The Half-Life pumpkin was carved last year by Gerard "OriginalGman." Ghostbusters comes our way from Cameron Leatham, Joe Greene and his wife contributed Strong Bad pumpkins. Sean Lefebvre handled Mario and Bowser. And Borderlands was done by Dennis Cwik.

Here's how some of the experts got it done:

Ghostbusters:
"I used one of those [store-bought pumpkin carving] sets, and I also have this hobby knife kit that had some useful blades in it. The U-shaped chisel thing (not sure what the actual name is) was particularly useful for removing the skin. I think I'm going to pick up a light bulb base and use that to light it up, though. It has to be completely dark to see the effect, and my camera still had trouble picking it up. I had to crank the brightness up on that picture."

Borderlands:
"Being cheap, I used what I had. Bagsofcrap shows my Masterchef Duracut set going for $10 one day (http://www.bagsofcrap.com/woot.html.php?id=2556), and so I only used one of the steak knifes on the left side of the picture (as that was the sharpest knife I could find in the entire set). The luxurious and ergonomic plastic handle handle did give a nice cracking sound as I tried to remove the top to scoop the guts too, but it held together like a champ.

There's Pokémon.

Here, Hudson tells website Everything is Terrible! about his Pokémon card game strategy — just to make our heads exploded, we think. What, is this guy trying to destroy the awesome meter or something?

Ernie Hudson's Pokémon Strategy [Topless Robot]

The 360, PC, DS and Wii versions were supposed to be out in October, but now won't be out until November 6. No reason was given for the extended delay.

Ghostbusters 360 slips to November [Eurogamer]

IGN say that fixes have been made to both single and multiplayer modes, most important of which is an upgrade to the game's visuals that's resulted in "an increase in resolution to match that of Xbox 360" version. There's also some random freezing corrections, along with the long-awaited fix that'll allow two of the game's achievements - Pay Day and Capture All Most Wanted Ghosts - to actually be unlocked.

Which is all well and good, but until somebody tells me that they've fixed the firehouse save bug (specific notes on other fixes aren't to be found), I'm not touching the game again. Not familiar with it? Well, every time I save my game in the firehouse, and quit, the next time I reload the game it drops me at the start of gameplay in the next mission. Meaning I've endured boring, repetitive missions just to get some plot exposition and hot Peck action, only to find that the game's skipped both of those and dropped me right into the next mission.

New Patch Available for Ghostbusters: The Video Game on PS3 [ign]

What the Hell: Grand Theft Auto 4 Called The Ghostbusters? [Bitmob]

Atari have today announced that the versions of the game not covered by their controversial partial-publishing deal with Sony Computer Entertainment Europe will be out on October 23.

That amounts to just over a four month delay. Which for many games would be murderous, but then, it's taken 25 years since Ghostbusters for this to turn up. Another four months isn't going to hurt the marketing for this game.

Ghostbusters for 360 gets release date [Eurogamer]

Because while the individual SKUs of the game may not have performed as well as many would have predicted, the game released on a lot of systems. Seven, to be exact. 360, PS3, PS2, Wii, DS, PSP and PC. And according to developers Terminal Reality, when those sales are combined the game has sold over a million units.

Add in the fact the game will probably have a long tail, that it's outsold any other movie tie-in for 2009 and that in PAL territories it's not out on 360 yet, and thing's are looking just fine for Ghostbusters, thanks.

When it came to producing a video game that was exciting and captured the spirit of 'Ghostbusters,' a Lewisville outfit got the call [Star Telegram]

The whole lot will be out this Thursday. Those stickers (which will for $6 for the pack) are pretty great, no? Shame about the ghosts, though; the ones from the game are...OK, but some love for Vigo the Carpathian love would have been better.

Media Molecule and Sony have been teasing the Ghostbusters downloadable content for LittleBigPlanet for a good week now. While we're still waiting for the big reveal as of this writing, visitors to the Japanese LBP site already know which costumes will be available for purchase next week.

Lucky Japanese people. I sure hope they reveal the outfits in North America soon, so I can be all excited too.

Squiggly Lines I Cannot Understand [Japanese LittleBigPlanet Website - Thanks TheAlp]

I can certainly understand why one would hesitate to pick up a copy of Ghostbusters until now. After all, it is a licensed movie game, more or less, and one based on a relatively old movie to boot. With most of the original cast involved in the project it sure seems like a no-brainer, but one can never be too safe these days. Now you can give the game a try before you buy on the Xbox 360, with the PlayStation 3 version following shortly after.

In other demo news, Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network also get demos for Codemasters' Fuel today, so if open world driving is more your thing, feel free to indulge.

