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Aero Blasters is one of those side scrolling shooting games. I believe it was ported from the arcades onto the home consoles although I'm not to sure.
Gameplay: 5/10
Gameplay is average. Your standard side scrolling shooter. You start of with a plane, which has infinite bullets and dodge enemy fire while shooting them down.
You have your normal weapons which you can upgrade by grabbing power ups. The variety of power ups are the same; missles, turrets, extra guns and even guns which fire behind you. Nothing too fancy but adequate enough. There are two problems with this, one you can not power up the "extra's" like the rockets, you can only change them by grabbing a different power up and two, to change your power up type you have collect a different one on screen. This is annoying when you just know you need a backward firing gun power up but can't get it because there aren't any "power-up" ships around.
That's only the start. What makes things even more annoying is the "power-up" ships. When you shoot them, guess what happens? All the power ups spill out forward than start to drop off the screen. That's right. You actually have to catch the power ups. Of course, you only see them for a few seconds, so you have got to be quick. It's okay after a while because the ships drop all the different types of power ups at the same places everytime so if you know where they are you know where to fly your ship. It is a bit annoying but once you know, you're pretty same.
The thing you can power up is your main gun to cover more area and do more damage. To counter this, I suppose, is the huge flash thing, which you have. In essence it destroys any small enemies on the screen as well as any small bullets. It would have been great if it was automactic but it isn't. You have to hold down the fire button, wait for a while, then release it. During this time, you'll have to dodge bullets and enemies so you have to be quick. Very quick.
In other words, unless you're good at flying games I suggest you look elsewhere.
Graphics: 3.5/5
I have to admit the graphics are fairly good. Smooth scrolling as well. There are a few cool designs as well as a few poor ones otherwise I would have given it a 4.
Sound and music: 4/5
The music is uplifting pumping but not techno. It's light tones are a plus adding rather than subtracting to the game.
Game design: 2/5
The game itself I think is too hard by far for beginners like me. While the first few levels are alright in difficulty you hit a level where you have to manoeuvre your craft through several very narrow passages coming at you at a very high speed. Later on you have to fly in space where you continue moving in a direction even after you asked the controller to stop like you would in real space. It's actually quite ingenious to implement these "extra conditions" to vary the game unfortunately it renders the game too difficult as I have said before.
Longevity: 2.5/5
I think that this game will last you a fair bit. While not ground-breaking it is a good attempt with a few good things going for it. You'll probably run into the higher levels and give up because it's simply too hard rather than because the game is bad.
For: Fair graphics, good music, interesting levels.
Against: Too difficult, power-ups not varied enough.
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