Blue Lightning

STORY / GAMEPLAY
Think of Blue Lightning as After Burner (Sega's smash hit) but with a story line! You're a rookie pilot and your objective is to destroy all the enemy bases and win the war. Your overall objective is split into nine different missions, each taking part in a specific part of the world. Your fighter has unlimited bullets but only up to ten missiles before completing each mission. Trails of smoke warn of incoming enemy missiles for which you need a few quick barrel rolls to avoid them. With your weapons blazing, you fly into thick enemy formations. The game's missions combine the explosive action of combat with the stealth features of night flying! The game is quite difficult since it's hard to avoid almost everything. But it keeps you wanting for more.

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The graphics of this game are great, considering the Lynx's hardware. The FA-18 fighter model looks so cool and each level's design features skies (with clouds), detailed landscapes (mountains, forests, seas, pyramids etc) plus a few nice explosions coming from destroyed targets (also, several pieces from the enemy aircrafts are scattered all over the place!). The FA-18 moves quite smoothly although a few more frames would be better for sure, but again, Lynx's hardware is at its limits here. The sounds are pretty solid, but just aren't up to par with the rest of the game. The game features nice sound effects like gun/missile firing, explosions and more. Overall, Blue Lightning is a technically impressive game for the 8bit Atari handheld console!