After Burner Climax finally coming home: to XBLA April 21 & PSN April 22

[parallaxscroll]

After Burner Climax takes off April 21 on XBLA; April 22 on PSN

by James Ransom-Wiley { Mar 29th 2010 at 10:00PM } Xbox PlayStation
Not many of us have the good fortune of taking a soak in a hot tub
time machine and waking up in 1986, the year the fighter jet pilot
officially became the raddest job on the planet. Fewer still know the
whereabouts of a decent arcade that has an After Burner Climax
cabinet, the 2006 revival of Sega's classic air combat franchise.
Thankfully, in less than a month, all of us can experience the glory
of stopping a nuclear inferno from within the cockpit.

Sega of America has dated the Xbox Live Arcade release of After Burner
Climax for April 21, followed by an April 22 release on PSN. [Update:
Sega Europe Ltd. has confirmed the same release dates for Europe.] The
publisher did not announce a price for the downloadable title, but the
Japanese version was previously priced at the $10 equivalent.

http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/29/af...ril-22-on-psn/

[acem77]

The rage!!!!!
i want After Burner Climax as bad as i dont want to run the ps3 update that removes the otherOS on my launch 60GB ps3.

[norkusa]

Been waiting months for Climax. Just bought a MS points card today so I'll be ready Wednesday ($17 @ Target this week).

Anyone know if the Saitek Aviator or Ace Combat 6 sticks are supported? I thought I remember hearing something about that a while ago but can't find any info on it now.

[Leo_A]

Been waiting months for Climax. Just bought a MS points card today so I'll be ready Wednesday ($17 @ Target this week).

Anyone know if the Saitek Aviator or Ace Combat 6 sticks are supported? I thought I remember hearing something about that a while ago but can't find any info on it now.

They will certainly work, they're just normal 360 controllers and work in any title. Of course, the buttons might not be mapped to how you'd like. Let's hope the controls are configurable.

[kedawa]

The rage!!!!!
i want After Burner Climax as bad as i dont want to run the ps3 update that removes the otherOS on my launch 60GB ps3.

I'm pretty sure you can get the 3.21 firmware and still have the Other OS option if you don't mind doing some trickery with the PS3s configuration files.

[j_factor]

Hopefully this gets a disc release in Europe or something.

[acem77]

Hopefully this gets a disc release in Europe or something.

that would be great if it was region free id buy it for the US.

[DefaultGen]

.....

[Videogamerdaryll]

Really hyped for this. Don't have to go to Chuck E Cheese to play anymore!

Ahhhh,That's Where I played it too..Prob the most I've ever played a machine (cup full of tokens) there..

[davidbrit2]

Been waiting months for Climax. Just bought a MS points card today so I'll be ready Wednesday ($17 @ Target this week).

Anyone know if the Saitek Aviator or Ace Combat 6 sticks are supported? I thought I remember hearing something about that a while ago but can't find any info on it now.

The AC6 stick works AWESOME. Use control setting D for proper throttle function.

Half the reason I bought that thing when it came out was just in case we ever got a home version of After Burner Climax. Looks like I made the right bet.

[diskoboy]

I'm buying it on PSN, tomorrow.

Still have about $50 left from before Christmas.

[norkusa]

The AC6 stick works AWESOME. Use control setting D for proper throttle function.

Half the reason I bought that thing when it came out was just in case we ever got a home version of After Burner Climax. Looks like I made the right bet.

Nice! Good to hear the stick works well with it. Played a lot with the 360 controller last night but now I'll give the stick a shot.

BTW, anyone know how to enter secret stages that branch off Stage 5 & 10 (I think that's right)? I'm guessing unlocking the first one has something to do with shooting that stealth bomber down...

[davidbrit2]

BTW, anyone know how to enter secret stages that branch off Stage 5 & 10 (I think that's right)? I'm guessing unlocking the first one has something to do with shooting that stealth bomber down...

