1. I am way too busy coming up w/ pithy comments on video games to do proper research but from what I can gather, the After Burner franchise is a small handful of arcade games, their related ports and this, After Burner: Black Falcon. The PSP is an interesting place to have the one non-arcade game in a series but, hey, oddball stuff like this is what makes handheld gaming so fun.
2. It basically plays like any other game in the series but there is a bunch of stuff layered on top of it, some of which you would never see in a game meant to be played in an actual arcade cabinet.
3. You can pick between three different characters to play as. Two of them are insufferable so you will most likely pick the improbably cleavaged woman. Each has their own set of cut scenes but the overarching story is basically the same no matter what and your choice has no real effect on gameplay as far as I can tell.
4. What does change gameplay is you have a variety of planes to pick from, ranging from more agile fighter jets to sturdier but less nimble bombers. I found that you could just go ahead and use After Burner's classic F-14 for everything and that worked just fine. Experimenting w/ different planes is fun but not necessary and I didn't feel like anything handled so vastly different from everything else that it felt like a different game or anything.
5. It tries to encourage you to try different planes by recommending one for each mission but doing this actually works to your disadvantage. You collect money in game to buy upgrades and the new planes cost money as well. As far as I could tell, any well kitted out plane was better than the base model plane suggested for each mission. I guess they tried though.
6. You
will have to go into the options and change the Y-axis controls to be
reversed because it's programmed to be stupid by default but once that's
done, you're cooking w/ gas and the game controls excellently.
7. You have a cannon, missiles and rockets. You use the cannon to shoot planes that are close, the missiles to shoot planes that are far and the rockets to shoot things on the ground. You do this all while dodging enemy fire w/ air-brakes, the titular after burner and a handy barrel roll. The arcade style gameplay comes from balancing chaining combos for points and in-game currency while avoiding enough enemy fire. This is a classic formula and it works.
8. Enemies you kill drop packages that slow down time, give you money, restore your health or your afterburner fuel and ammo. Collecting these is essential to the rhythm of the game, pushing high scores and just staying alive. It is a very welcome addition to the standard After Burner mechanics, an extra wrinkle that adds depth w/o getting in the way of the core mechanics.
9. In addition to the combat, there are some environmental obstacles you
have to avoid and these are never anything but annoying. For the vast
majority of the game, you can always take some damage w/o dying. A bunch
of insta-kills thrown in there just seems out of place and cheap.
10. For some reason, ground targets give you way more money than air targets. There's a level about a third of the way through which has about twice as many ground targets as any other level and if you want to quickly build up funds to upgrade and try new planes, you are going to find yourself replaying this one level an awful, awful lot.
11. Black Falcon is not exactly a tour de force in graphical fidelity on PSP but it looks good enough. Excellent
HUD elements make up for the fact that sometimes distant enemies can be
hard to see. A variety of different landscapes present some variety and
it all looks pretty good if not exactly stunning. The music is pretty standard rock music and has a resounding twang of
genericness to it. Still I noticed some track have a cool post-punk
flavor to them that I rather enjoyed.
12. How much replayability you will find in this will depend on how much you like going for high scores. Here is where the different planes start making a real difference, trying to squeeze a few more points by having a plane w/ more firepower but is harder to control. There's extra difficulty settings for those looking for a challenge as well as a multi-player mode that I will try after you get this game and bring it over to my house to play w/ me.
13. Given that the Sega Genesis collection on PSP does not contain any of the ports of the original arcade games, this is the only After Burner you are going to get on this portable. It is also a rather unique take on the series and is thus a good choice for both fans of the franchise and people who somehow have no other way to check out After Burner other than their PSP. How many people like this exist is anybody's guess, I suppose, but if you are one, hey, have I got a game for you.
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