A - Aero Blasters

Developer: KANEKO / Hudson Soft

Release Date: 1990

Alias: Air Buster
Game Type: Arcade Shooter

blaster 1... or blaster 2

I honestly didn't know what to expect.  Arcade shooters such as Aero Blasters weren't my cup of tea when I was younger and the only aerial shooter I owned at the time for my turbografx was Blazing Lazers.  Upon booting this one up, I noticed something peculiar in the main menu... three play options which essentially boiled down to giving the player the option to fly one of two different ships or, and this is super cool, play co-op(!!!).  Of course since the TG 16 lacked more than one controller port this was probably a downer to many young gamers who picked up the game.  Now that I think about it, this may have been a genius marketing ploy as this coop problem could be rectified by purchasing the "turbo tap" accessory which added five controller ports.  Since hudson both developed the game AND the console.. i'd say this little conspiracy theory holds some weight.  But I digress... Aero Blasters is actually pretty rad and most likely would have convinced me to find a way to purchase the turbo tap.  

This is red 5 going down.. they, came, from, behind!

After getting started, I was atually pulled into the game rather quickly.  As you'll see from my fancy screen grabs, the graphics are vibrant and the action is extremely fast and furious making cracker jack timing and fast reflexes a must.  In fact, later levels in the game move so fast my 33 year old reflexes were having trouble keeping up... but only ever so slightly.  Fast and furious gameplay my friends.. fast... and... furious... making Aero Blasters a real joy to play even by todays standards.  The game is insanely good about keeping things fresh too.  There are copious amounts of varied pickups, my favorite of which is a sled attachment which causes the players ship to rebound off of walls rather than explode when hitting them... there are levels which shuttle you through an extremely narrow tunnel later on in the game which make this attachment extremely awesome (read: necessary for survival).  Speaking of survival... or lack there of... death is a beautiful thing in Blasters.  Many games within this genre really like to fall back on the old tried and true philosophy of once the player hits an enemy, a wall, fire, an elephant, whatever.. their ship simply explodes.  Something I really really dug here was that when your ship is destroyed, it goes down in flames rather than simply blowing up like some henchmans car in a James Bond film.   

Pre boss arrival...

Post boss arrival...

Another thing which I really liked was how Aero Blasters seemed to change the levels and vary the enemy types as the game progresses.  A great early on example of this is the very first city level... at first it looks extremely colorful and vibrant,  but then the first boss ship shows up and decides to put the kilbosh down on the entire city nuking the place thus changing the map to a charred mess of ruins like something out of the junky vision of the future in the Terminator films.  The levels themselves are all kept new and interesting too from the city mentioned above, to caverns, and eventually to narrow pathways deep underground in which the player is chased by a form of fighter enemy type.  Very tense.  The story... wait... was there a story?  Hell, I guess I missed that... oh well.  Gameplay > Story anyway.

As for the audio heard in Blasters... well... the music and sound was actually the weakest link here in my opnion.  Of course being a game composer and retro remixer really makes me bias, but still.  Was..not... impressed.  I'll let this gameplay video speak for itself.

Sound and music aside, this is actually a great game, one that I'm really glad I checked out... it's a fantastic addition to any turbo fans library of cards ESPECIALLY if you're a fan of shooters!  Next up.. AIR ZONK... really looking forward to finally checking this one out, been a long time coming!

Want a copy?   CLICK HERE to search for it on ebay.