Are you epileptic? No? Would you like to be? Then boy do I have the game for you! After Burner Climax is undoubtedly the fastest game I have ever played, moving at such absurdly ridiculous speeds that it actually becomes hilarious. It's a short game, but it's well worth your money.
Normally, I have very little interest in flight combat games. They tend to devolve into me spinning around, following some erratic icon all over the edges of the screen as I circle an enemy who is busy circling me. That's incredibly boring, and not even remotely like After Burner Climax.
Here, enemies will either come hurtling toward you at breakneck speeds or come from behind you, so you'll never have to search the skies for what you're supposed to be shooting. All you need to worry about is to 1) never stop shooting, and 2) go as fast as possible. It's a simple concept, but the game boldly embraces it and keeps everything completely insane from start to finish.
There is some strategy involved, but really, just stick to those two steps listed above and you'll be fine. Just throw in a couple barrel rolls for good measure and remember to use the Climax mode that slows down time, turns your lock-on aiming cursor into a ludicrously-sized, rainbow-colored, flashing circle of death, and allows you to fire infinite missiles at once. Awesome.
Everything about After Burner Climax moves nonsensically fast, even the story. This is an arcade game at heart, so you get an intro cutscene that basically just shows your plane taking off as a guy quickly yells, "HEY SOME BAD GUYS ARE ABOUT TO LAUNCH A NUKE AND IT'S YOUR JOB TO STOP 'EM GO GO GO!!!" and one of three ending cutscenes. It's stupid and silly and I love it.
Something to consider is After Burner Climax's extremely short length. The entire game can be beaten in about 15 minutes, but the key here is that practically every time you play it, you'll be unlocking new and crazier cheats to use that make the game exponentially more fun.
You'll be able to set the normally small cursor to always be at Climax mode size, set your guns to auto-fire, have infinite missiles, and a bevy of other absolutely game-changing enhancements. All of these are unlocked by simply playing more, turning what might've been an ultimately unfulfilling campaign into something much more addicting.
So when it comes down to it, yeah, After Burner Climax is pretty short.
But it's so ridiculous and fun that its brevity ceases to matter. It's one of the few games that get better every time you play it. As long as you don't have epilepsy, that is.
