Sunday, June 04, 2017

Monster Business



The demoscene does it again?

Monster Business is a fun-themed platformer released in 1991 by Eclipse and produced by incredibly talented people you may recognise from the ST scene. As storylines go, this one is a Christmas cracker!!

Crazed "mad meanies" have been loosed from their forest habitat and are pinching items from Bob's construction site. You are Leroy The Beast Buster who must help Bob blow-up these cheeky invaders. Yep, this might sound like diarrhoea, but we should still help Bob because we are the only beast buster in Tin Town. Yep... O_o



Each level is big and uses smooth vertical scrolling to hunt down the freaky monsters!


Olde gameplay and it works!

Each level follows a familiar Bounty Bob design of platforms, slippy slopes and chasing monsters. Be careful because they kill with one touch so I'm grateful that we carry an air pump weapon to inflate them for a bloated and cruel death. This is nothing short of hilarious and once they begin floating away you are able to nudge them into oblivion, leaving behind their stolen goodies. If you're lucky, they might drag along others for multiple killings.

The joystick controls are spritely and I like how there are two heights we can jump - this depends on how long you push upwards. Repeatably pressing the fire button activates the weapon to bloat the monsters - so I appreciated the autofire function. Two-players are supported but sadly not for co-op, which would have been superb...



Blown the sucker up for a cruel, yet hilarious end to his life!


A pleasure for your eyes and ears!

The graphics are nice with simple backgrounds any 8-bit owner would have drooled over back in the early 80s. The scrolling is ultra-smooth but its the sprites which shine the most: I dare anybody not to laugh when seeing a ginormous duck waddle across your screen. I loved their expressions and bloated deaths. Hilarious pixel art.

Audio is immensely impressive with a superlative range of gorgeous chiptunes by Laurens Tummers, aka Lotus! The sound effects are also great but even so, are completely overshadowed by the music. Wow!!



Taken from behind and check out his expression. This game is brilliant!!!


The CryptO'pinion?

Bloating animals is shockingly entertaining and I guarantee you will enjoy hunting down cute prey. However, it's quite repetitive and this might reduce any long-term enjoyment. I also thought the time limit was too harsh... Monster Business is best with friends and I promise that everyone will be giggling like school kids. A superb game!!

Monster Business can be downloaded for floppy & hard drive.

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