GhostControl Inc.

No, even on sale it's not worth it. Too grindy and too retro (in a bad way) - not only graphics, but controls and gameplay too.

Its like Ghostbusters crossed with X-Com lite. Why did I stop playing this again? *Barely an hour or two into new game and ghosts gets glitched creating unwinnable encounter*

Oh yeah, fucking jank.

“Who you gonna call?”
~Ray Parker Jr.

I love the concept, and the equipment system and ghost variety is decent.

But it falls very short in the execution department. You respond to calls by driving to their location on the map... but you need to keep your car gassed up to get anywhere, and there's only a couple of gas stations in the city, meaning you spend more time trying to just keep your car fueled than actually responding to calls. And then if you take too long an opposing company will respond and you lose your chance.

Inventory/gear management was also a little obnoxious.

I was disappointed at the end of the day. I was hoping for more base management a la XCOM and less driving around wasting money on a weird mechanic.

I really wish there was a broader rating scale for games like this. This isn't a really *bad* game. In fact, it's pretty fun for the first little while. The concept is great, the gameplay is well-thought out, it looks nice, if I was an indy dev, I'm sure I'd be very proud of it.

The problem is that is that just gets kind of repetitive and grind after a few hours. It feels like you're just doing the same thing over and over again. There's no real story or content to keep it interesting. I had similar issues with FTL, honestly.

I'd give it 3 out of 5 stars, maybe 65% or so. But when the ratings comes down to "would you recommend it or not," the answer is no, not really.

GhostControl Inc sounds like a bargain title name used in a cartoon or TV show to denote a Ghostbusters-like title they need for background noise without actually paying for GhostBuster royalties for clips.
If you think this, you'd be right. Is this game just as cheap? Somewhat but that's a good thing.

For the price of 15 dollars you get a tactical strategy game set on a isometric map that is turn based.
You are managing a team of Ghost Hunters who use vacuum based weaponry and toaster traps to fight and capture spirits, slowly earning money to become better at your trade.

You can upgrade your weapons, characters, vehicle, and HQ. In a way it does remind me of the early GhostBuster game from the Commodore 64. In small casual doses it can be fun. Don't expect to binge nonstop on this because you'll eat through the game very quickly.

However despite the small dose of fun you get, there are drawbacks.
The music is fairly small in selection and very repetitive, so expect to turn it down or off after the first 20 minutes of play.
The artwork, though not the greatest, does the job decently.
The map feels very small for play, but at the same time that small size allows you to zip around the city at a fair clip.

So if I have these problems, then what's the good of the game? Honestly it feels good because of how simple it is. This game's small maps and limited UI doesn't require too much thinking. Lay the trap down, zap the ghost, and don't spend so much time on the map either the location is destroyed or your hunter's sanity (the health meter) goes to 0 and they run away. Your characters don't die as far as I can tell so it can be a forgiving game.

So going back to the beginning of this review, GhostControl Inc sounds like a low budget GhostBusters without the royalties and it is, but it does what it says: Capture these spooky ghosts, earn money, and keep doing it. There's no big story, no grandiose plot, no DLC, no controversy, it is very much that trope of "What's on the tin".

For the financially minded, if $15 is to much to spend on a cheap but fun game, wait for sale then. Aside from that, I don't mind that I got this at full price. The amount of money I put into this game would equal DLC on a big budget game that would maybe provide a portion of fun or an outfit in a MMO. For that amount of cash, I get a fairly casual and fun knock off of a beloved title from my childhood.

Get it, play it, forget it is in your library, then reinstall it again for a quick hit of fun. That's my recommendation.

I REALLY want to recommend this. It's an updated version of the old classic Ghostbusters, with some additional turn based combat for good measure. And what's there works.

Unfortunately, the game has numerous bugs, some major. And as the developers show no inclination to patch them I can't in good conscience recommend this to anyone.

Such a shame. If the bugs were fixed this would be a great game

So the two things this game is going to be compared to over and over are Ghostbusters and X-Com. Right of the bat, that's a good thing. What made X-Com special is not just the tactical mission side of the game, but the director side where you maintain your base, research new technologies, and oversee your world defense organization. What made Ghostbusters special was not just the comedy and special effects, but the story of these 3 guys with this crazy idea starting a business, hiring new help, struggling with low funds, and blowing up into a successful organization. Ghostcontrol takes both these ideas and melds them together wonderfully like a tasty peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But how does the game handle the two ideas individually?

