1942 (Famicom)

Our game for the week is 1942 for the Famicom. It was released in 1985 by Capcom. It is a vertical shooter game, but not a very good one at that. One main draw of this game is that it doesn't have spaceships, aliens or whatsoever. The enemies and the player are all World War 2 planes.

The player controls a WW2 plane, and then try to shoot the enemies down. The controls are quite tight, but the movement is slow. The player press the B button to shoot and the A button to dive to safety. However, the player can only perform dive 3 times.

The player can get powerups, but it is limited. However, the enemies are quick to be defeated and does not pose a lot of threat. Bullets are quite easy to evade, but in later stages, bullets will hail from different directions. Difficulty comes from the slow movement of the player's plane.

There are 32 stages in all and no passwords, so whenever the player has to play, he/she has to start from the beginning.

Graphics are quite bland but the background is mostly sea with some islands that appear sparsely. It is serviceable because the great contrast between the planes and the sea background, but the background can get dull very quickly.

Sound is very very grating to the ears. There's no music either.

Good Points:
+ Easy
+ Responsive controls
+ Solid Gameplay

Bad Points:
- No music, bad sound design
- background is repetitive and dull
- slow movement of player plane

Screenshots: