Due to the fact that there hasn’t been an arcade in my area for about a decade and a half now, I was completely unaware of the existence of After Burner Climax, the newest entry in the long-running After Burner series of arcade flight combat games.  Apparently, the game has been in arcades since 2006.  It looks awesome, with a very clean aesthetic and some awesome atmospheric effects, and it’s apparently coming to Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network this Spring.

After Burner’s frantic action and quarter-fueled gameplay seems like a perfect fit for a downloadable game.  One wonders why it took so long for Sega to bring it over to consoles, but if these screenshots are any indication, the game's visuals hold up pretty well.  Hopefully, the gameplay translates just as well from a flight stick and accelerator to the console gamepads.

So far, we only have confirmation of a Japanese release for the game, but we know that both the 360 and PS3 versions will cost ¥900, which is around $10 American.  Thanks to Gameswire, we also have 26 hi-res images of the game, complete with more of Sega’s trademark “blue sky” effect than you can shake a MiG-29 at.  You guys check out the images below, and in the meantime, we’ll be checking on the American release, as well as any information about an upcoming $10,000 home cockpit accessory.