Demo: Ghostbusters: The Video Game [Major Nelson]

The obvious becomes even more obvious today, with the addition of one spooky little sackboy to MM's teaser image, where once there was but words. This ghost sackboy, which is surely part of a set of Ghostbusters-themed downloadable content for LittleBigPlanet, is not only good for creating your own Ghostbusters themed levels, but can double as an egg fertilizer for those of you keen on replicating the human reproductive system in the game. It's about time too. Using the shark costume in that scenario was just creepy.

When asked why the animated series, which rad from 1986 to 1991, wasn't tapped, game designer Drew Haworth explains, "We avoided reference to any of the animated series. This isn't a reflection of their quality, but because the animated series isn't actually considered canon, and everyone from Sony to the original creators to us didn't want to create any confusion by blending them."

Valid point, but screw "canon" — the cartoon was so great. Know what else was great? The Real Ghostbusters toys.

Why Ghostbusters for the Wii Isn't the "Real" Thing [Kombo via GoNintendo]

A writer from the online magazine of Jewish news and culture, Tablet, reports delight at playing enough of the new Ghostbusters game to unlock an Achievement (or Trophy, it seems) called "Kosher."

The Achievement is won by having your Ghostbuster use his or her proton pack on a honey-glazed ham that has been set up for a bar mitzvah in the hotel where Slimer is running amuck.

Tablet's Liel Leibovitz writes:

I froze in my tracks. It was time, I realized, to make a major decision about my identity. Was I a Jew first and a Ghostbuster second? Or was it the other way around? Do I catch the ghost? Or do I take care of the treyf? My heart beat fast. Then, suddenly, I knew just what I needed to do.

Leibovitz blasted that Ham and then got the Kosher Achievement.

The official text for that feat reads: "Remedy a dubious food choice to make the bar mitzvah as orthodox as it can be." Honey-glaze ham, it should be known, is not kosher and therefore doesn't belong at a bar mitzvah.

A Jewish joke would be unremarkable in other forms of entertainment. But in games, Jewishness is perhaps even more absent than homosexuality or Eskimos. Jewish people are seldom even mentioned in World War II games. Why that is is fodder for another post.

For now, put Ghostbusters in the same category as The Shivah, one of the few games that even mentions Jewish people or culture. (UPDATE: Readers reminded me that Grand Theft Auto: The Lost and Damned had some Jewish jokes too, which as best I can recall are light jabs that the fellow gang members of Jewish protagonist Johnny Klebitz make to needle him.)

Haunted Ham - Tablet Magazine

PIC

I haven't played Prototype, haven't played Red Faction: Guerilla yet, but of the new games out there I scarcely see how any can give you as much in a single, no-frills playthrough of the main story as Ghostbusters did. You'll get 110 for sleepwalking through the first level, 125 if you zap the ham and get knocked down by your own proton pack. Beating each stage also returns another 20 Gamerscore. These things don't take the word "achievement" very literally, IMHO.

If you're looking to finish off Father's Day weekend with some good old-fashioned achievement-whorin', TestFreaks Blog has a long list of titles, both retail and XBLA, that can prop up your overall gamerscore. You may have some laying around, who knows. But if anyone's got a recent game that offers as much score for as little work as Ghostbusters, let me know in the comments.

The Ultimate List: Best (And Worst) Retail & XBLA Games to Boost Your Gamerscore [Test Freaks, thanks Kristofer B.]

The presence of Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, the film's original writers and two of its leading actors, lent weight to the game as more than just a supernatural shooter involving familiar faux-technology. But we've seen impressive star power in movie adaptations before. So is Ghostbusters: The Video Game just a bunch of friends getting the band back together, or are we in for something more, a canonical sequel in its own right?

Loved
Multiplayer: This made me love the game all over again. It's deep and fun enough to keep you involved with Ghostbusters for well more than, say any rental period. You get instant action or cooperative campaigns - action being one "job" and campaigns being a series of them. Job types range from survival (destroy ghosts) to containment (trap them) to protection (protect a series of positions) and "thief" (a reverse-capture-the-flag, ghosts against you.) The ranking, achievements, and "most wanted" ghosts you encounter provide plenty of incentive to hang in there and pile up your score. The weapon enhancements you accumulate lend a semi-MMO quality to your online career. But mostly, it's just nonstop ghostbusting action, which is probably what made you reach for the game in the first place. I promised my review copy to a friend, and after finishing my first campaign, mailed it to him and raced back out to buy myself a copy so we could play together. That's how good the multiplayer is: It's $60 impulse-buy good, for someone who had the game for free.

Ghosts in a Ghost Land: Visually, Ghostbusters: The Video Game hits the original movie's art direction right on the screws. The phantasms carry on the themes of the original films, presenting the spirits as gross caricatures of their emotions and motivations. Not only is their look consistent, so is their behavior, and their ghostly swooping and darting, heedless of aerodynamics - as it should be. The more warped intersections of our world with the beyond are very impressively rendered; walls and ceilings disintegrate, the rubble drifting away into infinite, swirling backgrounds.

