After Burner

After Burner Arcade Game

After Burner was a combat simulator released by Sega in 1987. Many of you will remember the sit down version of this arcade game, but there was also a stand-up version. This was one of the first games, at least in our neck of the woods, where you needed more than a quarter to play, especially for the sit down version, which had a rotating cockpit. You could blow through $10 worth of tokens in 10 minutes on this game. In After Burner, the player flew an F-14 Tomcat through up to 18 stages, blowing up enemy jets and helicopters, using a pretty cool flight stick.

After Burner Arcade Game Cabinet Sitdown Version

The player had a machine gun and a set number of missiles that could be replenished between stages, and the weapons were deployed using the integrated flight stick buttons. After Burner was popular enough to warrant a few spin-offs, and After Burner II was released the same year. Other games you might remember that followed the same platform included G-LOC: Air Battle (1990), After Burner III (1992), and Sky Target (1995).