I checked out After Burner Climax Demo on the 360. The demo gives you three levels to try out. Takes a little under five minutes to complete the demo but you get the object of the game pretty quickly. Blow stuff up…don’t get hit. That’s about all there is to it. But what else can you really ask for? It’s a $10 XBLA game that is a sequel to a classic. You either like it or you don’t.
You start the game with a choice of three fighters. You can choose from the F/A-18E Super Hornet, F-15E Strike Eagle, and F-14D Super Tomcat. I didn’t notice a difference in game play between the fighters. You can change the paint job on the fighters. You would think the type of paint you choose gives you different advantages because they are labeled as standard, camouflage, special, and low visibility. I didn’t notice any difference in how the enemies engaged me based on my paint. Felt like I was receiving the same pressure as before.
The game is pretty fast paced, or at least it feels that way. They captured the same sense of speed that the original games had. As your flying you will see various other types of fighters and helicopters come into your view. You have no friends on the screen so kill them all. Moving your reticule past enemies will get a lock on them and you can fire missiles at them. You have “limited” amount of missiles, but I really can’t see anyone running out if you know what I mean. You also have machine guns available to you but you really don’t need to use them much less you want.
Visually, the game is nice. Nothing to spectacular, but it keeps a high frame rate and has some nice flashy lighting effects. Sound was good. Couldn’t really notice anything over the sound of me constantly blowing up other fighters. The control was decent. I would have given it a higher score but I found myself doing unwanted barrel rolls frequently. Game play as described above is pretty simple. Nothing mind blowing but it’s enough to keep your attention for a while without getting on your nerves. The game was pretty fun, nothing to make me play it over TF2, but still fun enough to where I don’t regret spending time on it. I wouldn’t say the game is too addictive. It’s one of those games you play while your waiting for your friends to get on and play something else.
I wouldn’t say this game is a must have, but it’s not too bad to blow $10 on if you want to.
