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Air Inferno Cheats & Cheat Codes for Arcades

An in-game screenshot from Air Inferno.

Air Inferno Cheats & Cheat Codes for Arcades

Air Inferno is a 1990 flight simulator developed and published by Taito. The game was released exclusively in arcades, and to this day, it is nearly impossible to get hold of beyond the use of emulators online.

Upon its release, many reviews were extremely positive, mostly praising it for daring to be different in the arcade environment of 1990, where shooters and side-scrollers were king.

Air Inferno Premise

An in-game screenshot from Air Inferno.

©Screenshot from Air Inferno

At its core, Air Inferno is a pure flight simulator. It doesn’t beat around the bush with other mechanics – only things that are useful to the gameplay are included here.

The game provides you with several different scenarios, and it’s up to you to use your pilot skills to successfully navigate the objectives thrown at you. For example, some missions put you in the role of a fireman, where you must throw water on burning houses to stop the spread. In others, you just need to land on ships, houses, or skyscrapers to rescue people within a given time frame.

One interesting aspect of the game that was years ahead of its time was the weather. Some missions feature sandstorms, which adds an extra layer of complexity to the gameplay. Others put you into a tornado, which affects the steering of your vehicle drastically.

Despite being a flight simulator, we don’t quite think that you could really learn to pilot a helicopter by playing Air Inferno. The controls are complex, but not complex enough that it fully resembles the real thing. It’s a great imitation for the purposes of a deep simulator, though. Overall, the technical aspects of the game are solid. The polygon-based graphics are simple, but really compliment the experience. If you tried to make this game in 2D as opposed to primitive 3D, it just wouldn’t be anywhere near as effective as it currently is.

Air Inferno Main Characters

An in-game screenshot from Air Inferno.

©Screenshot from Air Inferno

In Air Inferno, you don’t play as any named character. You’re an unnamed pilot with no backstory, and that isn’t explored at all. In fact, the game doesn’t have any type of narrative at all, and that’s okay. The game is a pure flight simulator, and the inclusion of a story could potentially take away from that, in our view.

So ultimately, it’s you. You’re the main character of Air Inferno, and you can be anyone you want to be!

Air Inferno Titles in the Series

An in-game screenshot from Air Inferno.

©Screenshot from Air Inferno

While Air Inferno is technically a standalone product, it’s actually a spin-off of the Landing series developed by Taito. While Taito released many different games during this period, its flight simulators were of particularly high quality. Air Inferno was actually the last one for a few years, with the company taking a six-year break from the genre before Landing Gear in 1996.

Despite the quality of its flight simulators, we haven’t had a new game in the series since 1999’s Landing High Japan. With titles such as Microsoft Flight Simulator essentially taking over the genre, there really hasn’t been any great need for a competitor.

Taito remains extremely active in the games industry, but we don’t imagine the company has any intention to pivot back to flight simulators any time soon. The starting investment would have to be too great even to match the standard of work that is already being done elsewhere.

  • Midnight Landing (1987)
  • Top Landing (1988)
  • Air Inferno (1990)
  • Landing Gear (1996)
  • Landing High Japan (1999)

Air Inferno Cheat Codes

An in-game screenshot from Air Inferno.

©Screenshot from Air Inferno

Because Air Inferno is such a niche arcade game from the 1990s, there haven’t been any cheat codes found for the game, unfortunately. It’s hard enough to find a copy of the game to play nowadays, never mind finding cheat codes!

If we had to guess a reason for this, it’s because Air Inferno isn’t intended to be all about the fun. It’s meant to resemble a serious flight simulator that players can actually learn from, which definitely isn’t the case if players are able to cheat their way through the game.

Air Inferno Cheat Code FAQs

An in-game screenshot from Air Inferno.

©Screenshot from Air Inferno

Are There Any Cheat Codes For Air Inferno?

No. As mentioned above, none were ever found in the arcade version of the game or emulated versions created in later years.

How Can I Play Air Inferno in 2023?

It seems like such an easy question, but the answer isn’t so simple. As the game was only released into arcades, it makes tracking down an emulated version extremely tough.

If you want to play Air Inferno in 2023, scouring the internet for an emulator is still going to be your best bet though, as finding an original arcade version is going to be both expensive and difficult.

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