After Burner
In 1987, Sega introduced the world to their version of a combat flight simulator with the arcade game After Burner. The game was highly successful and it spawned sequels as well as a number of ports to home systems. With the release of the 32X, Sega saw the opportunity to port the original title to the system. And just how good of a port is it? Let’s find out.
In After Burner the player controls an SSF-14 fighter armed with Vulcan guns, guided missiles, and afterburners with the goal of destroying two enemy microwave communication booster stations and crippling their global communications network. The game starts with your fighter taking off the deck of the Sega Enterprise and the rest is history. The action in After Burner is frenetic, non-stop, and exhilarating. The visuals of the game are beautiful, the animation is smooth, and the level of detail is excellent. The many landscapes keeps things interesting and it is always fun to where you get to next when a level is finished. You enemies range from slick fighter jets to attack choppers and you better pay attention to their missiles because they’ll track you and destroy you. It’ll take some advanced manoeuvring to avoid them. Something that is very important in this type of game is the scaling of the enemy craft (particularly since they come at you at high speed) and, I must say, the 32X handles this very well. Anyone who enjoys the arcade version will have no issue enjoying this 32X version. So, be ready to become Top Gun!
TrekMD is an MD by day and a writer by night, a lover of all things Atari.
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