"What was that wonderful game?" you more than likely ask, unable to sleep at night - any night - until you know the answer. It's probably ruined your life, unable to commit, letting all those nice presentable significant others slip through your fingers. You're a mess! Well luckily, Doctor Red is here to save the day (and re-heat an oldish review to boot)! Exciting! I'm kind like a Christian.
That wonderful game was After Burner. It was great. It was also created by Sega supremo Yu Suzuki. He's Sega's answer to Shigeru Miyamoto don't you know. Mr Suzuki is likely a kindly sort, I'll wager he regularly (and generously) donates to all manner of charities. I bet he even leaves a platter of food out for night animals every evening. Probably gets the first round in too. What a gent. Mrs Suzuki, you're lucky to have him. Fumbling through his Wiki CV, he appears single-handedly responsible for the Summery blue sky love-hug I associate with Sega's arcade division. Mr Suzuki produced / directed Space Harrier, Hang-On, Outrun and of course After Burner. I bet he's ten feet tall.
Did Mr Suzuki have any part in the game under review (it's the Master System port of After Burner, doubt I mentioned that)? I cannot say. Information such as this is a trifle thin on the ground. I can tell you that Tengen are responsible for the NES port. Not very helpful though is it? Who Knows? Maybe he did. Maybe he was very happy with the final result. Maybe the work experience kid did it? Oh dear. That's coloured the review slightly. Jumped the gun there. Ruined the end a bit. Definitely don't want to mention that the arcade experience was woefully represented on home consoles the world over do I? Keep you on the edge of you seat and all that. Anyway, if anyone does know who is responsible, I would dearly like to know. Dearly. I assume there's a comments bit below. Go nuts!
Look! It's my first blog review! It's quite purple.
After Burner - Sega Master System
An enormous, gorgeous jet-plane sprite blasts along luxurious regulation blue Sega seascapes. It is flanked on all sides by dastardly rival camo-fighter MIGs, and scored with a slow steppin' bare-bones electro hum beat. Catchy, catchy. This is Master System After Burner. It is on a FOUR MEGA CARTRIDGE (512k)! Your jet fighter blasts along at a criminal pace, battling for it's life! Occasionally, zero progressive animation flicky death spheres appear right next to your craft and utterly obliterate it. This is war!
Played straight, success in Master System After Burner is so arbitrary that the whole exercise plays like a tre hip pixel art installation piece snidely commentating on the futility of modern techno warfare. You might well have a state-of-the-art 80s death arrow fighter jet and infinite missiles, but sooner or later you are going to blow up and die. Bet you weren't expecting a fatalist treatise on combat life expectancy when you booted up Sega's 8-bit were you?
If you're a cheater though, you can breeze through the whole game by jamming your plane into the top-left corner of the screen - no enemies need to be killed to progress, in that sense After Burner is more a survivalist race ride than a screen clearing maths shooter. Master System After Burner is less a conversion than an impression of Yu Suzuki's hydraulic arcade giant, skill and clarity are jettisoned in favour of getting the largest and prettiest possible F-14 Tomcat sprite dead centre on-screen. That's what you're paying for. That's what you're still paying for.
2 comments:
you're right it is rubbish!
only joking!
Damn you Thom!
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