GAME OF THE MONTH COLLECTION!
AERO BLASTERS
(Kaneko, 1990)

Introduction and Story:

To sell a video game these days (or any day for that matter) you need an awesome sounding title to entice the public that your product doesn't suck. Trust me; no one wants to play a game called Boxy Boy or Yo Bro for example. I would so buy a game Sexy Nurses Vs. the Robo Zombies! Anyway back to my point: Aero Blasters here is definitely a pretty basic title so it gets to the point to what it really is and I like that. Blast down invading aliens with your aerocrafts is enough for me to drop the cash. Fortunately, in this cool game here with the cool name; it's actually a great arcade translation of an awesome shoot em up that's either called Aero Blasters (like the Turbografx-16 version) or Air Buster (the Sega Genesis) in certain places. Well, whatever you wanna call it though it's still packed with fast action, cool music, and even some great graphics here.

The game play and bottomline:  
Just like many Turbografx-16 games this is yet another shoot em up but at least it has a pretty good power up system here. Your ship can not only carry a main vulcan cannon that can be powered up ten times with the 'P' things but you can also carry a secondary attack like homing missiles, 6 way shot, side options, and many more for even greater firepower. Another cool thing is you don't have to do it alone either since Aero Blasters is a two player game as well and I honestly don't know why shooters like Air Zonk and Syd Mead's Terraforming force me to kick my friends out while I play all alone.

Yeah, and you're going to need all the help and guns you can get too because Aero Blasters is a very tough game. There are only 5 measely continues and 6 long stages to master here and each stage has loads of on screen enemies and tons of annoying hard mini-bosses to fight along the way. There are times when the game can be a little too difficult and a great example of this is the stage 5 mini boss where the creature fires a evil set of five way shots at rapid speeds that are nearly impossible to avoid especially with the more floaty controls used in the space stages. Speaking of the stages here they all look incredible with 6 diverse locations that range from flying over a ravaged city to the alien's heavily guarded fortress. All the stages even have some of that fancy parallex scrolling which wasn't too common in several early TG-16 titles. I even liked the rather funky new age music here that can seem a little too relaxing in phase 3 for example but it's still double D awesome! Although the game is insanely difficult and has no Sexy Nurses in it, Aero Blasters is loaded with action and comes recommend for shooter freaks like me.
Here is my 6 minute video review of Aero Blasters too!
Conclusion:  
AERO BLASTERS
overall rating: 83/100

Find Aero Blasters on eBay here!

For 1 or 2 players
graphics: 8/10
sound: 8/10
gameplay: 6/10
replay: 7/10

StarSoldier1
(Ryan Genno) 2008


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