An excellent fast-paced side-scrolling shooter from Kaneko

Not a name renowned for shooters so much perhaps but Air Buster is a cracking little horizontal shooter with a fast flowing pace, an interesting weapon power up system and a great overall 'feel'. Far more in the spirit of Technosoft's later Thunderforce games on the Sega Megadrive/Genesis than the slower more thoughtful paced R-Type series, Air Buster strongly favours players with exemplarary reflexes over those who simply aim to grab as many weapons as possible.Which in my book is definitely a good thing.

The presentation in Air Buster is very stylish indeed. Taking off from a floating carrier several screens long, your Air Buster ship is a lovingly crafted and sleek little thing, one of the best looking ship sprites of its generation methinks. Best of all you can grab a pal for a two player blast with one player controlling the spanky red ship and the other the equally smart 'Dulux sunset yellow' one.

Everything about this game is extremely quick. Enemy planes and bullets come thick and fast and on certain sections of later levels the scrolling background accelerates to a blur causing you to struggle frantically not to smack into the scenery. Even the power-ups, which appear on blasting an enemy weapon-carrying craft, shoot off-screen in an arcing trajectory in a matter of mere seconds giving you little time to pick them up, and forcing you to be extremely selective. Oh.. and you can only have one weapon at a time..

	Increases the 'spread' of bullets from your main cannon. Best to collect just two though as your rate of fire is inversely proportional to the number of these you grab.
	Adds two little side pods that supplement the firepower of your main cannon.
	Adds rear-diagonal firing to your ship. Not the best option really.
	Adds a little pod thing which spews out bullets 360 degrees. Not bad at all.
	Six way fire. Very useful for taking out enemies below or above you.
	Adss two little skidoo-like barriers top and bottom to your ship which protect you slightly from crashing into walls. Good on the fast scrolling bits.
	Guided missiles. Home in on enemies in front of you but not above or below.
	Homing missiles. By far the best weapon in the game, takes out most enemies in all directions but they don't work on all of them.

One word of caution however about this game.. the later stages set in space can become a bit frustrating due to the programmers deciding, in a misguided attempt at realism, to add inertial effects to controlling your ship. Which actually means if you push in a direction on the stick your craft keeps going in a Pac-Man like manner.. usually into a wall. You can counter this strange design choice by pushing left and 'sticking' your ship to the side of the screen though. A bit of a daft solution I know but it works for me.

Fine home versions of Air Buster were released on the Sega Megadrive/Genesis and by Hudsonsoft on the PC Engine (as Aero Busters) if you fancy tracking them down. I particularly like the PC Engine version myself. A great, fast-paced and very intense early 90's scrolling shootemup. MikeB

Final boss -quite Gradius-ey this one. Come on
Kaneko come up with some original boss
designs you muppets!..