He conquers who endures. ~Persius
While it's doubtful that the Roman Persuis was talking about Afterburner Climax when he came up with this quote (after all, it would be around 2000 years until the game was released), the game certainly seems to have taken his theory to heart.
We like to think we're patient people. We let people pull out of side roads, we don't run red lights, because we're that desperate to get to our destination, and we manage to supress the urge to completely obliterate people who saunter into our way in the shopping centre, completely block the aisle, and then move with all the pace of a geriatric snail.
Blue skies, blue water, and fast, arcade action. All it's missing is the tilting seat, like the arcade has.
Afterburner Climax, however, did its best to push us to the limits. A fast paced, arcade action game, Afterburner is about as much a simulation as our parliament is an overall majority (yes, a topical reference! That's our satire quota for the day met), instead stripping out all the technicalities of flying a plane, leaving you to deal with the fun bits - locking onto things, firing your missiles, and relying on your razor sharp, split-second reactions, to prevent you from being roasted like a turkey, all whilst skimming the surface of the sea at several hundred miles an hour, or bombing through a tight canyon at breakneck speed.
The aformentioned canyon. It's surprisingly hard flying a jet at several hundred miles an hour without clipping anything...
Coming to the Xbox Live Arcade via the real, physical, bricks and mortar thing, Afterburner Climax plays as you'd imagine an arcade game would - relying on simple to pick up and play, but difficult to master controls, and, at times, a fair amount of luck. Starting out nice and easily, with enemies firing just a few rockets at you, the game quickly ramps things up, to the point where the screen fills with enemies, missiles, and smoke trails, as you're left frantically dodging whatever you can see in the hope your plane stays alive.
It's a rush, in the best possible way. And when everything comes together - when you're dodging the enemies, firing missiles back, and racking up a huge combo (string together a number of kills, and you'll get a huge score), you feel - and look - like you're the new Top Gun.
However, on the standard difficulty, this "coming together", sadly, only ever lasts a few levels. As the odds get greater and greater, you'll find yourself dying more and more often - especially when, as you waggle the virtual joystick frantically, in an attempt to dodge the incoming rockets, your plane decides it wants to do a barrel roll, which just ends with you getting killed. And when you find yourself always getting so close to the end of the game (the game has regular breaks to tell you how far you've progressed through the game, and tell you how many stages you've got left) , before the odds simply overwhelm you - well, it just doesn't seem fair.
Once you've shot down enough enemies, you can go into "Climax mode", which slows everything down, and enlarges your targeting cursor. For massive damage.
But this is where Afterburner plays its trump card.
In a fit of genius, that we're surprised no-one else has come up with before, Afterburner Climax introduces something called "EX Options". These options are there to help make your life easier - and as such, they're unlocked by simply persevering, and sticking to your guns, so to speak. You unlock the first EX option - a few extra credits (continues), by simply getting a game over. The more times you play, the easier the game will make itself, by gradually unlocking a whole variety of options that turns your plane from a weak, fragile petal into a mean, lean, robust war machine. If you shoot down a number of enemies with the gun, you'll unlock an option to make your gun more powerful. Reach the end, and you'll increase the size of your targeting reticle. Just by playing the game again and again, no matter how bad you are, you'll manage to unlock more and more EX options that will make the game easier - allowing everyone to play the game through to its conclusion - something that isn't possible in the arcade without spending a small fortune.
Of course, if you're feeling particularly masochistic (and you'd have to be, as the main game's tricky enough on its own), certain EX options will actually make the game harder for you. Ranging from weakening your gun, to making your plane only have 1% health, these options are for the real hardcore - and while it's probably nice for them, we chose to leave them well alone.
Along with the standard Arcade mode, Afterburner Climax also comes packing a score attack mode, which turns all EX options off, gives you unlimited lives, and challenges you to simply complete the game with the highest score possible. If you achieve certain goals during the game, like shooting down a certain number of planes, or missing with 300 rockets, as we got, you'll unlock medals. Collecting all of the medals will unlock you an Afterburner helmet for your avatar, but, sadly, for anyone who hasn't been blessed with the reactions of a gaming god, this will be a near impossible task, as there's a medal in there for not being shot down, once, in an entire game. If it were for not getting a game over, and we were feeling brave, we may have attempted it. But as it stands, we think we'll sadly have to go without the helmet.
The later levels get horribly difficult. Thank God for EX options.
It's simple, yet hard. Initially frustrating, yet addictive. And all wrapped up in a sleek package that helps player new and experienced get a game that caters to their abilities. If you unlock all the EX options (which, as we said, you will, if you play it enough), you even unlock a t-shirt for your avatar. What more could you ask for!
And, at a pound a go in the arcade, all you have to do is make it through 6.8 lives, and you'll have made your money back. We think our very own Sarah managed that on the first level.
Even if you don't like flying games, or are usually put off by the difficulty levels of games like this, we encourage you to give it a try. And keep giving it a try. You won't regret it.
Format Reviewed: Xbox 360
