Ghosts in the machines: Upcoming paranormal video games

Instead of spending several hours over night, cramped in uncomfortable positions, dealing with clients and not being guaranteed any evidence, aspiring ghost hunters may want to opt instead for some upcoming paranormal pop culture video games that try to simulate an investigation from the comfort of your couch.

Coming in June from EA is "Ambitions," the Sims 3 expansion pack that allows gamers to pursue a multitude of professions and be heroes or villains as detectives, firefighters, mad scientists, eccentric artists - or paranormal investigators (shown in a screenshot, top left) that look remarkably similar to Venkman's crew. (via BigDownload)

Also on the way, for Nintendo's DSi, is Ghostwire: Link to the Paranormal. Created by Swedish developer A Different Game, the adventure game, according to USA Today, is an augmented reality game that utilizes real-world input to shape the gameplay, as shown here. Based on the developer's site, after meeting a little girl ghost, she acts as your spirit guide while your DSi is "a portal to the astral plane" as well as a "frequency modulator" that helps you find and collect ghosts. And once you find them, your job is to document they haunt our world and help them find peace while solving riddles. Ghostwire is scheduled for release this Halloween.

So there you go: You're guaranteed a haunting good time right from home instead of having to head into dank, old buildings to hunt for spirits but only finding mosquitoes and asbestos. Then again, if you still insist, maybe these video games will be good cross training for fledgling investigators.

Trailers for both games after the jump.