http://www.zhell.co.uk
http://zhell.atari.org
Amstrad
Atari
Sinclair
Atari and Atari logo is copyright of Atari/Infogrames.
All other copyrights recognised.
One of those amazingly hyped games that never lives up to expectations. Afterburner could not fail to dissapoint. Slagged off almost as much as the original Streetfighter, there was no way the ST version of Afterburner was ever going to be a patch on it's arcade parent. Why? well it's arcade parent (from Sega) had one of those twisty rolly cases that were just what you needed to get into after a few pints. The ST version lacks this neat add on, thank the lord, the thought of being catapulted around the room on an ST equivalent (which probably would have involved hanging onto the end of the mouse) does not sound appealing. Graphically the game is pretty comparable and gameplay wise it's not too different either. In the arcade original one button was used for firing the machine gun and the other for launching missiles. In the ST version the machine gun fires automatically (but rarely seems to hit anything). Enemies in front of you seem to spend most of their time hidden in a cloud, where even though your missiles seem to lock on, they never hit. You also seem to blow up quite randomly, depending on the wims of the game. It's quite a enjoyable blast though, even if not exactly brain taxing.
Zogging Hell Rating: 80%
ST Action
Rating: 65%
ST Action Breakdown:
Graphics: 60%
Sound: 57%
Lasting Appeal: 62%
Addictiveness: 67%
Difficulty: Ave/Hard
1st Day Score: 5769140
Cheats
Pause the game and type 'THUNDERBLADE'. Unpause the game and use the following keys for some super skilly effects: G= Extra Missiles (And you don't half need them!), <= jump foward a level, >= jump back a level (eh?) N= Extra lives and finally (most useful of all) T= depletes missiles(ah yes). Alternatively if you type in 'AGES' (Sega backwards, those cunning guys!) and use some of the same keys to skip levels.
Download
Download a cracked (sorry no original), zipped archive of Afterburner here. If you are using an emulator you will have to copy the files to a new disk image or use Make Disk. Alternatively If you still have an original ST use MSA available from the downloads page in the ST compatible section. Note: Needs 1mb to run.
