(Read the original review on my blog)
After testing the waters with the trial version of After Burner Climax on XBox Live Arcade earlier this week, I decided to finally jump in and give the full version a whirl. The achievements didn't seem too hard, anyway.
To put it bluntly, the game is an absolute blast. Part of me has always had an affinity for arcade shooters, where you rush by on a predetermined path and just fire away at everything on the screen. After Burner shares a lot of similarities to another Sega game I enjoy, Outrun, only you're tasked with sweeping away the unfriendly skies with you're missiles, rather than drifting through turns. It was also fun to feel that air of familiarity in the game's soundtrack, which was also featured in Sega's hit action game, Bayonetta.
After my first go at Arcade mode, which is the meat of the game, I had amassed six of the twelve available achievements. I quickly jumped into Score Attack, which gives you infinite lives and a chance to rack up the highest score on the leaderboards, for it's associated achievement. After that, it was back to Arcade mode to try out the EX options I had unlocked. EX options are game modifiers that can either enhance the game experience to help get a higher score, or make the game much more challenging. Either way, they are fun to mess around with (there's also an avatar award for collecting them all).
In less than two hours, I had obtained all twelve achievements and I was reeling with excitement. ABC really struck a chord with me as a gamer, and I was overjoyed that this would go down in history as the first game in which I had unlocked all the achievements. After that initial rush, I took a break from the game for an hour, then came back and unlocked everything else. I plan to keep coming back to it later to try and beat my high score in Score Attack.
I'll be perfectly honest, I don't think ABC is for everyone. It's as balls-out and seizure-inducing as they come, and although some might complain about the brevity of the game, I can't think of a better game to play in one sitting. It's fast, exciting and, most importantly,extremely satisfying. The experience is well worth the ten dollars (800 msp), which is certainly a lot cheaper than pumping quarters into a machine for hours, and way more rewarding. If jet-fueled shooters are your thing, I suggest you give this baby a go. I give it a big thumbs up, a smile and a nod.