When compared to X-Com, Ghost Control is a lot lighter in every aspect. The strategy is shrunk down to just two moves per turn, a smaller number of members in your party, less research opportunities, less ways to spend money, less ways to make money, and overall sort of a watered down version of X-Com. This is great for beginners to the genre, but can feel a little stale if you were expecting a very deep turn based game.

When compared to Ghostbusters, the comedy falls flat, the ghosts are not as imaginative, and the variety of technology is varied but forgettable. The rival companies are a nice touch and overall you can see the Ghostbusters influence and this might scratch your itch if you were really hurting for some Ghostbustin' action.

The graphics are retro and look nice, very similar to the original X-Com. The animation is very poor and I really wish we could get more flavor for the ghost attacks. You hardly ever know what they're doing and what it affects if you don't pay attention to your characters' stats. The sound is just fine but the voice-overs are probably the lowest scoring aspect of the game. This game has an outstanding outline but it lacks flair. It’s not just the notes on the paper, but the musician playing the music that makes something great. This game has the notes, but the guy on the kazoo is not doing it for me.

It's a fantastic idea for a game because too often we just get action shoots from the Ghostbusters franchise and every X-Com clone deals with aliens and gritty darkness. This game really combines the two elements well and it's a fun game, but it needs a lot of work. It needs some better writing for the comedy, it needs some better animators, a slight boost in the art like basic shading, some more imagination in the tech (oh great a get a vacuum cleaner for a weapon) and it needs just more content. I don’t want a 1 point boost in my weapon stats for research, I want to create new technology that’s going to give my company the boost it needs over rival companies.

I'm going to give it a recommendation BUT I would wait for a sale. If you're looking for something as heavy as X-Com, look somewhere else. If, however, you like the idea of X-Com and really enjoy the idea of starting your own Ghostbusters business and you're ok with a light indie game, Ghostcontrol might definitely be for you.

The game's theme is brilliant. I've always wanted a Ghostbuster game that tackles the actual business of ghost hunting. So naturally, I backed the game on Kickstarter. Unfortunately, the execution did not live up to my expectations. The combat portions of the game involves pushing and pulling ghosts into a capture device, with very little in variation in equipment. This very quickly gets dull. And on the strategic layer of managing your business, there just simply isn't much to do.

I expected this to be a simplified X-com game that would be fun because of nostalgia. It ended up being way too simple to keep my interest past a few missions.

I was intrigued by the promise of a "ghost business simulator." That is a flat out misnomer. You grind missions to buy things, there is no business simulation going on.

I'm leaving a poor review mainly because I spent $14.99 on this, which is way overpriced. If it had been $3.99 I would have just forgotten about it.

Only buy this game if its 75% off or more. You'll get 5 hours out of this game and I'll explain why.

The game starts out fun. Its like a combination of the old Ghostbusters game (minus the ghost catching driving sections) for the 128K era mixed with X-Com. You can buy equipment, upgrade equipment, upgrade your HQ and buy new vehicles. So far so good, and then you relise thats it - the game is grindy and repetitive, and not in a fun way like Diable 2

There is little variety in the ghosts and their behaviour, the items don't really work as intended such as the beam weapons. You have a scientist who you can take with you to catch ghosts but they seem to be at a disadvantage so you just leave them at the base.

If you've taken a look a look at the Kickstarter, you can see that 2 additional cities were funded, but there is just London in the game. I feel sorry for anyone who backed the game as they clearly didn't quite get everything they were promised.

Ghost Control Inc seemingly has everything going for it. It's a game where you essentially play team manager for Ghosbusters! And it has a nearly-perfect blend of tactics and management gameplay! What could possibly be more fun?

Unfortunately, the game is marred by several issues.

Firstly, the art direction is uneven at best. Most of the ghosts have very uninspired designs that won't stick in your mind like those of other franchises involving catching ghosts. Several of the ghosts are just recolors or slight redesigns of the lower level ghosts you fight early in the game, so they're both boring to look at and repetitive. This also makes it slightly harder to tell what you're figthing at times.

Secondly, the writing is just atrocious. This isn't a story-driven game by any means, but there's still quite a bit of text, both in item/ghost descriptions and in the dialogue where you're offered missions. It often tries to be humorous but falls incredibly flat, to the point where you'll probably stop reading it after a while. There are also many spelling and grammatical errors throughout the game. The dev team's native language is obviously not english, which explains this problem but doesn't excuse it, as they should really have hired someone who could do a better job localizing the text.

The poor writing also affects the central story, such as it is. Certainly, the real story of the game is just managing your team, but there is an attempt at a mounting threat, but it's very bare bones and unengaging, and marred by more failed attempts at humor. Again, a certain other ghost-catching series knew how to build up a supernatural threat...

