Who wouldn’t want to be a member of the Ghostbusters?  (No, not the new version.  I’m talking about the version with Venkman and Ray and Egon.)  I got a chance to try when, while exploring the dark side of the Internet Archive, I played Ghostbusters — Basic Training (1987, Activision, Inc.).

Unfortunately, it turns out that catching ghosts is far more difficult than I originally assumed.

This is what the game starts with.  A night in a haunted house?  No problem, I can do that standing on my head.  I pressed return.

There’s the familiar logo!  I pressed return again.

Good.  I’m in front of the house.  Let’s get started with the training.  From my own experience playing text adventures, I know that the first thing I should do is check my inventory.

A text adventure that does not understand one of the most basic commands in interactive fiction?  That seems strange but I’ll adjust.  Since the description of my location disappeared when I typed in inventory, I’ll take another look around.

“Look,” I type.

An adventure game that doesn’t know the look command?  I search my memory and try to remember the directions that were previously listed.  The house was to the northwest.

“NW” I type.

“Northwest”

What?  Maybe I got the directions wrong.

“North”

“South.”

“East.”

“West.”

“Go house.”

“Go porch.”

“Annoyed.”

“Rage”

You get the idea.  Because the game and I are speaking different languages, I have yet to actually enter the house and get trained.  I haven’t even managed to step on the porch yet.

I’m never going to be a Ghostbuster.