I'm glad we didn't use Dana.

People break up, life moves on.

Perhaps she needed a more stable father figure for her son. Peter was probably too busy with his business.

I think it would have been good to give Dana a brief cameo as Venkman's wife/girlfriend. Based on the end of Ghostbusters 2, it seemed like they would stay together, and the implied romance between Peter and Illysa seemed contrived and unrealistic.

You forget one thing. Peter is, at best, a womanizer…at worst psychologically scarred individual. He is a very lecherous personality who changes women about as often as he changes cloths..

skankerzero;163211
I'm glad we didn't use Dana.

People break up, life moves on.

Perhaps she needed a more stable father figure for her son. Peter was probably too busy with his business.

It's a personal preference issue, I know, but I don't agree.

I think it would have been good to give Dana a brief cameo as Venkman's wife/girlfriend. Based on the end of Ghostbusters 2, it seemed like they would stay together, and the implied romance between Peter and Illysa seemed contrived and unrealistic.

I think it dovetails into my central complaint: Venkman and Dana breaking up again makes Venkman look pathetic. Him losing her once because of his committment issues gave the second movie a lot of emotional heft. He screwed up, realized it, and spent the second movie making up for it.

Things fail again?! Venkman looks like a f***up of the highest order. And you start to go, from a storytelling point of view, “What the heck was the point of all of it then, anyway?”

The other issue, of course, is this: when the chief complaint made against the second movie was “They practically photocopied the plot structure” doing something so derivative as “Venkman's love interest is being menaced by the supernatural” in something that was billed as “The closest thing we'll ever get to a third movie”, means that we're three for three on that one. It seemed lazy and weak.

I agree, on the whole, that it's better that Dana wasn't the central Macguffin again. But I also think that she should have at least been mentioned or alluded to.

If the game was otherwise the same save for two things 1. A bare mention of Dana, implying she and Venkman were still together (“I gotta call the babysitter–I don't think I'm gonna be there to pick Oscar up at five.”) and 2. Illyssa had been presented as the love interest for Ray, Winston, or the Rookie, the plot would have been intact, the game would have broken some different ground, it would imply a more satisfying continuation of Venkman's character arc, and it would have been one less thing us nitpickers could complain about

I personally don't think someone that failed at a relationship is pathetic. Plus, you're assuming the relationship ‘failed’ as in he lost her in some way that was his fault. Sometimes things just don't work out and you part ways and stay friends. There's nothing pathetic in that.

I still like my idea of Peter being a womanizer.

JamesCGamora;163226
I still like my idea of Peter being a womanizer.

That is very true too.

Doc Fritz;163224
1. A bare mention of Dana, implying she and Venkman were still together (“I gotta call the babysitter–I don't think I'm gonna be there to pick Oscar up at five.”) and 2. Illyssa had been presented as the love interest for Ray, Winston, or the Rookie, the plot would have been intact, the game would have broken some different ground, it would imply a more satisfying continuation of Venkman's character arc, and it would have been one less thing us nitpickers could complain about

There certainly was at least one reference to Dana (made by Winston), fairly late on into the game, but more in context to her apartment building rather than her current whereabouts.

Egon made mention of Dana Barrett's apartment building after the second level I believe.

She should really have been in the game. I wish Sigourney agreed to do it.