Afterburner: Black Falcon

Afterburner Black Falcon was developed by Planet Moon Studios in 2006 - 2007 and published by SEGA. I worked on this title as a Quality Assurance Tester for SEGA Europe. This was a localisation project, and we were responsible for checking the English in game. Afterburner was the first PSP title I worked on.

About the Game

This arcade-style flight game combines intensive air combat with a multitude of explosions that allow gamers to relive the experience of the classic After Burner arcade game. In addition to the in-depth customization of 19 officially licensed military planes, gamers can compete against friends via ad-hoc in a variety of multiplayer modes as well as fly solo in a story-rich single-player campaign.

A terrorist cell called Black Falcon has infiltrated a top-secret CIA facility, escaping with 13 fighter jets. As a member of a highly classified military group, players must to do whatever is necessary to retrieve these fighter planes before they are sold to other terrorist cells. Utilizing an assortment of hi-tech planes such as the F-14D Tomcat, F-15E Strike Eagle, and F-22 Raptor, players engage in high-speed aerial combat as they dogfight their way through dangerous terrain to seek and destroy all terrorist targets.

Skills and Experiences

Working on this title, I became familiar with testing on the Playstation Portable format. I remember we used test units, which were PSP devices tethered to a small PC Development kit. It was pretty uncomfortable to hold. This was a comparatively short testing phase as the game is the smallest I have worked on. Most of the bugs were correcting English translations. There were some odd synonyms used throughout the game, presumably to try to break up repetition, but it was weird to read in places.