After Burner: Black Falcon buzzes the tower

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"Do youfeel the need- the need for speed!?"

If your answer involves dubs, vinyls, or Brooke Burke, you need to go to the video store, or to the Netflix, or wherever you whippersnappers get your movies these days, and rent Top Gun. Keep it real, son. Cars don't go fast. Jets go fast.

First released by Sega as an arcade game in 1987, After Burner capitalized on the fact that fighter pilots were widely viewed as totally freakin' awesome, thanks in no small part to Tom Cruise and the Cold War. With the upcoming release of After Burner: Black Falcon, Sega is hoping that gamers, regardless of whether or not they existed in the '80s, will be up for a) speed, b) explosions, and c) jets. Sign us up.

In Black Falcon, Sega is staying true to After Burner's arcade aesthetic. The first thing we noticed when we started a level was the vivid color of the whole affair. Our grey-silver fighter jet skimmed over bright blue seas, white-hot engines blazing as we blasted foes to clear our view of the brilliant red-orange sunset. Pretty. In a desert level, we watched the ground below change from rolling dunes to narrow canyons to verdant oases to flaming oil fields. This terrain variation was key to keeping things interesting, as you can only maneuver your jet around a fixed area as the map scrolls on by.

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