"Are these the missing?"

After operation wolf came a variety of clones for one, two or three players. The strangest of the lot must have been beast busters.

The plot. Something about humans being turned into zombies. Really it means you and buddy or two having coinfuls of fun blasting away. The graphics are great, the action frenetic (this is not for one player) with different types of zombies and creatures to aim at, nice weapon variations to pick up and a really weird storyline.

After careful consideration, looking into the mystery of it all, your player asks with deep concern: “Are these the missing?” and, having thought that maybe these wretched zombies may be the dearly beloved and innocent missing folk he helps them, by blowing them away! The story line is funny and the game is fun.

You play a variety of directions, left to right, ‘3d’ roadway, bottom to top. There are plenty of different areas to get involved in, all featuring nice graphics and good use of enemies and weapon power ups. You can get far enough on one coin to feel it’s worth another.

Sound is ok, nothing too spectacular and the gun control and aim is very good. You point, shoot and it happens as it should. Accurate, but you don’t have to shoot the exact pixel to get the baddies. If you get good there are plenty of levels to go through. We got through a lot of the game but never saw the finale. I guess “the missing” would all be wiped out by then!

The weirdest end of level enemy is this freaky blob-snake-head thing. Waving around the screen from a distance you try to aim at him, maybe launch a couple of those grenades you picked up earlier. Then you start to think “well, what’s up with this monster anyway?” You get your answer when it comes at you face first! It fills the entire screen with its face! It’s so funny it’s good!

This makes a great team game, complete with the options to ‘steal’ your buddy’s power ups by shooting onto his part of the screen! It’s fun, you don’t have to pretend to be macho commando’s, this is pure comic strip zombie stuff, with an hilarious storyline that plays out in text between levels. I’m sure it wasn’t meant to be funny but hey, we dropped good coins for this game so be pleased development team! You’ve gotta love it when an off the wall game makes it to the arcades.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/27/01, Updated 04/27/01