Head2Head – Ghostbusters Which version of Ghostbusters gets a face full of Ectoplasmic slime, and which one comes out with the clean victory?

Welcome back for another exciting Head2Head battle!  This week at the Lens of Truth we had an amazing opportunity to play the much anticipated Ghostbusters: The Video Game almost a week before the release date. This exclusive was made possible by our folks at Play N Trade (Oviedo, FL) who, once again, let us borrow their store preview copies for this Head2Head. We thank Play N Trade for making this possible, we really appreciate it. If you’re planning on buying this game then you’re gonna want to stick around for this one! The differences will blow your mind, as it did for us and the other 100+ viewers who watched us compare it live last Friday on Justin.tv. Let’s just say that it looked like one game got slimed with 50% less texture quality!

Graphically this was a very impressive game, if you’re playing the Xbox 360 version that is. To start, they both had noticeable screen tearing and both games seem to be in the same ball park with aliasing issues, but that’s were the similarities stopped. The big issue was in the texture quality, and let me tell you it was a huge difference! The texture quality for the PlayStation 3 left us shaking our heads in disbelief. This went beyond the traditional consoles rendering textures differently, as we’ve seen in other Head2Heads, the PlayStation 3 seemed to have ½ the texture quality of the Xbox 360 and in other areas, even less. This was present on all the PlayStation 3 textures, normal maps, spec maps, light maps, etc. even the dynamic shadow maps looked blocky and half the quality of the Xbox 360. To add insult to injury, the PlayStation 3 also had some serious compression happening on their texture maps resulting in banding and blockiness that couldn’t be ignored.  One other issue that must be noted on the PlayStation 3 version is the actual game resolution. This is by far the blurriest “720p” game we have seen to date. If we had to guess, Ghostbusters on the PlayStation 3 is running at sub 720p.

We also noticed some effects were missing in the PlayStation 3 version, for example in the game when you fired your proton beam at the environment a burn mark would cover the surface in this black charred texture decal. The Xbox 360 had an extra layer of texture creating a burnt ember effect that looked really cool, especially in dark areas. Whelp, the PlayStation 3 didn’t have it. However, we feel it’s important to mention the texture glitch we found during our capture. At one point during the capture we ended up in an elevator right after a cut scene. As we transitioned from the cut scene to the game the Xbox 360 had some really low res textures displaying. In fact, the texture quality looked almost identical to the PS3′s textures, (without the compression) but as soon as we moved the camera the textures popped in. Now before you get all giddy we also did the same thing for the PS3 and of course it didn’t fix their texture issues. Nonetheless, even with the glitch that only seemed to happen in one area on the Xbox 360 , the Xbox 360 surpassed the PlayStation 3 without a question.

Both games seemed to perform the same in terms of loading, but we had to give the win to the Xbox 360 because of the mandatory install the PlayStation 3 had. Personally, I hate mandatory installs, and I hate it even more when it doesn’t help a game look, play or load faster. The install was approximately 3.9 gigs and took roughly 8 minutes to install.

Roll over to see differences.

Roll over to see differences. Notice the missing shadow cast by Ray on the PlayStation 3.

Roll over to see differences.

Roll over to see differences. Notice the lower resolution dynamic shadow maps on the PlayStation 3.

Roll over to see differences.

Roll over to see differences.

Roll over to see differences.

I was really disappointed in the outcome of this Head2Head. There is no reason that the PlayStation 3 version should have looked this bad. I love my PlayStation 3 and so does the rest of the guys at the Lens of Truth. We’re really baffled by what happened here because I, like many others, were under the impression the game was developed on the PlayStation 3. Why were we under this impression? Because of this little interview that VG247 had with the president of Terminal Reality, Mark Randel. Here is a snippet:

MR : Personally, I want to show off our PS3 technology. We’re one of the few developers who love the PS3 and have a great time with it. We have great technology for the PS3 and we want to show it off.

VG247: Isn’t it the same for the 360?

MR: We’re running the same game for both platforms but if we made a PS3-only game, for example, you could double the amount of objects on screen that you’re seeing. The PlayStation 3 has seven processors and the 360 only has three, so seven versus three means you can do a lot more on the PS3. We’re keeping the game the same over both platforms so we don’t want to take out any features.

VG247: So is the game scaled down because of the limitations of the 360?

MR : For example, we’ve reserved one whole processor on the PS3 for Dolby Digital 5.1 sound whereas on the 360 you have part of one processor to do that. So we can have a lot better sound mixing and a lot more effects going on at the same time. That kinds of makes us do a little bit less in the game [360] but makes for better audio. If we’re doing a PS3 only game however, we could be doing a lot more. We could be pushing a lot more on the screen.

So what happened? For pete’s sake, Sony owns Paramount! Like I said a million times before, Sony needs to step up to these developers. How does EA do it? Fight Night Round 4 was almost identical and there’s no reason why GhostBusters couldn’t have been. Whatever the case, I liked to think we did a good deed playing the game almost a week before the release date. At least I know I would be pissed if I dropped $60 on the PlayStation 3 version and not the Xbox 360. Now if you only own a PlayStation 3 then don’t read this article because it’s still a good game and you’ll have fun with it regardless; but for those who own both systems the winning choice is obvious.

	G R A P H I C S
	PlayStation 3 loses by half, literally. The PlayStation 3′s textures were half the resolution as the Xbox 360. Also, PlayStation 3 was quite blurry and seemed to be running sub 720p. Also, lets not forget the missing ember effects and lower resolution dynamic shadow maps.
	P E R F O R M A N C E
	Tie. Both systems showed screen tearing and both were aliased.
	C O N T R O L
	Tie. Controls were exactly the same.
	L O A D I N G
	PlayStation 3 had a 3.9 gig mandatory install that didn’t change the load times, performance, and most of all, didn’t fix the texture issues.
	O U T C O M E
	Xbox 360 wins this by a landslide. If we didn’t know any better we would have thought the Ghostbusters was developed on the Xbox 360 and ported, poorly, to the PlayStation 3. However all sources indicate the PS3 was the lead, and so you’ve got an issue on your hands. Either someone is lying, or the porting team does better work then the lead team. Don’t believe the lies, buy this game on the Xbox 360.