After Burner: Black Falcon on the PSP aims to resurrect the defunct After Burner arcade franchise that was popular during the late eighties and early nineties. It does this by supplying the same high-speed thrills and thumb breaking maneuvers that permeated that franchise. Do they still work in the new millennium? Read and find out.
Story:
The story of After Burner: Black Falcon is rather razor thin. A terrorist organization stole 13 highly classified and dangerous experimental jets and it’s your job to get them back. And in order to get them back you have to fly over vast areas and destroy large amounts of real estate only to eventually find one and blast the ever-holy daylights out of them. There’s not much else to elaborate on. There seems to be no narrative tying anything together, which is good because the story will never be convoluted.
Gameplay:
Your job in this game is to go straight and fast with your guns and missiles blazing. It seems like the game is on rails, but luckily you’re able to dodge oncoming fire. Sometimes it seems like the enemy missiles have a homing feature, because no matter how much you buck and weave the oncoming fire there are times that you will get hit by a missile. Sometimes you’ll dodge a whole screen full of missiles, anti-aircraft fire, and some green gas stuff (don’t get hit by this) only to get caught by some lone missile.
After you send a whole squadron of enemy fighters screaming towards the earth in a flaming ball of wreckage you get power ups. They’re not in the sense of Raiden Trad power ups, but they help out, they come in the form of crates. Regular brown ones re-arm your plane, red cures you, pink slows down time, green gives you more money and blue gives you more points. You should watch out for all of them, because they help. I can do without the pink ones, but if you want to meet the secret money objectives get the green ones. Speaking of money let’s get to the goodies you get to buy.
There are several things to spend your money on. At first you might think that buying new planes is the best bet, but it’s not. Each plane handles differently and sometimes it feels like it’s not for the better. Each of these planes has different stats that effect how you play. In this game it’s best to go with a plane that has a good balance between maneuverability and payload. This is because when you’re dodging artillery fire…and mountains while also lining up shots with your crosshairs you won’t always be able to pick up that crucial re-supply crate. When you start to master each stage you can play around challenge yourself by using something that may be slower or less maneuverable with a smaller payload.
The power ups that really help the game are the extra missile and payload power ups. Once you level up you get access to double all the way up to quadruple missiles, which allow you to shoot down multiple targets at once. And the payload ones increases the amount of ammo you get to carry. And when you start hitting the really hard missions you’ll need these. On top of these you also get to customize your plane with different paint schemes.
After Burner: Black Falcon is fun, but it seems like it’s more intended for short bursts. Because if you try to play for more than an hour or two the game will start to feel repetitive. All I know is that I play the game during the fifty minute commute from work and school and the time flies by just as fast as the jets in the game do.
Graphics:
The graphics aren’t bad to be honest. Every plane looks the way they should and there’s plenty of action on screen. Missiles leave a nice contrail when you fire them and are detailed and varied in design. The sore spot in the game is the frame rate. There are numerous times when the action gets so intense that the game will just freeze for a couple of seconds. This is something that really takes away from the enjoyment of the game. If that’s more related to loading and not frame rate it’s still not an excuse. In other occasions the frame rate will stutter a bit as well. Even though the game is nice looking points must be taken off for the stuttering and freezing.
Sound:
After Burner: Black Falcon has a rather interesting soundtrack. Some of it sounds like surfer rock and other songs in the game are attached to the hard rock side of music. If it was any other game it would fail, but for some odd reason it works surprisingly well in the game. The music will switch during a stage, so no particular stage is tied to a certain track. This is good because you won’t have to listen to the same exact song during the same exact level after you die.
The music does a nice job of pumping you up, and helps bring you to that Zen like state of mind required to get the ballet of button presses right for survival. If you can’t stand rock music you might want to stay away from this game…or turn it off.
Replay:
If you want to buy every plane and every single paint job and upgrade for each plane, you’ll be busy. The game is fun and it’s great for commuting or when you just want to burn 10-30 minutes. The action is fast paced and there are a lot of cool and entertaining stages in the game. There are times when you’ll play the game just to enjoy a few of the stages. So for the most part until you get really bored with it “After Burner: Black Falcon” is a game that you’ll put some time into.
Overall:
After Burner: Black Falcon is a rather entertaining, but in long sessions repetitive. The PSP has other flight games such Ace Combat: X: Skies of Deception, but if you’re looking for something a little less realistic and lacking a tunnel flying end stage then you really can’t go wrong with Black Falcon.
"After Burner: Black Falcon (PSP)" is on sale March 20, 2007 and is rated T. Shooter.