PKE Performance: Quite subtly, this game lets you decide what kind of Ghostbuster you want to be. If you want to blast your way through the game like a paranormal firefighter, go for it. But if you want to investigate a scene before cleaning it up, the PKE Meter is your tool. It exposes collectibles (worth money for upgrades) and scans ghosts, giving you some extra cash and filling up your notebook with some amusing histories. This should appeal to completionists, and very much extends the campaign mode's lifespan.

Doing damage: Destruction is an art in Ghostbusters, and the proton stream is your medium. Nearly everything in this game is destructible - most of it quite pointlessly, but that was Ghostbusters, wasn't it? A running dollar-figure arbitrarily totals up, the damage you do in your career. It's just a score, this has no effect on your in-game funds. Large insurance policies taken out by the city cover all the cleanup, and since this is set 14 years before Hurricane Katrina, you know they'll pay up. So go ahead and rake those priceless works of art with your slime blower. And after you finish a prolonged bout with all four Ghostbusters wrangling a platoon of spookies in a library basement, be sure to take a look around and admire your tableau of flickering scorch trails and slime puddles. It would make Jackson Pollack proud.

Ghost wrangling: On harder difficulties, the ghosts soar higher, and slamming them into the ground or walls takes greater effort. The venting option, too, is brilliant, forcing a reload-type mechanic on you without violating the infinite-ammo supply of a canonical proton pack. You'll have to develop your own methodology, when to deploy a capture stream, how to use it, and when to let go and vent the pack. Sometimes it can feel like you're not connected to anything on the other end. But sitting here writing this I'm still lured in by the whirring sound of the trap and the satisfaction of dragging some struggling ghoul down a flight of stairs, through stacks of books, and into confinement. Every one is a battle in its own right, rarely repetitive. I relished having ghosts to trap, even though they took much more work than those I blasted into infinity.

Dialogue: People speculated this game couldn't possibly be as funny as the film because Bill Murray's celebrated ad-libbing, said to be the source of so many quotable lines, isn't feasible in a mo-capped production. In a way, they're wrong. At times, the in-game banter substitutes for this ad-libbing, and some of the lines are bona fide howlers. Winston Zeddemore's obvious, yet subtly stated agitation at having to fight Confederate ghosts cracked me up so bad I had to hit pause. "I wish these traps had windows," he said, "it'd be like a little Vicksburg snow globe." Even the little things show you this was not some thrown-together script. In the game's first sequence, New York is rocked by a pulse of energy, passing through the Ghostbusters headquarters. Everyone staggers. A lesser writer would script out "What the hell was that?" or some other useless exclamation. Here, Harold Ramis calls for Egon to say, deadpan, "Was that us?" Just three words, but they instantly brought me back into the world of the Ghostbusters.

Hated:
Errata: For all of the above, Ghostbusters is not a perfect game. Here's an omnibus paragraph buttoning up the flaws, none of which on their own are enough to spoil the game but need to be mentioned. Single-player load times are a bitch, especially after repeatedly failing a mission. The single-player campaign upgrades are nice, but you'll have bought them all by the middle of the game, diminishing the incentive to do extras to earn them. For another reason, I felt a twang of disappointment midway through; the mystery seemed to be building up for an incredibly long experience, and then the story abruptly and conspicuously lurched into its resolution phase. Finally, in parts the game really could have used a map, or at least some way to highlight your next objective. In dimly lit environments it is not always obvious how to overcome the obstacle in front of you.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game is what a film adaptation should be - true to everything that made a movie a hit and a thrill ride in the first place, without shamefully exploiting itself. It's not the first good game of the season; but in a way you'll feel like summer has truly begun once you play Ghostbusters, a game that very much honors its blockbuster heritage.

Some might think that a game that brings in the entire core cast (minus one), two of whom are the original writers, should be a success born on third base. If so, why hasn't it been done until now? Because for everything in the gameplay and set design expected of a AAA title, that's what puts the shine on this experience. You want to be a Ghostbuster? Strap on the pack, because you are going to run with the real Ghostbusters. "This team plays to win!" Winston said, right before the finale, and I swear I swelled up with pride.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game was developed by Terminal Reality and published by Atari for the PlayStation 3, PC, and Xbox 360. Multiplayer developed by Threewave Software. A substantially different version is available for Wii and PS2, developed by Red Fly; Released on June 16. Retails for $59.99 PS3 and 360, $49.99 PC. Played the Xbox 360 version. Completed singleplayer campaign on "casual" difficulty; retested several levels of singleplayer on all difficulties; Played all online multiplayer modes.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

Microsoft flipped Xbox Live's on switch late last night, and while the snazzy new look of the Xbox.com website distracted many of us for a spell, various technical issues have been becoming more and more apparent as the day drags on. For starters, last week's Sega Vintage Collection 2 seems to have disappeared from the Xbox Live Marketplace altogether, and those games that are still available, including the three new releases, seem to be available for purchase but unavailable for download. I tried to download Magic: The Gathering myself, and was greeted by the screen you see here.

