Strike Fighter - Arcade (1991)
Strike Fighter
After Burner 3 - Sega CD (1992)
After Burner 3 does add a few little tweaks, like an optional third person view to make it feel like the older games. However, your plane is gigantic and blocks too much of the screen. The only real advantage of the CD format is the opening cutscene - wherein some professional announcer rants about awesome the F-14 Tomcat is - and the CD audio soundtrack. Unlike Strike Fighter's rather crappy tunes, most of the in game music consists of remixed versions of classic After Burner songs. Most of them are excellent, although a few are too jazzy for my taste. The rest of the original music is terrible, especially the cacophony of the control confirmation screen. After this somewhat embarrassing release, it's easy to see why the public didn't exactly have confidence in the power of the Sega CD.
MP3s
After Burner 3
After Burner 3
Sky Target - Arcade / Saturn / Windows (1995)
The biggest issues are the games dated graphics and the lack of speed. Compared to the older games, the landscape practically crawls by, which reduces a lot of the thrill. And while the 3D graphics may have seemed cool at the time, the textures are painfully low res and the draw-in is quite noticeable. And the missile trails don't look nearly as cool, now that they're portrayed by dithered polygons as opposed to a stream of sprites. The game doesn't even run at a consistent speed, because it's constantly shifting gears depending on the action. The slowdown really ruins some of the pacing, even though it does keep a steady frame rate. There's also a Windows port, which has some sharper graphics but lots of other graphical glitches.
MP3s
Sky Target
Sky Target
Sega Strike Fighter - Arcade (2000)
Sega Strike Fighter
Strike Fighter
Strike Fighter
Strike Fighter
Strike Fighter is essentially another variation on G-LOC, except ditching the goal-based missions and returning to the regular levels of the original After Burner. The graphics engine is practically the same, and the first person cockpit view once again returns, except for when enemies get on your tail. There's a bigger visual variety in levels, and some of them are excellent. You also have unlimited missiles, which is quite nice. Although the gameplay is faster, it still suffers from the slow turning speed of G-LOC. The music still kinda sucks too. Even though it's a pretty decent game, Strike Fighter only saw release in Japanese arcades.
American Cover
After Burner 3
After Burner 3
After Burner 3 for the Sega CD is essentially a bastardized port of Strike Fighter, done by a company called CRI. Despite the Sega CD technically being stronger than the Genesis, After Burner 3 looks noticeably worse than the Genesis ports of After Burner 2 and G-LOC, and doesn't make use of any of the scaling effects. There are a couple of impressive graphic effects, like the take-off sequence and the transitions from first to third person views, both of which are exactly like Strike Fighter. But otherwise, the landscapes are almost completely barren. Some of the animation is nice, and the landscape rotation is the smoothest of any of the 16-bit versions, but otherwise it's a confusing step backwards.
American Cover
Sky Target
Sky Target
Once again, Sega masks it's lineage by giving a completely new name to what's obviously a new installment in the After Burner series. Sky Target is the first fully polygonal game in the series, courtesy of the Model 2 hardware. The game plays remarkably similar to the older games, and is easily comparable to games like Star Fox 64. After the first few levels, the game branches off and lets you take a few paths to the final stage. It's not nearly as involved as Outrun, but it adds greatly to the replayability. At the end of each stage, you'll find some kind of boss, which range from gigantic planes to deadly blimps. These feel a bit more like a Panzer Dragoon game, and while it's distinctly un-After Burner-ish, they're less silly than foes in the Master System version of G-LOC. You only get one life per credit, although now your plane has a silly lifebar. The music is the worst kind of generic butt rock, all done with very cheesy synth, although the composers tossed in a homage to the older games.
Sega Strike Fighter
Sega Strike Fighter
Released only in the arcades on the Naomi hardware, Sega Strike Fighter bears a resemblance in theme to the older After Burner games, but plays much closer to a game like Air Combat - which is to say, slower and more realistic. The game is set up much like G-LOC, in that you have a time limit to destroy a certain number of bad guys before you can move on. You can pick and choose your missions as well. In addition to the standard controls, there's also a pedal that lets your fighter strafe, although it's still rather hard to keep your plane under control. Sega Strike Fighter's big gimmick is the three screen sit-down cabinet, which creates a greater sense of immersion. Once again you have a life bar, and it's all too easy to turn upside down, bang into the ground and severely damage your fighter. It's an OK game, but it's clear that the apple has fallen pretty far from the tree. (Also excuse the pictures, which were all stolen from Killer List of Video Games.)
