XMG Studios announced the first official Ghostbuster game for mobile at PAX East 2012 last week. Ghostbusters: Paranormal Blast is ambitiously going to tackle both augmented reality and location-based genres; different spots around town will have a random ghost inhabiting it, and your job is to, well, bust it. After starting your ghost hunt, you point your iPhone or iPad around to find your target, and try to neutralize it with sweet, sweet proton ray justice. The ghost moves around a fair bit, so you have to stay sharp, but once they're sufficiently weakened, you can throw out your trap to end the maligned spirit's tiny reign of chaos. You earn experience points and gather unlockable items as you go, such as virtual collectible cards and new guns. Achievements with Game Center support should also be ready for launch.

As nice as it would be to form a team with your ghostbustin' buddies, it doesn't sound like multiplayer support will be available in the initial release. It sure would be fun to try avoid crossing streams with friends, but something tells me it's hard enough to get one person waving their iPhone around at lunch in a spat of augmented reality dorkery, nevermind two at the same time, barking orders at one another in the middle of a diner. Still, XMG has longtime experience making augmented reality games, and Ghostbusters doesn't look like it's going to disappoint.

Expect Ghostbusters: Paranormal Blast out this summer for $0.99.

Ok, don't worry, the above image is actually from Activisions version of Ghostbusters for the Apple II that appeared in 1984 and not from this upcoming version. Most Ghostbuster fans out there are aware that the Ghostbusters are making their comeback this June on all of the major video game consoles with the original cast doing the voice acting. Well, most of you will be excited to know that your favorite ghostbusting trio will be making an appearance on the iPhone this June as well. Details are pretty much nil at the moment though hopefully Sony Pictures does it justice.

Sony says the Ghostbusters iPhone game will see you playing as the traditional team from the Ghostbusters movies, tackling New York borough by borough, trapping pesky poltergeists and stopping innocent citizens from being slimed. Think Halloween Harry, only with Ghostbusters’ Peter Venkman deadpanning it all the way through.

It should be interesting to see how the developers take advantage of the iPhones accelerometer in terms of control. So what do all of the fans think of this comeback? This is pretty big for those of us who here at TiPb grew up in the 1980's, so we're pretty excited to this game is coming.

[Via Electricpig]