Lastly, the game is just incredibly janky and buggy. Crashes are relatively common, items will sometimes not equip properly, the interface will ignore your input, performance will start chugging wildly after playing for more than an hour, certain items and features won't unlock when they're supposed to, and most importantly, saved games will load incorrectly, switching character positions and stats around willy-nilly. It's a very frustrating experience to try to play a full campaign, as the game becomes less and less stable the more you progress and save.

While I would love to recommend this game, I simply can't in the state it's currently in. Some of the problems are down to personal taste, but a buggy game that doesn't save your progress is something that no one should buy.

Getting this game on sale may be the only time to get this game.

With that said I just about experienced all of the game within six hours. The best pull for me, at first, was the busting of Ghosts. Sadly the charm wears off quickly as you realize things peak with better equipment. Any nervousness goes away and not much of a challenge is left. I believe there isn’t much of a game once you hit that point and nothing to really drive towards with all of the bust and making money.

The best part of this game is the art, music, and honestly the humor. I found a lot of it charming and had fun with it for a few hours.

Mostly I would recommend, as is, if the price comes down. If there was an overarching drive for the player to keep going then I’d feel much better about the game and feel it was worth playing the time I spent.

This game is fun. Very fun...but there's not much to it. The game ends after a couple of hours and it tells you to move to a new city that hasn't even been implemented yet. This would be fine for a new game, but this game has been out almost 2 years. There are posts on the message boards from the developers saying they are working on content back in July of 2015. Still nothing new has came. IF you can get this on a sale for a couple of dollars, then great, get it...but don't pay full price. This game isn't completed and doesn't look like it ever will be.

In a nutshell, what you're basically looking at with Ghost Control is not so much a business simulation game but something more akin to an X-COM with a ghostbusters theme. Just like X-COM, you have to manage and upgrade your HQ, but the HQ management doesn't really require much careful decision making or strategy. It's more like just waiting until you have enough money to purchase a thing and then purchasing it. So there is base management, but it's not complex enough to really feel like a true business sim, and it's frankly not even as complex as the base management in X-COM.

You're going to be doing a lot of tactical battles in this game, and this is another area where the game is basically similar to X-COM but a lot more simplified. You have 2 action points per turn, you fire ranged weapons that have a certain % chance to hit or not based on the particular character's aim stat, and your objective is always to eliminate all ghosts. Where it is different from X-COM is that there are pretty much only two weapons at your disposal: beam guns and traps. However the guns can have different effects (e.g. pushing enemies back, pulling enemies toward you, stunning enemies, multiplying dmg dealt by allies' beams, etc). The traps can also have a range of different perks (e.g. some traps require a ghost to be on the same square, whereas others have an AoE trap effect. Some traps can only be dropped next to you while other traps can be slung a short distance toward the target. Some traps only capture ghosts, while some traps can still stun or dmg a ghost even if failing to capture it, etc).

One thing that is a notably creative feature of this game that makes it more interesting than X-COM or other similar tactical games is the ghost trapping gameplay. This is a truly original idea that in my opinion is the game's most interesting and defining feature. In a lot of these tactical games where you're controlling squads of dudes with guns, you're usually tasked with shooting all the enemies until they are dead or incapacitated. In Ghost Control, all of your enemies are ghosts, so you can't actually kill them. All you can do is shoot them to reduce their "energy level", which can greatly reduce their mobility if low enough, but it also makes them susceptible to being trapped. Your ghost traps have a "max energy level" requirement, which indicates the max energy level ghost it is able to trap. But lowering the ghost's energy level below this maximum makes the trap more likely to succeed. So what you are trying to do is shoot the ghosts to drop their energy level to 0, then position the ghost over a trap to permanently remove it from the field. But remember how beam weapons have certain effects, such as push/pull? This means you can throw a trap on the ground and hurt a ghost AS YOU ARE PULLING it toward you and onto a trap. Or an ally can throw down a trap and you can use a push-type beam to push the ghost onto an ally's trap. Or you can position a ghost on tap of a trap and hit it with a stun-type beam to prevent it from escaping the trap range and boost the odds of a successful trap. This is pushing/pulling ghosts onto traps to eliminate them is an excellent way of capturing the spirit of ghostbusters in a tactical game, and I commend the designers for thinking of it.