Another rampant issue seems to be the failure of pre-order codes for the Xbox 360 version of Ghostbusters. While owners of the PlayStation 3 version are reporting successful redemption, 360 owners aren't able to get their hands on their early-adapter bonus swag.

We've reached out to Microsoft for a status update on the issues, and are eagerly awaiting some sort of response. In the meantime, the Xbox.com support page has been updated with the following message:

Users may experience difficulties when attempting to use Marketplace and/or making purchases. We are aware of the problem and working to resolve the technical issues. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your patience.

At least we know they are aware of the problem. I'm just hoping they fix things soon, as I am starting to feel the shakes of pre-emptive Magic withdrawal.

That C64 game was actually one of the first I ever remember playing, and the entire I time i had a Commodore 64, I played the shit out of it. So it's nice to see the developers of the latest Ghostbusters game, Terminal Reality, paying homage to it in the above screenshot.

If you head upstairs in the firehouse in the new game, you'll see the terminal above displaying a weird message. Confused? It's the endgame screen you got in the old C64 game should you ever actually manage to finish the thing (pictured below). Which, for me at least, didn't happen very often.

[thanks Fareo!]

Harold Ramis is a funny guy, and he's writer and/or directed a bunch of funny movies: Caddyshack, Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day. Why does he think are the challenges of making games funny?

You would think comedy dies with repetition. Once you've heard a joke, you're not going to laugh the second time. And yet people keep revisiting their favorite funny films that they see over and over again. I hear this all the time, usually from unhappy wives who will tell me their husband has watched Caddyshack 100 times and they say it with a worried look on their face. Why do people keep watching Ghostbusters or any comedy film? It's not for the surprise. It's something that tickles them deep down and makes them feel good... In video games, it seems like the attraction of playing any videogame is that it gives you control over a world that you have no other access to... Once you've mastered a game, you kind of lose interest. Repetition in a game, you're not only dealing with the repetition of the comedy, but you're dealing with the repetition of the gamers mastering the game, itself. To make a game so funny with so many comic alternatives, that would be like writing three hit movies. The scripts are impossibly long. That would be a considerable investment. And I was thinking if you wrote that much comedy, chances are you would put it in a feature film.

Yes, of course, there are funny video games. Really funny games that put smiles on our faces. Tim Schafer keeps churning out hilarious games, and Erik Wolpaw always makes us chuckle — among others.

Ghostbusters: the Harold Ramis interview [GamesRadar via GoNintendo]

Ghostbusters enthusiast site Ecto-Web did a compare of the system requirements and, while noting an Internet connection is needed to authenticate the game, it has no point after that. Says Ecto-Web:

Which of the three realistic versions is getting the shaft? If you said, "PC", you're a winner! Compare the feature list of the PC with that of the PS3 and Xbox 360 and you'll notice that the PC does NOT have: Online multiplayer co-op (or any online activities at all!) and downloadable content, even though a PC game not only is capable of such features, PC gaming INVENTED those features!

Seems like a reasonable enough expectation, however, who's gonna pay for the space to host and find games, or the bandwidth to pipe you the DLC?

Behind the scenes, it may be a misnomer to call it DRM, but there is a copy protection scheme - you've got to authenticate your disc the first time you play the game, and that requires Interwebs. If the basic expectation of a PC gamer is that he has an internet connection, then it's a basic expectation, by now, that most PC games should have a multiplayer component.

Anyway, the game is out on Tuesday. If this was a determining factor in your decision to buy, consider yourself notified.

Ghostbusters Video Game Box Back & Specs [Ecto-Web, thanks CyborgMatt and Grady]

Hoping to beefed up its business resume, Distribution Partners is handling all Namco Bandai releases in Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Last March, Namco Bandai picked up a 34 percent stake in Atari Europe and is expected to acquire the remaining 66 percent from Atari parent Infogrames.

"We believe that DP will become a wholly-owned Namco Bandai games company soon," said Atari's European marketing head David Miller, "but this process requires time and we will comment further when we have an anticipated closing date."

Atari in America is still alive and plans to become an online-centric content producer. Even though Atari Europe is no more, Atari will have a UK branch in a London studio opened last September and headed up by former SingStar director Paulina Bozek.

Distribution Partners will be handling Atari title Ghostbusters on non-PS3 formats in regions outside the US.

Goodbye Atari, hello Namco [MCVUK]