Before hopping into the demos, TR reps walked us through a general overview of the game. The story finds the four main characters living a pretty respectable life as busters of ghosts, now that they've been officially sanctioned by the city. You take the role of a new recruit to the organization and join the team members as they investigate a dramatic spike in paranormal activity that's tied to their old enemy, Gozer. Specifics of the story weren't easy to come by, although it was noted that you'll see many of the familiar faces from the series in the game, most of which are being voiced by the original cast. From the sound of it, everyone except Rick Moranis and Sigourney Weaver has signed on to reprise their roles.

When the top-level stuff was over and done with, our demoers moved on to a series of demos to show off what Terminal Reality is aiming to put in the game. Ghostbusters is using the next generation of TR's Infernal engine, which allows for all manner of cool stuff to happen on the fly. The first demo showed off physics interactions with a ton of boxes that dropped into the middle of the room. Once they had all dropped, our demoer moved the character--decked out in full Ghostbusters gear--through them and even knocked them around with his proton stream. The gravity in the room then changed, which caused the glut of objects to hit the sides of the room at odd angles. Our demoer noted that physics are set to play a large part in the gameplay because of the various supernatural forces you have to deal with, but one of the team's goals is to ensure that they don't get in the way of having fun.

Once all the tech demos were over, we got a look at a more traditional gameplay demo that saw the new blood running with Ray Stantz (Akroyd) as they faced off against a resurrected Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. The sequence showed off a variety of different gameplay elements as the two made their way to the top of a high-rise. You'll rely on the PK scanner, an analyzer that some will remember from the films. The scanner lets you track ghosts, which makes it easy to flush them out and capture them. Before you can capture them, you'll need to smack them around with your proton beam, but this time out, you have a few other options, such as a dark-matter generator, a stasis beam, and the aforementioned slime tether. The standard proton beam has now been enhanced to fire off a powerful pulse to help knock around ghosts when you're in battle. This will give the game a more action-oriented run-and-gun feel. All told, you'll have four main weapons, each with primary and secondary firing modes, and roughly eight pieces of equipment to help you in your struggles.

Based on what we saw, Ghostbusters left us cautiously optimistic. There's neat tech on display to be sure, and the gameplay is certainly interesting. We're curious to see how everything works together in the final game. More importantly, we're super anxious to see how the story comes across. A strong narrative and humor will be key to giving the game the personality it will need to live up to its name. Look for more on Ghostbusters in the months to come with its release on the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360, and DS.