Rating: 5/5
Single player first person flight combat game. Analogue or digital directional controls, analogue or digital throttle (can be disabled) and 2 buttons. Button 1 fires your gun, button 2 fires your limited armament of missiles. There's very little introduction, you launch from an aircraft carrier (called SEGA Enterprise) in an F-14 fighter and battle a series of baddies who are trying to blow you up with gun or missile. You can shoot your gun through a square reticule or wait until you get a missile lock on one of the baddies and then fire your missile. All the while you are trying to avoid being blown out of the sky by quite a large number of enemies. You fight over a series of stages with some involving navigation through tight passages and attacking ground targets. Every few stages you are replenished with missiles and at least twice land to be serviced. After Burner II is easier than the original but is still tough to play emulated with an analogue pad. It is still great fun to play though.
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