Blue Lightning
MANUFACTURER: Atari PLAYERS: 1 STEREO: No RATING: 7 (7.5)
TYPE: Afterburner clone COMLYNX: No BLINK: Yes

WHAT:Fly your super jet fighter against a variety of enemies

HOW :View is from slightly behind your plane. Left and right C-pad turn up
to 90 degrees - if you turn and then hit Option2 you will do a roll (no
real benefit though). A fires your guns, and B will fires homing missiles.
When a target is bracketed on your screen, you can fire a missile, the
bracket turns red and you can then move on to your next target. The horizon
does NOT tilt with your turns, just the plane,so you always see a level
horizon. There is no cockpit instrumentation; just indications of the score
and number of missiles left. It is impossible to crash into the ground, but
you can hit landscape features like hills or buttes in the canyon area.
There is a password option to start over.

SOAPBOX:Blue Lightning doesn't really offer much in the way of game play
and is pretty easy, but it has great graphics that really give it value.
The pity is that you don't see the better graphics right away, so many
people pick it up and play it a little while without being impressed. Once
you get to the canyon sequence (with all the Close Encounters mountains)
you'll see some neat scaling effects. And the game does offer fast action.
See if you can find it discounted; it was one of the first four games out
and should be pretty cheap nowadays.