After Burner Master System

Master System Gameplay Review After Burner

Master System After Burner - Box - Front (North America)

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Everything you need to know about After Burner

Master System After Burner - Banner - Titulo de inicio del juego

It's time to review afterburner which, after Outrun and Space Harrier, is the last of Sega's flagship 3D blockbusters of the mid-80s. After burner was released in arcades and on the Master System in 1987.

Like the other two titles mentioned above, After Burner looked far beyond 3D gaming at what most other arcade manufacturers were doing at the time. Once again it seemed like a big challenge to convert the game to the bit Master system.

Brief History After Burner

Mission Profile
THE TIME:
 The present. 

PLACE: aboard the aircraft carrier SEGA ENTERPRISE, somewhere in the sea.

You are a navy captain, with the fastest and best armed aircraft that ever existed. Your device is a ?Thunder Cat? F-14, the perfect mix between man and machine.

You put the expertise, the reflexes and the courage. His ?Thunder Cat? It provides a speed of 2 Mach, unlimited firepower and a combat computer that incorporates the latest advances in technology to target its enemies.

When it's time to fly in hostile areas, are you the so-called "Sky Ace?"

THE MISSION:
KEY NAME: 
AFTER BURNER?

The enemy has developed a strategy that will help him conquer the free world. This plan? It is so secret that it has been divided into two parts and hidden in two different places in his country.

Naval Intelligence has discovered these two locations and is ready to hand them over. But you need to be able to get the plans. You must take off from the SEGA ENTERPRISE aircraft carrier and fight hard to reach these two places.

Its flight pattern has already been programmed into the combat computer. His ?Thunder Cat? F-14 is armed with air-to-air guided missiles and a 20mm Vulcano cannon.

Have the fuel tanks been placed so that they can be filled in flight? if you go that far.

The enemy already knows of your mission and has prepared to receive you. Only a pilot of his experience has hope of success.

Enemy planes appear on the radar screen. The moment of the truth has come. Good luck. The fate of the free world depends on you.

The ?Thunder Cat? F-14 Speed: 2 Mach

«Start of the After Burner Game«

Gameplay of After Burner

In the game, you pilot an F14 Tomcat through approximately 20 stages. The main objective is to basically knock down anything that moves and stay alive until the end of the stage. Several enemy planes try to prevent you from getting this along the way. These approach from behind or from the front. To help you rid the skies of these nasty enemies, you have a cannon and missiles at your disposal.

Basically, the cannon only fires forward, but you have a cross-shaped target in front of your plane that you can use to "lock on" your missiles. Unfortunately, the cowardly enemy also has missiles at his disposal. Although these are only fired straight ahead, they also target your plane, forcing you to take evasive action to get out of their patch. As expected, there are a couple of additions and omissions from the original arcade version.

Understandably, the "canyon" levels, where you flew through a maze of stone canyons, weren't there, as even the coin op struggled to cope with that. Also gone is the irritating heat-seeking missile that used to sneak up behind you in the arcades.

However, in the Master System version, an interesting touch is that you now need to block and dock with a refueling ship from time to time to accumulate bonus points. Also, at the end of stage 6 (and maybe some later stages) you will have to destroy a fairly large "boss" plane. There are two major flaws in the game. First of all, the game is very repetitive. Aside from different colored terrain, different music, and more enemies, each stage is very similar.

Secondly, and more annoying, there is a major failure in the first 11 stages that occurs due to lack of gas (see controls). To avoid all enemy missiles, you can permanently lean to any diagonal and stay there. Sure you don't kill anything and get very little satisfaction, but every time you feel like it's getting too hectic, you just bench and stay there. Doing this loses the “buzz” factor. (see controls).

Graphics

The graphics of Master System After burner are very good. The 3D effect achieves a good feeling of speed due to the rapid movement of objects on the ground. Presumably these objects are waves and trees (depending on the scenario), although they are quite small and not very detailed. Your main sprite is drawn quite well, although the resolution limits mean that your wings are quite jagged. There are a number of different enemy planes which, again, are very well done. The explosions are pretty impressive, including two nice variations when your own ship is destroyed. There is very little presence of blocking or flickering.

Music and Sound

In keeping with most of their arcade conversions, Sega has tried to keep most of the coin-op music in the home console version. The first tune of the game is quite nice and lasts about 6 stages. It sounds pretty good in the background and its rhythm matches the action. The same does not happen with the second melody of the game that starts from stage 7 onwards.

This is a bit slower, more boring and sounds a bit weak. The arcade machine got its way because it had a strong baseline. However, as this cannot be achieved with the master system's sound chip, it becomes quite tinny. The same applies to the title screen music.

My favorite tune in the coin op game (stages 4-6) makes a nice cameo when you fight the boss at the end of stage 6. In my opinion, this should have been used more.

Final reflection

The only way to play this title in all honesty is with the seated version of the game. Probably one of the most innovative machines I've seen in arcades to date, Afterburner is an experience you'd be more than willing to go through if you're able to find a machine that works. With the bright, eye-catching visuals and simplistic run-and-gun action gameplay, there's very little here that would make anyone turn down this title! Worthy of a few credits at the very least, this is one of the classic arcade machines that is exceptionally difficult to find

Game technical sheet

Developer

sega

Distributor

sega

Console

Release Date(s)

1987

Genders)

Shots

game modes

1 Player

Cooperative

Nope

Format(s)

Cartridge

Further
articles

en_US