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After Burner
Climax
Barrelling through
the sky, cutting through mountains at breakneck speeds, dodging constant
bogies, and firing off swarms upon swarms of locked on missiles, this is
what After Burner was all about, that and the not so gentle separation
of your vertebra as the arcade cockpit jostled your spine six ways from
Sunday.
Now comes After
Burner Climax on the XBLA system and is seems to have kept all those
elements, plus shined it up tenfold.
As you command one
of the three individually skilled jet fighters to take on a unfathomably
large amount of enemies at speeds that would require Jedi movements or a
severe case of ADHD. While the weapons aren’t that varied, the addition
of the Climax feature, allowing you to build up points from kills to
perform a mass wipeout kill is a handy little tool to have up the sleeve
as you can encounter many enemies at once.
The levels feel a
bit repeated for the most part, but as you feel the monotony setting in
you get thrown a curve ball such as a low deck mountain range or even
the interior of a structure, forcing you to stay on your toes.
Visually the game
is fantastic, everything has been enhanced to the utmost degree from the
original arcade version and its a little hard to believe that its a
download title at times. The imagery, much in the Sega tradition, is
heavily impacted upon by Japanese gaming and you will recognise the
screen layout and battle effects from many of the classic Sega titles of
its time, this actually helps the game though as those who are similar
with these visually will feel instantly at home from the moment they
pick up the controller.
While the port over
to the console works well and the button structure is well placed, those
who remember the arcade version are going to be disappointed. The
original had a almost physical element to it as the enclosed cockpit
cabinet design was such a engulfing experience and it threw you around
and shook your fillings out when in battle, this is now replaced with a
occasional rumble from the AA batteries in the controller that just
doesn’t seem to cut it. The other main drawback is the playing times,
the levels and game is so incredibly short that you could finish all
three fighters in under a day if you went for it, and the only major
thing that is unlocked when finished is the ability to make the game
easier, though it is good to see that Sega still obviously employee
Irish nationals.
It is a
exhilarating experience planning a classic fighter game such as After
Burner, but the exhilaration is simply too short to justify the 800
points required to buy it. |
