Back in the eighties and the early to mid nineties, there were a ton of classic arcade games. One of the top developers of some of these Arcade Games was Sega.  One of the classics from the late eighties, that not only looked amazing at first glance, but also contained lots of action, was After Burner II. The game was simply you flying an F1 Fighter, as you took on as many different fighter planes as you can. You dodged bullets, missiles and your goal was simply not to die. Well a group of Italian developers decided to develop a new chapter of the game, which is what we have here with After Burner 3D. All the frantic action of the arcade game, with some new areas to explore and lots to see along the way.

There is no story in After Burner 3D, and there never was in After Burner II for that matter.  The only thing you need to remember is to not die. You control your fighter with the directional keys.  However with this control scheme, up means your plane will go down. and down moves your plane up.  It is a bit tricky at first to get the hang of, but after a few rounds, you will have no problem controlling your fighter. You fire your machine guns with the control key and fire missiles with the shift key. You have a limited number of missiles that are refueled at the end of the mission, not mid mission as you did in the arcade version, so stay alert.

Overall, from the action, to the enemies you face, to some of the graphical area, this is a fairly good new addition to the After Burner series. It can be hard to compare still, since the original was a sit down, cockpit moving arcade game with a flight stick.  But in terms of an all around action game, flying an F1 fighter, blowing everything that gets in your path type of game, After Burner 3D does a nice job. The controls are generally smooth at times, and the action on screen does start from being easy to getting progressively harder, as you proceed through the different stages. There is also boss battles for you to fight, as you advance further into the game, which will test all your flying and shooting skills.

The graphics in the game look all right overall. Nothing super impressive, and somewhat bland at times, with some of the environments that are used. However, the good thing is that there is at least some variety nevertheless, in how they look.  Although the argument could be made that some look alike, just with a different colour palette being used. 

The music and sound effects that are used fit in the game, with the classic sound effects from the arcade version being used whenever you lock onto a fighter or if you happen to be trailed by an enemy fighter. The music does change whenever there is a boss battle, but throughout the game, it is the same track and generally does not sound that great after you hear it for the umpteenth time. 

The big issue with the game that I had was that you only have three lives to start the game. All it takes is one missile to destroy your fighter or one silly movement into a mountain and you will soon realize that you have to be super careful at times. The fact that you cannot increase the number of ships you have available is a bit disappointing, but this just adds a greater challenge to the game, which is a bit excessive. However, there are cheats to the game, which you can discover at the homepage of this game, however make sure to use Google translate first on the website to translate it from Italian to English to make it a bit easier to see where you put in the cheats and how to do so. (Basically, you have to enter cheat mode on the main menu, type in the code, press enter and you will hear a voice to confirm that the cheat was entered correctly.)

After Burner 3D was a fun game nevertheless, that I enjoyed playing as I do remember playing After Burner II back in the day in the arcade. If you just want an old school, shooter to try out or simply looking for a challenge, check out this game and see it for yourself in action.