See those stars that appear in the upper right corner? Every time you clear a stage, you gain a star. Every time you're shot down, you lose a star. If you lose all your lives, your stars reset to zero. In order to get to the two secret stages, you have to have at least 4 stars after clearing the stage just prior. You will then branch off to the alternate secret stage (Golden Valley or Clouds of Twilight).

To get to the two extra stages at the end of the game, and thus get ending A, you have to complete all six emergency orders that appear throughout the game (shoot down the prototype, shoot down the stealth bomber, etc). If you complete the first five, the sixth one will be available on stage 13. Complete this one, and you'll proceed to stage 14, rather than finishing with ending C.

Also, this doesn't appear to be up on US PSN yet. Odd. Oh well, back to the 360 for now.

[diskoboy]

Bought it last night. I had 100% of the trophies in about 2 hours.

[norkusa]

I still need the A ending and AAA ranking to get all my trophies. Hopefully I'll get it done tonight after a couple more play thrus.

[diskoboy]

I still need the A ending and AAA ranking to get all my trophies. Hopefully I'll get it done tonight after a couple more play thrus.

Once you start unlocking the EX features, you'll start getting tropies/achievements everytime you blink.

While ABC is still a very fun rail shooter, Sega made the achievements way too easy.

[norkusa]

While ABC is still a very fun rail shooter, Sega made the achievements way too easy.

Yeah, they did that with Virtual-On too. I never played the game before but after playing 2 games against the computer, I already unlocked half of the achievements. The rest don't look that difficult to get either.

Outrun 2 HD is a different story though. I've played that more than any other game in my XBLA library and I only have 70 points so far.

[davidbrit2]

While ABC is still a very fun rail shooter, Sega made the achievements way too easy.

Agreed, but since I don't really buy games for the achievements/trophies, I'm not terribly upset. The score attack leaderboards will tell the real story. Besides, it's the only game I've bothered to get 100% achievements on.

[grolt]

Picked up the XBLA version. I'd never played this in arcades (let alone seen it) but I've been really impressed by it. What a rush! I love how the levels just keep going one after another, and how there are three styles of play emphasized (speed, accuracy and combo-ing). That adds a lot of variety and makes it fun to keep playing again to work your stats in either focus (while always trying to improve on all three simultaneously). The achievements are pretty easy like in Virtual On, but you still have to work for it, and it's the kind of game where you want to play it once more because you know there'll be another reward waiting.

I really like what they did with the whole bonus menu too, which is like the game's internal version of Xbox Achivements. So often with arcade games it gets pretty stale after a few hours, but I haven't been able to put this down, always wanting to get the new bonus to see just how much it can help me amp up my combos or speed or whatever.

AM2 is one unit at SEGA you never have to worry about - they're output has been pretty damn fabulous for almost three decades now. Great to see this finally come home...and wow, what a beautiful game! I wish I could get a hard copy of this game...it's a port that definitely deserves it.

[Leo_A]

Outrun 2 HD is a different story though. I've played that more than any other game in my XBLA library and I only have 70 points so far.

Outrun Online Arcade is actually really easy to get 200/200 on.

Any particular achievements you're having difficulty with? Even the hardest ones are actually surprisingly easy.

Take the AAA Heart Attack achievement. Most people think they need to be going through all 5 stages as fast as possible while also satisfying the tasks they're assigned in order to be getting AAA's. But the timer doesn't actually affect it so you should feel free to slow down when necessary on a stage like Milky Way rather then going through at full blast, where between the goals and the regular driving, you're bound to do something wrong that causes you to get at least 1 score below a AAA (Which automatically means you can't get a AAA overall and can't get the achievement). Time doesn't matter beyond having enough of it to get to the end of 5 stages so slowing down to help complete a task like driving between cone gates and to prevent mistakes is the way to go since only completing the task your girlfriend assigns to you matters, not the speed you go through the stages.

A surprising number of people are ignorant of that in the game so I was well into the top 10 on some of the heart attack leaderboards when I last played (And I'm someone that ignored anything but regular arcade mode in Outrun 2/2006, so I was new to things like heart attack mode).