After Burner Climax review

Pricey but nicey retro remake

Reviews
By
published

12DOVE Verdict

Pros

  • +

    Looks lovely in HD

  • +

    Incredibly satisfying to play

  • +

    Can fiddle with various EX options

Cons

  • -

    Only amounts to about ten minutes of fun

  • -

    Still quite simplistic at heart

  • -

    Not really worth the price

Why you can trust 12DOVE Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about our reviews policy.

Like drift-racer OutRun before it, After Burner is the latest Sega classic to get an HD remake and a release on XBLA. Out of the two, OutRun Online Arcade is still the one to go for – there’s much more bang for your buck there. After Burner Climax features a reworked version of the Arcade mode, which – despite looking lovely in HD and being incredibly satisfying to play – only amounts to about ten minutes of fun. Sure, you can change some variables in the main Arcade by fiddling with EX options (get a bigger targeting reticule, more credits, an auto-gun and so on), but if anything that makes your play-throughs shorter.

Elsewhere, there’s a Score Attack mode that enables you to upload your scores to online leaderboards, but that’s pretty much it. We’d liked to have seen more substance here to go with the new style and, as such, can’t quite recommend it for the somewhat steep price, unless you really, really love After Burner.

Apr 23, 2010

More info

GenreFlight
DescriptionWe’d liked to have seen more substance in this XBLA game to go with the new style and, as such, can’t quite recommend it for the somewhat steep price, unless you really, really love After Burner.
Platform"Xbox 360","PS3"
US censor rating"Everyone 10+","Everyone 10+"
UK censor rating"12+","12+"
Release date1 January 1970 (US), 1 January 1970 (UK)
More
CATEGORIES
Andy_Hartup
See comments