HEY INTERNET, REMEMBER AFTER BURNER? It was the one where you hung on for dear life riding a motorbike while trying to outrun a crisis. If you hit trucks you'd spin in circles and your e-girlfriend would spew bile all over the screen forcing you to insert one hundred dollars notes to continue. Pretty good. Last year After Burner
Climax came out in the arcades (which should be ported to Xbox or something but no it's Sega so it's going to rot in the corner of nowhere), THIS year, BLACK FALCON. This thread's a BWOOP warning alert, it's pretty good. Developed by Planet Moon (Giants: Citizen Kabuto, other examples of their work go here), the game doesn't mess around with modern bullshit like drama storylines or drama gameplay or drama! Oh wait there is a story, but it's very Genesis-ish, right down to the 16-bit-ish music and text. JUST FUCKIN' GO. SHOOT THE ENEMIES. GO FAST. STRAIGHT AHEAD. FOREVER. CAN'T SLOW DOWN EVEN IF YOU WANT TO. BARREL ROLL. GO GO GO GO GO.
GO FASTER. JESUS CHRIST YOU'RE STILL NOT GOING FAST ENOUGH GO GO GO. BLUR. That's the instruction manual.
There are three goons to play as. Billy, who calls himself Sonic (really) because he hates himself, Meat Head Bull Consumes The Whole Screen and Angry Looking Woman. The levels are all the same no matter who you choose, but they have different sort of goals. Billy's is to beat the stages as fast as possible, Bull wants to destroy everything, even if it's a tree or the ocean. Must shoot it.
Must kill. And Angry has a blood pressure meter that must peak by the time she finishes the level. I think. Maybe.
There's like twenty something levels, with a few different exciting environments to strain your eyes to like.. the um.. forest.. ocean thing, ice.. ocean... and sand land. For the most part it's just like the old After Burner games, speeding along shooting everyone, landing every now and then to get new caps for your cap gun. Except now there are objectives like "BLOW UP THE BRIDGE" or "BLOW UP THE FACTORY". Stealth missions for sure. You might bump into a boss every now and then, they're all shithouse. Like five missiles and they go down. COMBO MEALS EVERYWHERE. Sometimes big combos will earn fancy power-ups and whatever.
It's amazing because it's a Sega published game that isn't terrible, and it's perfect for handheld pick up and play (FAST). Graphics are obviously pretty much crafted out of stink, but it all speeds by so quick, no time to appreciate the smeared brown and green. GO GO GO. Music is nowhere near as memorable as the original, but it's not bad. It's RAWK. Plus there's a big nod to the original music hidden in the game anyway. A RETURN TO OLD. BUT IT'S NEW.
BLOW UP SANTA
Jam it back in, in the dark.