GhostBusters: Protect the Barrier

Published: 2016 by Mattel

Designer: Brian Yu

Artist: Piero

How it's played

GhostBusters: Protect the Barrier is a cooperative game for 2-4 players. In this game each player takes on the role of one of the Ghostbusters from the 2016 remake Ghostbusters: Answer the Call.
The objective is to find the P.E.D.s and get them out of the building before to many ghosts overrun it and it becomes haunted.

On your turn each player will roll a die to determine how many spaces they can move on the board. The board is the main floor of a building with many rooms for ghosts to hide in. If a player rolls a 1-5 they must flip over a card and resolve it. The cards will either spawn more ghosts, lock doors, or reshuffle the deck.
As players move into rooms they can collect the P.E.D. tokens, fight ghosts or assist other players in fighting hauntings.

To fight a ghost the player will roll a die, if a ghost emblem is rolled, the ghost is captured and taken off the board. If not the ghost stays in the room. If 3 ghosts spawn in the same location the room becomes haunted, and a more powerful ghost takes the place of the three smaller ghosts. If all 6 Hauntings spawn on the board the players lose.

To fight a haunting 2 Ghostbusters must be in the room as the Green haunting. Each player then rolls the combat die once, if either player gets the green haunting emblem the haunting is defeated and removed from the board. If neither player rolls the emblem, then play continues.

To win the game, the players must remove all the P.E.D. tokens from the building.

Rowan: This game contains the special Rowan figure. If you choose to play with Rowan you add his card to the deck. Rowan spawns in one of the rooms of the building. When his card is drawn you keep drawing cards until another ghost card appears to determine where he will spawn next.
If Rowan appears in a room with 2 other ghosts the room automatically becomes haunted and rowan moves on to the next room. This can cause a chain reaction of Hauntings.
Rowan cannot be fought by the ghostbusters but you can fight the other ghosts in the room with him.

Final Thoughts:

Ghostbusters: Protect the Barrier is one of those games that is quick to teach and fun to play for a wide audience. It has several ways to play that can make it simpler or harder depending on the group and each mode adds an extra layer of complexity that adds to the depth of the game.

The components of the game are neat with lots of cute little ghost minis to spawn and translucent green Hauntings that tower over the Ghostbusters.
The Ghostbusters pawns are great little sculpts that accurately depict the characters from the movie, and even have a slot in the Proton pack to carry the P.E.D. devices. A completely superfluous feature, but awesome nonetheless.
The Rowan figure is a nice sculpt with a touch of paint added for his eyes and bow tie.

Artwork is nice in this game, everything on the board is easy to understand and the cards all have some nice touches the bring out the theme of the game well.

My only criticism to this game is their isn't much player interaction, it could just as easily be played solo. Even fighting the Hauntings doesn't add much as the players simply roll the combat die. You do end up discussing strategy quite a bit and the simple nature of the game play makes this gripe a minor one.

 

Ghostbusters: Protect the Barrier is an excellent value, and a great little co-op to play. It does not over stay it's welcome as it plays pretty quick, and the advanced mode adds a nice level of difficulty that will keep even the more seasoned gamers interested.

Highly recommended.