprise that the game is already available online for free download. There are five versions available, which I believe are for Nokia phones (the "N80" file) and Sony Ericsson phones (the four "SE" files, each of which is a different screen size). They are all the exact same game, so you only need to copy one to your phone, which ever one is appropriate for the phone you have. NOTE: I DON'T OWN A MOBILE PHONE AND HAVE NO EXPERIENCE WITH GAMES ON MOBILE PHONES, SO YOU'LL HAVE TO FIGURE OUT EVERYTHING FOR YOURSELF.
I searched high and low - ok, five minutes on Google - to find some way to play these on the computer. Most of what I found proved to be useless. However, the command-line program
Midp2Exe let me convert the Java files to EXE (the exact command line used was: Midp2Exe.exe -jar [filename]). So I have taken the liberty of converting
all five original files into EXE files, which can be played on a computer running Windows. You can download them all in this
2.6 Mb zip file. As they are all the exact same game, you can choose any of the enclosed files to play, though from my experience, these are the best:
• GB_SE128x160_nh.exe - Displays a little smaller than full screen, but the car doesn't glitch on the title screen.
• GB_SE176x220_nh.exe - Displays the best in terms of full size, but the car glitches on the title screen.
There are keyboard shortcuts, but I have not figured out what all of them are. The arrow keys and the Enter key do what you'd think they'd do, and if you turn on Num Lock, you can use the keypad on your keyboard in lieu of the keypad displayed on screen. Also, F12 is apparently the back/exit function.
IMPORTANT: You need the MidpRuntimeDLL.dll file in the same folder you put the game EXE in. Otherwise you will get an error message.
LEGAL USE: I think it's pretty obvious that these files (the originals and my PC conversions) are not legal, though they might be if you bought the game on your mobile phone. I'm providing them as a way for mobile phone owners to try out the game first before committing to a purchase, and to allow non-mobile phone owners the joy of playing the game (if Vivendi had a tip jar, I'd be the first to put a few bucks in it). I did not make the original files or even originally upload them to the internet - the folks at
Mobile 7 did that.
[
UPDATE - 10/27/2008]
Thanks to Trey Lansford (aka "GhstbstrLMLIII"), I can now provide you with a copy of the Ghostbusters mobile game from 2005 suitable for playing on a PC. If you have a mobile phone, you'll want to
get the original Java files (136 Kb). If you have a PC, don't have the game on your mobile phone carrier, or would like to try the game first before committing to a purchase, you'll want to
get the converted file (976 Kb) suitable for play on a PC.
There are keyboard shortcuts, but I have not figured out what all of them are. Here are some of my findings. On the main menu, you can only go DOWN the menu if you click on the on-screen left button right below the phone screen. Otherwise you have to navigate UP. Also, F12 is apparently the back/exit function.
Turn on Num Lock and use the keypad on your keyboard to move and fire proton streams.
8=Walk Up (on-screen 2 button)
4=Walk Left
6=Walk Right
2=Walk Down (on-screen 8 button)
5=Fire Stream
Press the on-screen green button to scroll through text messages. Note: You might have to fire a stream once in order to be able to move in a new room.
It might freeze for a little bit in the room after the yellow door in the tutorial.
IMPORTANT: You need the MidpRuntimeDLL.dll file in the same folder you put the game EXE in. Otherwise you will get an error message.
