The Gates of Hell has been opened and hell has leaked out on the planet. There is only one who can restore order, Richard Bronson (very similar to a certain billionaire). Is Afterlife’s story enough to keep it afloat? Read on to find out.

There are few games that we review that present something completely new that we haven’t seen before. Afterlife is one of those few games.

The basic concept is quite simple; you are to control an air balloon in a platform environment. You will have to complete different tasks with the Balloon such as bombing enemies, hit certain targets and so on.

Of course the Balloon isn’t exactly easy to steer so there are some tutorial missions in the beginning of the game to help you get started. Actually the tutorial is hard at it is, at least some parts of it. Afterlife does take a while to learn, there are no complicating spells or a number of different units. It’s simply that you have to learn to control the balloon and the timing when firing weapons. I believe that this is a good thing, a game can be hard depending on how much gimmicks that’s put into it. However it can also be hard in that there is a certain technique to be learned, as is the case in Afterlife.

The enemies you will be faced against are similar to the ghosts in the Super Mario Bros series. But here they are in different colours depending on which level you play on. I can’t really figure out if the enemies move using scripted paths or not. Either way they sometimes seem like they are attacking you or tries to hunt you down, very neat.

To fight the enemies you have two different weapons; bombs and your trusty umbrella. The umbrella is fired from the top of the balloon and can only go up. After you have used the umbrella you have to collect it where it last ended up. This can generate some fun situations at times, especially when the umbrella has landed near a bunch of enemies. The bombs falls down from the balloon, it usually takes a couple to take an enemy out.

The graphics in Afterlife resembles a Nintendo platform game a lot. The balloon you are flying looks good and the developers have made it with basic means. I wish that there were some backgrounds portraying landscapes, or maybe earth when hell has been unleashed on the planet? Afterlife deserves some credit for the music; it’s also old style and damn good. I especially love the intro music.

So aren’t there any downsides with Afterlife at all? Well none that we have been able to find, the game is free and it’s almost as if it was commercial. If the developers would want to make money out of the game they could easily port it for mobile phones.

Afterlife is something for everyone, it’s a game that can capture a broad audience just like Super Mario and Sonic did in the old days. I love this game a lot and can recommend it to any gamer.