Blue Lightning

About

Blue Lightning is a fast-paced arcade shooter where you pilot a high-speed jet through nine distinct combat missions. Your goals shift between destroying enemy aircraft, ground targets, and delivering cargo under fire. The fixed camera sits behind your plane, letting you focus on dodging fire and lining up quick, aggressive strafes. You’ve got a limitless cannon, 40 missiles with auto-lock tracking, and a ten-second afterburner to close the gap on fleeing foes. Missions reward passwords for progress, but crashing into terrain or enemies means starting over. The standout here is the tight, no-nonsense gameplay. The auto-lock missiles and afterburner mechanics streamline action without dumb slowdowns, a rarity for the time. Barrel rolls let you shake off pursuing fire, while the varied mission design keeps things from feeling repetitive. Though it draws from After Burner’s pseudo-3D aesthetic, Blue Lightning carves its own niche with practical combat and a stripped-down focus on reflexes over simulation.

Storyline

Assuming the role of a chosen rookie aircraft pilot from the United States Air Force by the Flight Command squadron, the player takes control of the titular prototype fighter aircraft in a desperation attempt of The Pentagon to penetrate multiple enemy territories and aid the allies in order to win the war against the enemies. Conceived as a commission to create a pseudo-3D combat flight game by Landrum and graphic artist Arthur Koch, Blue Lightning was heavily inspired by Sega's 1987 Super Scaler arcade game After Burner, in addition of also bearing similarity with the feature film and TV-series Blue Thunder