-a rom hack of "New Ghostbusters 2" for the NES-
review by: Dr. Boogie

It's been a long time since my last rom hack review. You'd think in that time, the rom hackers of the world would've put at least some effort into creating a decent rom hack. Well, just in time for Halloween, we have a brand new rom hack with special attention given to the "at least" part of my request, and no attention at all given to the "decent" part. From the mind of Shitdic, the man who shat out Druggy Final Fight and dicked around with Fucker's Quest, comes a hack of the often overlooked NES classic New Ghostbusters 2, entitled "Gay Ghostfuckers 2".

Luckily, I missed the original Gay Ghostfuckers.

Our North American readers are probably wondering what the hell "New Ghostbusters 2" is. As it turns out, there were two different NES games based on the second Ghostbusters movie: a hellacious sidescrolling game that was released in the US, and this one, which was released everywhere else. This one was made by HAL Laboratories, the same people who made one of my favorite game characters, Kirby. But the Kirby games are good games, and there is no reason to continue mentioning them in this article about homosexual parapsychologists.

Right off the bat, Shitdic would like you to know who is responsible for this travesty:

Company names changed? Check. Name and logo altered? Check. Crummy sprite alterations? Check. Source material defiled? Check. And there's something more...

At first, I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but something seemed subtly "off" about this hack. Something subtle in a rom, I wondered? Impossible. It's against the rom hackers' Constitution. Plus, it goes against the idea of only making shallow, superficial changes to the original game.

As unlikely as it seems, Shitdic has done more than screw up the old sprites and shuffling around the text: in the course of his hackery, he has managed to make the game run about 50% faster than the original. Granted, the 8-bit covers of the movie soundtrack still sound pretty good at that speed, but the game itself gets to be a little tougher. Not too much tougher, but enough to add a little extra irritation to the whole affair. And adding irritation is a classic rom hacker move.

Now, let's take a closer look at the titular (no innuendo intended) characters:

Yes, they're all nude. Could it have happened any other way? Winston being dark blue instead of black (well, brown), that was actually in the original. I guess they didn't want to reuse the color brown anywhere else. Of course, it doesn't really matter who you pick

Gayness, however, cannot be shown through mere nudity, and why should it? This is a rom hack, dammit. One penis per person is not going to convince me that the characters are pursuing an "alternate lifestyle".

The Ghostbusters' beams have turned from pink to white. Meh. More importantly, though, the ghost trap has been changed to a beige and blue parking meter that shoots out of your partner character. You know what city has a lot of parking meters? That's right, San Fancisco!

So there's little variety among the actual Ghostfuckers themselves. What about the ghosts/victims?

A giant infected-looking penis that shoots out of the toilet, aka The West Hollywood Bidet. Don't get too close! This one likes to shoot out at the slightest provocation.

When it comes to the basics of rom hacking, Shitdic makes his a double. Sex and Nazism, together once more. And to think, all Shitdic needed to do was give one of the ghosts a crack pipe and he could have completely filled out his shitty hack checklist.

In summation, "jogging ghost" becomes "jogging Hitler ghost," and his undead reich includes goose-stepping miners and fascist drink carts. But that's just the beginning.

Now the lineup of scary heads have been transformed into a bunch of crappy, flat heads. And also a "fag gaf" thrown in to remind you of the gay factor that is so critical to this hack.

See? Because he's holding a dildo that kind of looks like a shovel. The gays love manual labor. Remember the construction worker from the Village People? I rest my case.

This one is a bit more complicated. Shitdic has transformed this cyclop's morning star into "homo," but that's only half the story: I believe what he's trying to get across is how sometimes, he feels as though he is being pummeled by messages from the gay community, battered over the head by the gay agenda. Therefore, this character is really the kind of high-minded satire you might find in the pages of the New Yorker, or scribbled on the wall of a men's room.

Not every gay thing in this hack is the work of Shitdic, however. These pink... things, I'm not sure what you'd call them, were in the original game. Did Shitdic leave them in because he felt that pink animals equals gay animals? Oh, you naïve fool. For you see, these fluffy, peep-like creatures show up in level 3, and in level 2, you had floating heads that became misshapen smiley faces. As we saw in Fucker's Quest, the quality of a rom hack tends to decrease slowly over time, though in this case, it didn't start out all that great, so it's more of a smooth plateau that lasts for 2.5 levels.

But how about some altered bosses, huh? Bosses can give a rom hacker a real chance to shine.

For the Scoleri brothers, Shitdic has fallen back on an old rom hacker favorite popularized by famed persona non grata, Jomb: the pre-op transsexual. Meanwhile, the thin one just has his penis hanging out. Boooooring.

By comparison, just look what Shitdic did to the penultimate boss! Some weird Frankenstein's monster-looking creature with a giant forehead that shoots energy blasts out of his eyes and... Oh wait, sorry. That was in the original, too. Is that really what Peter MacNicol looks like to the Japanese? That poor man.

And so, the hacking pretty much ends after the third level. I figured there was no more thereafter, but then I saw the ending credits:

I'll say this about Shitdic: he may not give his all when it comes to graphics, but he can sure push some text around. Most rom hackers would just ignore the copyright info and end credits, but not Shitdic. He gives you important information about his ficticious company and a message about the main characters.

Again, though, graphics are not necessarily his strong point.

In some ways, this is a better showing than a game like Fucker's Quest because the hacked graphics don't flip back at the very end. They're still crappy and minimalist, but... No, you know what? It's crap. Crap all around. And the extra speed throws off the timing of everything, so you can't even ignore the crummy redressed sprites.

Verily, Shitdic, you haves drawn dicks, and created shit. Bravo.

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