Which of these does not belong?

If you guessed After Burner, take a victory sip. It’s the one that, you know, isn’t a wacky third-person shooter. At least, not with a character on the screen. It’s the classic Sega flight combat shooter franchise that became so memorable back in 1987, and now Planet Moon is bringing it to PSP with After Burner: Black Falcon.

This will be the first non-character based shooter, the first game where humor isn’t a driving force, and the first established franchise game for the developer -- quite a change of pace for a company known for original games.

"Planet Moon’s focus has always been in creating original IP," explains CEO and co-founder Bob Stevenson. "That said, some of the founders had a lot of fun working on classic Sega IP years before starting our own company. I actually worked on a Sega Genesis version of After Burner with Neil Young (EA) and David Perry (Shiny founder) about 14 years ago... Nick Bruty (Planet Moon’s president) also worked on a number of Sega tiles including Outrun."

So after Planet Moon’s previous game, Infected, shipped, and the company parted ways from a three game deal with Majesco, the founders started looking for new opportunities and came across Sega. After talking for a year or so, the idea of remaking After Burner came up. "We looked at a bunch of Sega’s IP and asked if they had a PSP version of After Burner in development," says Stevenson. In March, work began.

Ace Combat players looking for more action may just have found their game. Click the image above to check out all Black Falcon screens.

That creativity is something that doesn’t inherently seem to fit with a license like After Burner, where many would assume the quality would be based on technical execution rather than original ideas, but Stevenson says the team is making sure not to stray too far from the company’s base.

"We were interested in taking a classic arcade game like After Burner and adding a bit of artistic license, Planet Moon-style. We were careful not to go too crazy as the game has its own essence that we didn’t want to mess with."

Players can look for these touches in what Stevenson refers to as "a sprinkling of story and character development," with a story overseen by Tim Williams, writer of all previous Planet Moon games. "We tried to go over the top and fun wherever possible," says project lead Ryan Kaufman. "The script, the characters and the story are appropriately breezy and entertaining."

Those looking for connections between After Burner Climax and Black Falcon as part of this modern day franchise renaissance may want to stop straining themselves. "They are two totally different outings within the After Burner universe," says Stevenson. "Climax in the arcade game will throw you around; in Black Falcon on the PSP you can quite literally throw the game around." Click the image above to check out all Black Falcon screens.

In the single-player campaign, players will find 30+ missions, and they will be able to find secret objectives and open new missions for each character, and replay missions using different characters to find more and more missions.

Modern twists on the After Burner formula come in with plane customizations and co-op play, as well as multiplayer in general. "We wanted the game to be fun for more than just one person," says Kaufman. "Why not make it fun for two people? Or even eight? Whichever way you choose, we’ve got it covered with lots of special attention given to the new multiplayer modes we’ve created."

Unfortunately, as far as specifics go on the promised two modes, we’ll have to wait to find out more. We’re not expecting anything quite as elaborate as Infected’s world map where players could watch their infection grow as players challenged each other and the disease spread from PSP to PSP, but after what that game did with multiplayer on PSP, we’re definitely excited to see what After Burner has planned.

With the game scheduled for a Spring 2007 release, there’s still plenty more to uncover, but it’s great to see another non-port for PSP -- especially one from a respected developer.

Os dejo unas cuantas imágenes de mnás:

Antes de que se me olvide deciros que el juego se espera que salga durante el segundo trimestre del año en Europa.