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In the words of the soundtrack hit "Bustin' Makes Me Feel Good". The film in question is Ghostbusters and in this instance we're talking about the game of the film of the book of the...

Copies often don't work, but Activision has done a great job on this. The game sticks closely to the plot of the film, the music programming is simply brilliant and there's even a few snatches of software-created speech. Add all that to some colourful, creative and slick graphics and it's a winner.

If you haven't seen the film yet, here's the story. As the operator of a Ghostbustin' franchise you have to clear the city of a variety of spooks. To help, you have a ghostmobile, a team of three busters and a variety of equipment including the marshmallow detector.

After buying your choice of hardware, you move to the main game screen - a bird's eye view of the city centre. As you cruise the streets, your detectors will alert you to the presence of your enemy.

You need to plot the shortest route to the scene, preferably passing a few roaming spectres on the way. The view switches to a close-up of your ghostmobile. If you've bought a vacuum cleaner you can suck up the stunned roamers on the way.

When you arrive at your destination, the view changes again, this time to a 3D screen of the action where you confront the spook and - hopefully - ensnare it in your ghost trap. In doing so you earn a bounty. Miss the ghost and you'll be slimed ... a fate worse than death.

The aim of the game is to earn more than your starting allowance of $10,000, but there's more to it than that. The ghosts that evade you congregate at a particular building. When enough of them get there they form ... the marshmallow man, a sort of King Kong of confectionery. He stomps on large buildings and the damage he does is deducted from your bank balance.

If, however, you can drop some ghost bait in time, the spooks ignore the call of the marshmallow and you earn a handsome bonus for averting the catastrophe.

The time measurement in the game is the city's PK (psychokinetic) energy. Each spook you fail to bag increases the PK level by 300 points.

As the level rises, the rate of increase rises too, and eventually the action becomes fast and furious as you race to stun the roamers, trap the slimers and avert marshmallow destruction all at once.

You also have to keep an eye on your equipment. Often you'll have to return to GHQ to replenish supplies.

The single flaw in the game is that the final confrontation, instead of being a fitting climax, is a complete flop.

However, the sheer fun of getting there more than makes up for this.

There's no doubt that Ghostbusters (the film) will be one of the cinema smashes of this Christmas. I don't doubt that Ghostbusters (the game) will be an equal hit in the software stores. It's worth buying for the soundtrack alone - it will make owners of machines other than the Commodore 64 weep with envy.

"Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!"