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The ever awesome io9 has a post up that takes a look at great sci-fi themed attractions that have since been closed to make way for new attractions. The post was inspired by the return of the George Lucas directed and Michael Jackson starring Captain Eo to Disneyland out in California after a long hiatus.

Rides featured in the post include:

1. Back to the Future: The Ride
2. Kongfrontation
3. ReBoot: The Ride
4. Star Trek: The Experience
5. Stargate SG-3000
6. The Ghostbusters Spooktacular Show

I finally had a chance to ride Back to the Future: The Ride  back in 2006 when the family took a vacation down to Universal Studios the summer before my last year of undergrad. The film was a bit faded and you could tell that they hadn’t kept up on the maintenance as well as they might have, but those things tend to get glossed over in your mind when you’re finally seeing a ride that you’ve wanted to check out since you were a little kid.

On that same trip to Universal I managed to track down the location where they used to hold the Ghostbusters Spooktacular. There’s still a street at the theme park made up to look like a street in New York complete with a firehouse that boasts a “Paranormal Investigations” sign on one of the windows. You can also see the old Shandor building on the New York skyline in the background.

Unfortunately they decided to get rid of the Spooktacular in the mid-’90s to make way for a really lame Twister themed ride. But with Ghostbusters 3 finally seriously in the works and a resurgence in popularity there’s always the possibility that they’ll bring it back.

I also had the good fortune to check out Star Trek: The Experience a few months before it was shut down for good while on my honeymoon out in Vegas. My beautiful and endlessly patient wife accompanied me and took pictures as I geeked out in front of Trek memorabilia and went through the ride.

You could tell that The Experience was getting on in years as well, the film seemed faded if not quite as bad as Back to the Future and the ride’s version of the strip featured a few casinos that have since been imploded and was missing a few that have been built in recent years, but it was a blast nonetheless. I’m hoping that the excitement over the new J.J. Abrams Trek might be enough to get someone to revive that ride as well.

So click over to io9 to check out their summaries and view Youtube videos of all the rides in question if you were never lucky enough to see them in person.

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The Internet has been abuzz with how “totally hot” this tattoo is, proving that anything remotely geeky is usually enough to ratchet a girl up a few hotness notches in the eyes of most geeks. Being a happily married man myself I shall refrain from any such drooling fanboy nonsense…

Wait a sec, is that a Staypuft Marshmallow Man tattoo I see peeking out of the bottom of the shot?

Get’er!

Heh. That was your whole plan, huh? “Get her!” Very scientific.

But seriously guys. The tattoo is pretty cool, but I wouldn’t exactly go making wedding plans and figuring out the perfect school district to raise your kids because someone happens to be willing to permanently ink themselves with ’80s and ’90s pop culture references. You should at least go on a date first, play it cool, see how things go, y’know?

Via Reddit.

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I’m not the most objective person when it comes to anything Ghostbusters. I was an avid fan of The Real Ghostbusters when I was a little kid, and I may or may not have built a screen accurate proton pack and wired it for lights and sound with parts from around the house and some plans from the Internet.

Most recently my obsession with the franchise led me to buy an Xbox 360 just to play the game when I realized my PC wasn’t up to the task of running anything more taxin than Warcraft. And as a die-hard fan of the series who has had a chance to play through the first couple of missions I can now safely say that the game is nothing short of awesome with a few minor reservations.

Single Player:

Ivan Reitman once described Ghostbusters as a simple story about starting a business that just happened to involve the paranormal, and the best Ghostbusters games of the past have centered on that theme to varying degrees. The original Commodore 64 Ghostbusters game focused on building your business and amassing enough wealth to buy the ultimate weapon to defeat Gozer. The Genesis metroidvania take on the franchise in the early 90s focused on busting ghosts to build your business and buy better weapons that exploited various weaknesses in level bosses, Megaman style. The pen and paper Ghostbusters International game of the late 80s was built around the idea of creating a new franchise in your location and having adventures.

The less said about any other game with the Ghostbusters license on any other system the better.

The new Ghostbusters game incorporates some, but not all, of these elements. Powerups to your equipment can be purchased from the pause screen on the fly from anywhere in the game without the necessity of backing out of a level and going to a separate item store, which is a refreshing and convenient design decision. Other than breaking things and collecting money for upgrades, however, there really isn’t any other hint of trying to build your franchise as you go along with the story busting heads in a spiritual sense. While this might be disappointing to the me demographic who thinks that resource management simulations improve almost any game, this was undoubtedly a sound design decision for the population in general who just wants to go in with proton guns blazing.

Busting makes you feel good.

And boy do they blaze. Ghosts go flying across the screen at breakneck speeds as you creep down dark passages creating a sense of unease that certainly belies the motto “I ain’t fraid of no ghost.” Reanimated bits of the environment jump out at you with little to no warning, and the only thing between you and a one-way ticket to the other side is your trusty proton gun and a variety of assorted upgrades that you get to play with as an “experimental equipment tester.” Each ghost a set amount of psychokinetic energy (a stand in f or the health bar) that you must drain with some ghosts simply dispersing while others must be wrangled into traps for safe keeping.

That ghost wrangling is really where the game shines. Capturing ghosts is embodies the essence of good game design: easy to learn but difficult to master. It’s entirely possible to go through the game on Casual difficulty with nothing but the proton stream, but taking the time to master some of the tricks from the upgrade weapons is the only way to shine at higher difficulties and online.

So is Ghostbusters worth the price? Definitely. The single player campaign provides solid gameplay with plenty of replay value, and the humor and Ghostbusters 3 plot are icing on the cake for anyone who grew up in the 80s or early 90s.

In the next post I’ll tackle the online component and see how fun busting is with three of your friends.

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Wife: I knew we were going to do this.

Me: Do what?

Wife: You said “Oh no, I don’t want to play the Ghostbusters game that bad. I’m gonna wait. And here we are buying an Xbox and the game.”

My wife knows me better than I know myself. And she’s kickass enough to go out on a moments notice with me to buy an Xbox. And if Mario games are any indication, she’ll be trouncing me in Halo by the end of the week.

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