After Burner Climax -PS3-
After Burner Climax -PS3-
Review by Pete
After Burner Climax is a very short but intense plane fighter game. After Burner Climax doesn’t try to be anything but that either. But as far as short intense plane fighter games go, this is one of the best ones I’ve played. If you’re really into intense plane fighting, you’d best get After Burner Climax.
My first experience with fast plane shooter games was like 17 years ago in Disneyland. For $5 a pop you could strap into their flight simulator seat. The seat was equipped to rotate 360 degrees around. I ended up getting stuck upside down and all the sand in my pants flowed up to my shirt. I really wish we hadn’t gone to the beach beforehand.
I believe After Burner Climax is a direct port of the arcade game, which would explain why it is so short. Instead of being able to pump in quarters for extra continues, After Burner give you three continues from the start.
The game play is very simple. You are a really fast plane cruising at like 500+ MPH through the countryside. I guess there is some kind of a war going on and you’re out to kill some dudes, cause all throughout the skies are an isht ton of planing trying to kill you. Your plane has a small amount of health, so you can take a couple of hits but not many.
Movement and aiming are down with the same analog stick. This does makes the gameplay more simple. There are two types of attack, the regular machine gun and the missiles. you can also boost and slow down too. What makes After Burner Climax unique is a lock on aiming feature with the misiles.What you do is just have your aiming cross-hair pass over an enemy plane then fire the missiles. You can get combos by passing over multiple enemy planes. You can lock onto like up to 10 planes. So really to do well you have to be whipping your aiming cross-hair all over the place frantically all while maintaining good control over your own plane. Missiles are not unlimited, but they will slowly replenish over time.
Enemy planes shoot their own missiles and such. To dodge you’ll need to constantly be moving around or even boost and slow down at appropriate times.
After burner really wants you to finish the game multiple times too. Once you’ve beaten the game there are a whole bunch of game modifiers available like unlimited missiles, super powerful missiles, more continues, unlimited boost and a ton more. So there is quite a bit of replayability.
I beat the game on my third try. It takes about 15-20 minutes to beat the game on a successful try. The level structure is very linear, but there are different levels to choose from to beat the game. An there are addational secret levels. I think I found one of hte secret levles.
I beat the game 5 times. Each time I beat the game it got easier and easier because of the modifiers. I do like it that there are modifiers and achievements to be gotten, but unfortunately the game just gets far too easy once you do unlock them. I would have rather had the game gotten harder and harder as the unlockables are available. I probably spent a total of 3-4 hours playing the game. I didn’t unlock everything cause I lost interest in playing. For as long as it lasts, After Burner Climax is intense and for $10 it was well worth it. 4/5
-Pete
December 22 2010
