GET READY!
After Burner is one of those games that tickles the nostalgia bone and doesn’t stop. I remember burning away hours locked in aerial combat with After Burner II on my Famicom, although I never did manage to reach the end. And when I played After Burner Climax at the arcades for the first time a couple of years back, I immediately regressed to childhood — it was just as I remembered, only more extreeeeeeme!
The 2006 arcade game was ported in 2010 to XBLA and PSN, and now iPhone and iPad users will get their own port pretty soon. In fact, New Zealanders will be able to take off as soon as tomorrow for NZ$4.19 (~US$3.51), so an American release is probably not far off.
From the video and screens, it’s obvious that quite a bit of visual sheen was lost in the transfer, but the game moves so quickly that you’ll be too focused being a world-class fighter ace. I don’t honestly believe this Climax port is going to set the world on fire, but anything that rekindles that rose-tinted fire is totally solid in my book.
