Trying to find the name of an late 1980's game

[zzap64]

Hi,
In the late 80's I played a horizontal arcade shump and boy am I having trouble trying to find it.
I swear the name was Aero Fighters but obviously thats is vertical and not the one.

It was space themed, like the classics, stage 2 or 3 was the most memorable, in that the ship and scrolling drmatically speeded up as you flew down tunnels, the ship could obtain attached ski's that would prevent the player from taking damage hitting the edge of the fast speeding corridors.
Thats all i really remember, any help would be so greatly appreciated.

thanks.

[Ghegs]

You were very close, the game is Aero Blasters most likely.

[zzap64]

ah yes, awesome, thats the one, thankyou. my mind is restored.

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

I played this one for the first time somewhere in Norfolk in the early 90s. The cab was faulty in some way, with a lot of graphical bugs but the first bunch of levels were playable. The title screen was messed up so for the longest time i thought the game was called "+IR BUS".

[TransatlanticFoe]

Ha Norfolk represent (assuming UK)! I played the hell out of this on Hunstanton pier on the Norfolk coast back in the day. Never made it past stage 3 though.

[charlie chong]

farnham sports centre for me

[OmegaFlareX]

Air Buster AC is probably the best-looking shmup using 8-bit CPUs (Z80 x 3). There were some others around that time (Dangerous Seed, Omega Fighter), but it's pretty amazing what Kaneko accomplished.

[Deadliar]

Airo Blusters is a really sublime game. It doesn't stand out in any way but it is also hard to find a single thing wrong with it. (Well, maybe that final boss theme)

Back when I was playing Cambria Sword, I couldn't help but notice it took a huge inspiration from Blasters, the final level even has that speed-maze section.

Funny thing about that space stage, back when I was a novice shmupper, Blasters was one of my first games! The fact that your ship had to be moving at all times in the space stage or you'd lose control made me think differently about movement in shmups, and I developed a habit of always moving, even if its a tiny little bit. You could say I learned how to really be in control of the ship from it.

Later on this made harder games and bullet hell titles way easier.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Airbuster is also known as Aero Blasters on the venerable PC Engine console platform. On the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis console, it's known as Airbuster. Of course, the original arcade jamma pcb of Air Buster that was developed by Kaneko & published/distributed to arcades worldwide by Namco themselves back in 1990 -- it's all true, folks.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Stevens]

My buddy was the kid with the TG 16 growing up. He had this and I loved the tune on stage two.

Profound sadness when I rented it for the Genesis and they song was changed. WTF?

[BrianC]

Airbuster is also known as Aero Blasters on the venerable PC Engine console platform. On the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis console, it's known as Airbuster. Of course, the original arcade jamma pcb of Air Buster that was developed by Kaneko & published/distributed to arcades worldwide by Namco themselves back in 1990 -- it's all true, folks.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

The JP Megadrive version is also called Aero Blasters.