He’s on floor 13 you say? Where the hell is floor 13!!!
The Mega Drive isn’t a stranger to side-scrolling shoot-em ups. Um, even space themed shoot-em ups (R-Type springs to mind). So why should anyone bother giving Aero Blasters a shot? Bad puns aside, cos it’s bloody entertaining! The arcade game was well received and deserved to be ported to the home consoles. The plot? I believe it’s up to you as the last remaining whoever to blow up the bad guy and return peace to a planet?
The sign indicated slugs but they sure as hell looked like snails to Bert!
Graphically it’s lovely to look at, the backdrops are well drawn and coloured, the enemies are detailed and look menacing. Some of the bosses are so huge they take up more than half the screen. Missiles and gunshots fly through the air, exploding everything and anything with aplomb. It’s just a shame that your fighter looks like it was imported from the GameBoy version of R-Type dashed with a bit of colour. The sound effects are good, explosions sound convincing enough although they were never going to be as good as the arcade version.
Twas a veritable smorgasbord, Quentin didn’t know where to start
The music is up tempo, keeps the adrenalin pumping and importantly for a game of this genre, is in no way annoyingly repetitive. How does it play? It plays rather fantastically. There are several levels all with assorted baddies who can be destroyed in several ways. Along with standard gunfire, power-ups can be obtained allowing extra guns, guns that shoot 360 degrees and missiles. You can also charge up your ship and let the blast go to kill all small enemies in range. It’s a nice touch and gets you out of many a spot of bother.
A few tiny gripes concerning the power ups, in order to get them you must blast open these yellow bin-type things that scatter the icons all over the place. One, they can really get in the way of a dogfight and two, you’ll pick up the power up you need (extra guns, baby!) and then accidentally fly over the icon for the crappy 360 degree shot = no extra guns baby 🙁 .
So just as soon as you’ve got your teeth into Aero Blasters, it’s gone. I can’t work out whether it’s just too easy or not long enough? Actually I have, the levels are too bloody short. Someone write a game genie code to loop the levels and we’ll all be happy.
2 thoughts on “Aero Blasters (Mega Drive Review)”
Aereo Blasters is part of the title of one of the most important aspects of the 80s and 90s.
The simple realization of this type of product, in addition to the fun it provoked in the games room and on home consoles, allowed the so-called fans of the hell of bullets to conquer the public of the time until they died in the last generations.
There is talk of the period of the late 80’s and early 90’s, when dozens of excellent proposals in this category regularly arrived from Japan.
Aero Blasters has never been a classic of shoot’em up, nor did it aspire to be, but it remains an excellent example of how fantasy and technical skill go a long way. First released as a coin-op and immediately afterwards on home consoles, it managed to get noticed (for a short period of time) thanks to some really brilliant ideas in gameplay and in the exquisitely technical part.
Graphics were very essential, but they resumed Japanese comic and cartoon design, especially in terms of technology. From the starships, reaching the enemies to ending the inevitable bosses, the skill of the designers was clearly seen in the many details made. All with a handful of colors and many beautiful squares in evidence, due to the limitations present at the time.
Aereo Blasters is part of the title of one of the most important aspects of the 80s and 90s.
The simple realization of this type of product, in addition to the fun it provoked in the games room and on home consoles, allowed the so-called fans of the hell of bullets to conquer the public of the time until they died in the last generations.
There is talk of the period of the late 80’s and early 90’s, when dozens of excellent proposals in this category regularly arrived from Japan.
Aero Blasters has never been a classic of shoot’em up, nor did it aspire to be, but it remains an excellent example of how fantasy and technical skill go a long way. First released as a coin-op and immediately afterwards on home consoles, it managed to get noticed (for a short period of time) thanks to some really brilliant ideas in gameplay and in the exquisitely technical part.
Graphics were very essential, but they resumed Japanese comic and cartoon design, especially in terms of technology. From the starships, reaching the enemies to ending the inevitable bosses, the skill of the designers was clearly seen in the many details made. All with a handful of colors and many beautiful squares in evidence, due to the limitations present at the time.