cheetahman91 here and I am going to give my thoughts on this classic SEGA arcade game from 1987.

The gameplay involves you flying around in a F-14 Tomcat jet plane shooting down enemy aircraft. Your weapons include a gun and a limited amount of missiles. Missles get refuelled every few stages. In this version, your airplane can be sped up or slow down using a throttle. That's really all the gameplay right there.
I know this arcade machine was a cockpit where the seat moved around and it had a flight stick, but I've only played it with a controller before. Whenever I first played this game, it reminded me a little bit of Space Harrier (another SEGA classic) in that it was a shooter with psuedo-3D visuals, but after I played it a while, I grew to like it better than SH. It seems more frantic and fast paced to me which makes it a little more difficult. I suck at this game though because I die every 10-30 seconds. Thankfully you can have as many continues as you want and you die where you left off. One interesting cameo I found in the game was that on one of the landing strips where you refuel on missiles, you see the Ferrari Testarossa going down the landing strip on stage 13. http://www.outrun.org/Afterburner/img/Afterburner%202/32x_ab9.jpg
Like SH though, the game suffers from being short and repetitive which may turn some gamers off. The game can be beaten in less than an hour if you're wandering how long. However, I look past repetitiveness in most games which helps me appreciate the game more. The music and graphics are great too.
Video:
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My best score so far is 10237420 points, 413 kills, and a one star rank. Sounds like I need to play some more.

@cheetahman91 Ha, ha I suck at this game too, I always have and I think that I always will. Personally I prefer Space Harrier, because I make some actual headway in it! Afterburner games are always worth a short flight and blast, as you mentioned, just to keep a watchful eye out of your fighter jet's cockpit window to spot an Outrun Ferrari. Cheers.

After burner 2 was a great game on the arcade and Sega 32x i always loved it on the Megadrive.i also loved After burner climax which is a lot better too bad it didnt go on any console.

I remember AfterBurner II, I thought it was good; though I'm not exactly great at it either.

Climax is great too. You can even toggle the Afterburner II music to play during the game.

I loved this game on the Sega Genesis growing up.

Afterburner 2, excellent, I have the Saturn version - remember playing the arcade in Megabowl down Streatham (south London) back in the late 80s / early 90s. Only SEGA super scaling arcade that tops it for me is Outrun, which is possibly my favorite game ever.

excellent Yu Suzuki game. What with us having space harrier im hoping that this outrun, powerdrift, super hang on and galaxy force come out for VC arcade. No reason why they shouldnt really.