TurboGrafx-16

Air Buster

You can get better shooters for your Turbografx, but this one isn't too shabby, especially since two people can play cooperatively. One button is used for rapid-fire, and the second functions as a weak smart bomb. Some enemy explosions produce several power-ups, which you attempt to grab before they can fall off of the screen. Perhaps the most useful item is the "skis", which let you whiz through narrow tunnels without having to worry about hitting the walls. One strange thing I noticed about Aero Blasters is that it's really hard to tell when you die. Once hit, your ship starts smoking and slowly falls off the screen. My friend Shawn astutely referred to it as the "longest death sequence ever seen in a shooter". The same thing happens with some of the larger enemies. Aero Blasters would probably rate higher on most systems, but on a system known for it's shooters, this is fairly routine stuff.

Whether it's because of its difficulty or just because the game offers little new to the shooter genre, Aero Blasters gets boring quickly. If you've tackled every other shooter out there and are looking for something that'll make you sweat, you might want to take a look at Aero Blasters. But if you just want a good shooter, then you can do better.