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Apparently, this is one of SEGA's slightly larger successes. If so, how come I've never heard of it? Anyway, that's not what I'm here for. What I am here for is to tell you just how mega brilliant AF really is.
The obvious comparison I have to make is just how similar to Spy Hunter the game really is. You have to drive along a top-to-bottom scrolling roadway at high speed, shooting other vehicles oft the road and climbing aboard the occasional truck to gain extra weapons, such as a missile which you can use to shoot down the helicopters that pass overhead and bomb you. Sound familiar?
Of course, that's not the whole story. You actually start out as a motorbike, racing hell-for-leather across the tarmac with your only thoughts being on one of your four missions, and staying alive long enough to finish them.

As you drive along, you have to enhance your vehicle. This is done in two ways. Firstly, you climb aboard the weapons vans that appear at random intervals and give you, in order of appearance, double shots, a missile for shooting helicopters, rear fire and temporary invulnerability.
As you race along the road, capsules float down at you, each with a letter embossed upon them. There are six to collect, lettered from A to F. collect A, B, C and D and you are granted the ability to transform into a car which, although not as fast or manoeuvrable as a bike, is much more durable and isn't so easy to destroy. Collect all six, and at the end of the roadway you'll transform into a jet car and take to the skies, where you will fly to the subject of your mission and destroy it.
The scrolling is incredibly fast, much too fast in many cases, as is the joystick response. This sudden amazing playability takes a little bit of getting used to, but once it does, AF is a very fun game to play. At last we have a 16 bit version of Spy Hunter.

I never saw the coin op, so I can't really make any comparisons to graphics or sound. However, the sprites and backdrops are a little on the simple side, probably because the game is, once again, an ST port. Sound is simple spot FX, there isn't anything really mind-blowing about it.
A fun game, and one well worth getting hold of if you just want something fast and destructive.
Tony Dillon

"Where the hell am I? Oh...that fireball must be me.."

From the moment you pop in the cart, you’ll find that the game has all the overtones of a remade Spy Hunter game, but without the constant speed. With some relatively novel ideas that are placed into the game, you’d have to wonder just why the game is an average shooter. From the overly difficult game play to the lack of stages right down to the boring chain of events that gets your from start to finish, there is hardly anything here for a seasoned veteran and nothing worth stressing over for a beginning player.

The story that you come across here is your standard save the world plot where the enemies outnumber you and the vehicles all have some pretty awesome power. You, as the rookie in the spy game, have to make it from point A to point B without getting yourself wasted in the process. Through your adventure, you’ll be able to morph your vehicle and take from the road into the sky, blasting bosses and otherwise in the course of the game.

-The Game Play-

Your goal is to make it from one end of the game to the other, blasting enemies and changing vehicles throughout the various stages. You’ll start out on a motorcycle that is ridiculously underpowered and move up to a car that is still very slow on the firing. The enemies that you come up against will surround you and start taking pot shots at your vehicle in an attempt to knock you off the road. Much like Spy Hunter, all you have to do is make it from the beginning line to the end and blast anything that gets in your way. However, you’ll find that getting to the boss characters is the hardest part of the game, and defeating them is pretty much a walk in the park.

The only novelty that I can find with the game play is that you get to change vehicles at different points, each of which have a different attribute. This will also change the game play, but you’ll find that working with the advantages is harder to do, and the disadvantages that the game puts on you makes it a little unfair. Four stages is all that you have to work with as well, which makes the game have a shelf-life that is less than an hour or so long, making a return play to this hard to do. Add this into control scheme that is easy enough to work with, but hard to use during the game, and you’ll find there is little reason to play it again!

Control really isn’t all that hard to work with once you’ve learned what you can and cannot do. If you’re into the older action games, then you’ll find that the formula of moving from one end of the screen to the other while wasting your enemies really isn’t all that hard to deal with. I’ve played this game for hours and got used to the control in just a few minutes. However, having played several different types of this genre, I’ve found that the control really doesn’t offer you anything challenging and doesn’t change the game play in a way that makes it any different than the others.

-The Visuals-

With the top-down view of the game, and the amazing use of bright color, there isn’t much with the way that the game is designed that you would have a problem with. However, if you’re looking for some impressive detail or anything that would set it away from Spy Hunter, then you’ll find that there isn’t much here worth looking at. The stages are all separated by the vehicle type, and although the game tries to work for the appearance of speed, it doesn’t quite master it. For a first attempt on an action game with the driving and combat theme in mind, this isn’t a bad try, though the need for improvement on the presentation is definitely notable!

-The Audio -

A true lack of audio here, there is only one theme that follows you throughout the game and it really doesn’t do much to lift the spirits. There is no memorable tune that you’ll find yourself humming ten minutes after you shut the game off and in all honesty, you’d be better off popping in some music in the background. The sound effects tend to run the same way, with the standard action tones being placed here and there for your amusement. A good thing about all of this is, is that the game is not sound-intensive, so you won’t have to keep the music or the sound on if you really don’t want to!

-The Verdict-

When you consider what there is to offer on the Amiga, you have to wonder just what the purpose of having this game in your collection would be. With the lack of fairness in the stages before you get to the bosses and the lack of challenge when you get to said bosses, the game play is average at best. Once the novelty of the vehicle change wears off, you might be looking at the game in a trance like state, wishing for something with a little more power. However, if you’re a collector, then you might as well pick this one up, based on the mid-range collection availability. Otherwise, stick to the later action games and leave this one in the box!




Reviewer's Score: 6/10 | Originally Posted: 10/01/02, Updated 10/01/02