One kinda negative thing about the combat is that many of the maps are very cramped for space. You'll be fighting ghosts in a lot of houses and offices, and it really limits your tactical options when the hallways or paths around furniture only allow one ally to pass through at a time. Based on conversation with other players, though, it seems that some people enjoy the challenge of having their mobility greatly restricted in this way. Another positive is that it also restricts the mobility of many ghosts (save for a few ghosts that will teleport or phase through walls). So it could be that you'll find that to be a positive, but just know that residential/office levels put you in VERY tight spaces. The designers realized that the residential/office maps are very cramped, though, so as a counterbalance there are also park/tunnel missions that are more about battling in wide open spaces.

The negative of these tight spaces is not just how it affects gameplay/mobility, though. It also means that there is just a lot of.... STUFF... piled up on the screen. If you are using the default view on residential/office levels, it can be almost impossible to see your characters or where the possible walking paths are. There is some helpful tools in the game to cope with this. For example, walls and furniture become transparent when the cursor is within a certain range. You can also press shift to turn walls and furniture completely off. So there are ways of dealing with it, but some may still be slightly put off by the default view feeling so cluttered.

In terms of the flow of the game, it does feel like it starts to run out of steam after several hours. There are objectives to meet, base upgrades to buy, weapon upgrades to buy, and of course the ghosts will become more challenging. But the game sort of has the same problem as The Elder Scrolls, where at some point you realize that the game basically boils down to 1) kill everything in dungeon, 2) sell everything from dungeon, 3) use money made from selling everything in previous dungeon to buy better things that let you kill everything in an even bigger dungeon, 4) repeat times infinity.

If you love ghostbusters and you love x-com style games, and if you are fine with the old school look/feel, then it may be a game worth checking out.

My verdict using the criteria below is that the game ranks around a 4..

7) A classic, essential, and/or must-buy game that is worth full price.
6) A good game that is worth the full price.
5) A pretty good game worth checking out--especially if discounted.
4) A pretty good game, but I would recommend buying it discounted.
3) Worth checking out, but I would recommend buying it heavily discounted.
2) Only worth checking out if you are dangerously curious.
1) Avoid at all costs.

If you enjoy Turn-Based Strategy, Ghost Busters and/or Business Management, there is no way I could recommend this game more highly than I do right now.

Pros: Ghost Busters Simulator (but not so much like Ghost Busters it feels like plagiarism), a great depth of tactics and strategy afforded by different character classes (not so much) and a huge arsenal of weapons with varying abilities (this is what truly adds the depth of strategy), a decent amount of monsters that handle uniquely and require different strategies, decent replayability, great humor in dialogue and missions.

Cons: Buggy achievements, certain combinations of enemies can lead one to feeling like it was a cheap defeat, eventually you WILL run out of things to do (and unfortunately this doesn't take a HUGE amount of time to happen), rather limited party (three in the field at any given time even though you can hire quite a bit more, there just isn't any reason too, especially since stats level up with character usage, it's rarely beneficial to use anything but the same 3 characters in the field.)

Of course, pros and cons paints a pretty limited picture. This game has a lot of interesting systems and mechanics from weapon upgrades, vehicle upgrades and even base upgrades. There is a lot to do in this game and a lot to see, but most people will probably beat in a week with casual play times, a few days with more dedicated time and for the truly dedicated it could easily be beaten in a day.

As much as this game is amazing, and especially with additional content currently in limbo as it's been some time since an update, I would only recommend this game at full price to people who are FANS of all genres this game caters to and fans of the Ghost Buster angle. For everyone else, I recommend waiting til this goes on sale.

Personal Rating: 9/10 (charming pixel graphics, great audio, good controls, amazing game play and content.)
Unbiased Rating: 7/10 (short "campaign", aka list of objectives, buggy achievements, unsure future for the game, steep-ish price for the amount of current content.)

Also, my biggest gripe with this game is how ridiculously overpriced the emotes are, I want to collect them all!

The Game started out to be very nice for about 3h of playtime.

But then it got more and more boaring. Since there is nothing else to do than you already did in the first 3 hours
.
-Buy a bigger HQ,
-Fight the same Ghosts for money
-upgrade weapons
-buy a new car
and that repeats all over again until you are boared to death.

This is a very good concept and awful execution.
The UI is clumsy, controls seriously lacking in any design and there is no real depth to this game. Gamapley is also riddled with, lack of, design where you receive mission calls at random times, and random positions with random stength that you won't know until you get on site and realize that your single crew member, because you've just started, is not good enough to go against 6 ghosts, hell you don't even have that many traps on you!
Progression is also very liniear and non-imaginative, as new weapons are simply +1s to various stats and super powers, quirky abilities are rare to come and see.

