Beast Busters

Beast Busters is a rail shooter arcade game released by SNK in 1989 and ported to the Commodore Amiga and the Atari ST in 1990.

Beast Busters
North American flyer
Developer(s)Hamachi, Papa and team, Images Design
Publisher(s)SNK, U.S. Gold, Activision
Designer(s)Mitsuzo.I, Ken, Muromoto, Sakai, Mioshi, Maeda, Fujiwara
Platform(s)Arcade, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST
Release1989 (arcade), 1990 (Commodore Amiga, Atari ST)
Genre(s)Rail shooter
Mode(s)Single-player, Up to 3 players simultaneously
CabinetHorizontal
CPU68000
SoundSound CPU: Z80; Sound chips: YM2610
DisplayRaster, 256 x 224 pixels, 2048 colors

Gameplay
Beast Busters is a rail shooter wherein the player shoots zombies.

In the game, players control one of three militiamen named Johnny Justice, Paul Patriot and Sammy Stately, who must shoot their way out of a city that has been invaded by the undead. The original arcade machine allows for up to three players to play the game at the same time. Guns are mounted to the machine and look like machine guns. Players can earn a number of power-ups through the course of each stage to aid them in battle such as rockets, grenades, armor, health packs, and ammo.[1]

The game has seven sections for players to shoot their way through. In between stages players are shown cutscenes explaining the events of the zombie infestation that has overtaken the city. Each stage has a sub boss as well as an end boss to defeat, all of which have 2 forms to defeat. The game was known for having unusual bosses, such as a zombie punk who mutates into a dog, or a jeep which starts coming to life. One stage ends with the militiamen having to rescue a female CIA agent from that stage's boss.

Spinoffs and sequels

A sequel entitled Beast Busters: Second Nightmare was released in 1999 on the Hyper Neo Geo 64.

A handheld spin-off called Dark Arms: Beast Buster was released in 1999 for the Neo Geo Pocket Color in the form of an Action RPG.

Reception

In Japan, Game Machine listed Beast Busters on their January 15, 1990 issue as being the most-successful upright arcade unit of the year.[2]

The game drew comparisons to Operation Thunderbolt, Line of Fire and SNK's own Mechanized Attack. ACE reacted positively to the game's horror theme and story, calling it Operation Wolf meets Splatterhouse.[3]

According to Paul Theroux, Michael Jackson owned a Beast Busters arcade machine and frequently took it with him on tour via cargo plane.[4]

gollark: The horrible breadboard mess is at least easy to upgrade, assuming you can trace all the unfathomable wires.
gollark: We could design an actual PCB if anyone here knows KiCad or whatever, but it would take a while and probably constrain us. Especially since I may have to swap in a different microcontroller with more pins.
gollark: They have sticky backs anyway.
gollark: That sounds inadvisable.
gollark: I... see.

See also

References
  1. Caswell, Mark (May 1990). "Arcade Action: Beast Busters". Crash. No. 76. Newsfield Publishing. p. 8.
  2. "Game Machine's Best Hit Games 25 - アップライト, コックピット型TVゲーム機 (Upright/Cockpit Videos)". Game Machine (in Japanese). No. 372. Amusement Press, Inc. 15 January 1990. p. 25.
  3. Cook, John (April 1990). "Coin-Ops: Beast Busting - Who Ya Gonna Call?". ACE. No. 31. EMAP. p. 102.
  4. Theroux, Paul (5 January 2010). "American writer Paul Theroux about Michael Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor and the biblical Judas". Archived from the original on 17 July 2011.

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