More than 30 years since its release, Ernie Hudson’s character finally appears in the Sega Genesis classic Ghostbusters.
Who doesn’t remember the classic Ghostbusters? Although the latest movies have left much to be desired, Ghostbusters has a very precious place in the hearts of many. The same goes for the Ghostbusters game for the SEGA Genesis. However, the favorite character of many was not playable.
Winston Zeddemore was the only character in the movie that was not playable. He simply never existed in the game. But we all imagined Winston jumping through the different scenarios. A group of fans has finally managed to introduce Winston, and he fits perfectly into the title.
Zeddemore was never planned as part of the game
For those who don’t know the title, Ghostbusters (1990) from the SEGA Genesis was one of the most renowned games on the console. For the time, it managed to convey how fun, adventurous, and absurd the movie was. It’s simply something that was groundbreaking. But this game had a serious flaw: There were only three characters!
Yes, you read that correctly. Only Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), Egon Spengler (the late Harold Ramis), and Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) were available. Ernie Hudson, the fourth character in the movie, was not added. But this is not uncommon. Actually, the production company didn’t have Hudson’s character very much in mind across posters, advertising, and more. They never took Hudson into account even though he was, without a doubt, a fan favorite character.
Not only that, the three developers of the hacked ROM found something important inside the title. BillyTime! Games, Master Lunkeui, and Danilo Diaz found in the lines of code that Zeddemore was never intended to be added to the game. In fact, there is no mention of the character’s name in any line of code. This simply encouraged these developers to include Winston through a ROM hack.
Who ya gonna call? Winston Zeddemore!
The development of the Ghostbusters’ hack has not been fast. It is a project that has been many years in the making. But, much of the development time has been dedicated to the design and animation of the character’s sprite. Winston Zeddemore is perhaps the most beloved character by the fans. His mannerisms, personality, and funny one-liners are something that just clicked with the fans.
These three developers wanted the game’s sprite to convey all of these elements so that it felt as natural of an inclusion as possible. After many hours of design, trial and error, they finally came up with a sprite that, quite simply, is Winston.
From animations reminiscent of the character to his iconic mustache, Winston Zeddemore is ready to hunt ghosts in this new hack ROM.
Excellent work with a high level of detail
This team of three developers has presented this new inclusion with a gameplay trailer where we can see in great detail their work. We see Zeddemore going through one of the scenarios of the game, hunting ghosts. The jumping animations, the weapon animations, the death animations, the walking… everything has been achieved flawlessly.
Preserving these iconic titles of video game history is amazing besides adding those characters that were left in oblivion. Simply put, this kind of thing makes me proud of the gaming community. Let’s hope to see the finished work soon, and maybe play some games with Zeddemore.
