10 Great Forgotten Arcade Games We Want Revived

2. After Burner Ah yes, I remember walking many times into my local arcade with a pocket full of quarters, and immediately looking for the flight/fight simulator After Burner by Sega AM2, first released in 1987. Our arcades in my town always had the rotating cockpit versions, so I was always happy to hop in the seat and pop in my money so I could take control of an F-14 and take to the skies, the seat I was sitting in responding to the movements I made with the joystick that sat in front of me like the real controls of the real combat fighter (Pretend with me a minute, ok?). You got a throttle control, missiles and guns to take on foes that were relentlessly on your tail even from the beginning of the game. The action was fierce, and if you were lucky enough like me to have the rotating cockpit version you really got an experience that stood completely outside every other game in the arcade. The cockpit seat would rock when you crashed your fighter, it would shift as you maneuvered away from enemy missiles and gunfire, and you could feel your own fighter's guns blasting away when they were used in response to attacks. The game brings back so many memories of fun times for myself, though in retrospect, I do have to say the game itself may have lacked some detail to levels or even foes. But does that sound like it would matter? It didn't at the time, and when it away, I missed the way the game had provided it's '4-d' -like experience. After Burner II was basically the same game and gets just as much props to me, but it's there that my interest ended in the game. Sure, there were ports and sequels, but to be honest I never gave any of them the time of day. If I couldn't jump behind that joystick resembling a combat fighter's controls in a rotating cabinet, I wasn't interested. After Burner was ahead of it's time, and since it was years ahead of other arcade games, to me it's already halfway to a revival. This time, I'm not suggesting the game be remade for home consoles across the board, no, I'm suggesting After Burner return the way it was suppose to be played; with the player sitting in a 'cockpit' rotating cabinet that would respond to all of the games' action from barrel rolls you pulled off to the firing off of a missile after lock-on. Sure, the levels could get better, the graphics would be upgraded, but here's where I think After Burner could really kick it up a notch and compete with today's games experiences. This time, when you enter the cockpit, a wrap-around viewer drops down from inside and with booming surround sound from speakers inside the cabinet, suddenly you really ARE in a fighter with the drop down viewer giving you a first person look out of the cockpit of the soaring fighter. In the original and part II, you simply sat in the chair and the rotating cabinet was your cockpit. Now, with the drop-down viewer, the illusion of being in the fighter is even greater, with your eyes seeing the game's screen through the viewer and nothing else; no anxious players waiting outside the cabinet waiting their turn and with the best surround sound a game like Burner could get, you won't even here the same waiting player's 'oohs' and 'aahs' as you take on your enemies. Arcade games were hit and miss in the past with endings-sometimes you were given a cheesy screen with a misspelled 'congratulations', sometimes you were lucky and got closure to a story. I think a new After Burner with it's enveloping game play should give players a short but sweet plot line in between levels, to satisfy story-hungry players these days so if you decided you really wanted to take on the new After Burner to the end, you could at least count on getting something more than just a re-start from level one(it happened many times with many games,ugh). In short, a new After Burner would be a marriage of virtual reality and classic arcade game play that could reel players in with its unique experience just as it did in the past.