+ Ghostbusters nostalgia
+ Cool retro graphics
+ Plenty of upgrades
+ X-com turn-based combat

+/- Just a few things to buy for your base, therefore moving to a bigger building doesn't really do anything except to give you the illusion that you're getting bigger as a company
+/ Insanity is a cool mechanic but instead of permanently limiting your character for the entirety of a battle (for example, by limiting your AP, or decreasing weapon damage) they become completely useless when the bar is (almost) depleted
+/- Buildings can feel small and crowded, some of them not built with a few of the unlocked weapons in mind (weapons that require a certain distance before you can actually fire them)

- A couple of gamebreaking bugs
- Upgrading your crew not really worth it if you have to wait for longer periods, especially if they could go insane later on
- Competitors don't really influence your business, feels underused

Small note: the game would've been more fun if it was in 3D I think, giving you a better overview by using a rotating camera. But obviously I understand the decision to make it 2D, as it probably would've cost much, much more.

[Rating: 81/100]

Essentially a modern day non IP related version of the classic Ghostbusters game from the 80s. Great music despite not having any of the actual tracks from the movie and the gameplay of running a "Ghost Control" business was fun. The only catch is that there isn't much meat to the gameplay either in terms of running the business or capturing ghosts. But it's a great foundation and something that I hope we see developed further or get a fully fleshed out sequel from.

GhostControl Inc. is an enjoyable turn based game with some management sim flavor. The closest game I can think of would be XCOM, but in GhostControl you are running a ghost hunting company (think Ghost Busters) instead of running a secret government agency tasked with defending earth from alien attack.

In GCE you'll have to manage your team, a base, and your car. You can recruit additional members for your team from your home office and must keep their sanity maintained, periodically visiting a hospital to "repair" that sanity. Your base is where you'll drop off your ghost goo and perform various other tasks. And while out roaming the town waiting for calls from new potential clients, you have to remember to keep the car gassed up with a few gas stations around the town.

*[While the game is actually quite enjoyable from my experiences thus far, there are a couple minor issues that can be frustrating. One such issue is the fact that every time you select a team member for their turn, their inventory screen pops up in the bottom middle of the screen blocking your view (they can be moved and if you remember to move them, and not close them, on your first couple turns it's easily fixed).]

*[Edit: 6/10/2014: This issue has been fixed and I haven't noticed any other real issues]

All in all though, a very enjoyable game. I'd give it a solid 8/10 from my experience so far.

*[Edit 2: 6/10/2014: As you can see from the comments to this review, the devs care a great deal about their game. I'd give the game at least a 9/10 now]

Ever since that fateful incident with my neighbor lady's cat and a vacuum cleaner (sorry Cinnamon!), I've tried to find a healthy outlet for my ghost busting fantasies. Until now it has been fruitless. UNTIL NOW. "Ghost Control Inc." provides such an outlet. Part management sim, Part XCOM combat/base strategy, this is a fun little distraction of a game. You name your starting character (My guy is Fat Indiana... you'll know him when you see him) and start your own paranormal cleaning service (I named mine the Ghost Murderers). Time passes as you sit in HQ, upgrading, hiring, firing, and managing equipment - that is until your cell phone rings and your services are required. Then you load up your vehicle, prep your team, and head out; make sure to beat the competition there.

Combat is deceptively simple. Your team opens doors, turns on lights, and encounters nasty ghoulies. Hit them with your lasers until they're worn down and lay down a trap. It's pretty satisfying to wreck ghosts in a fun, lighthearted atmosphere. Your team will suffer physical (and mental) wear-and-tear, so you'll have to swing by the hospital. Your car needs gas, so you'll get that too. And obviously as your business expands, the ghosts will amp up their game. You'll need to buy more equipment and hire new people.

If you like XCOM, if you're a fan of management games, or if you have fond memories of a certain iconic franchise, I can recommend this wholeheartedly. I've just got one question: who ya gonna call?

PS: Do NOT call the Ghost Murderers, they are highly unprofessional.

Seems like a rather nice casual TurnBasedStrategy game. Simple mechanics (for a turnbased veteran at least, but not too simple that it gets booring) that are still rather engageing and forgiving.

Small quick maps, that can still potentially overwhelm you.

It's not X-com: Ufo Defense or Jagged Alliance 2. (Or the newer ones: Xenonauts or JA: Flashback) but still lots of fun.

The turorials are nice and clear. The random newscasts are somewhat entertaining :D

I have not had any problems with it so far.