#2 1942

Those big green guys are the most annoying, so are the little green guys

Title: 1942

Year: 1986

Developer: Micronics

Publisher: Capcom

Genre: Shoot em up

I love shmups. They're a close third, right behind Japanese rpgs and racing games. But as much as I love them, I flat out suck at them. I cant even think about how many quarters I burned playing various shmups in arcades over my life, but Im sure it's a lot. That being said, I dont think Ill play the NES port of 1942 again anytime soon.

You play as an ace pilot sent out to destroy Japans air force, through 32 stages of madness. Madness because the constant beeping and tapping the background music makes will make your ears bleed if you havent already poked out your ear drums. Its really that bad. The guns sound effect overlaps with the bgm too, so its constantly cutting in and out.

The graphics run pretty badly too. Not that they are bad on their own, but the animation is very jerky, and sometimes even glitchy. When too many enemies are on screen (or the big tail gunner plane appears) the game slows down to a horrible stuttering mess, more often than not causing you to die.

And oh will you die. The game gives you 3 lives to start off with, and unlimited continues, and you'll need them. For whatever reason, the game only allows for 3 shots to be on screen at any given time. Shoot to fast, and now you have to wait for your guns to "reload" it gets a bit frustrating but once you get the timing down its not too bad. At least upgrades help spread out your shots.

Boss battles occur every so often, but theyre a joke. Since no enemy can fire forwards of them, and since the boss is just a giant version of the smaller tail gunner planes, you just have to hang out behind his wing and blast him away. Easiest 20k points ever.

After completing all 32 stages you're met by a simple screen that says "CONGRATULATION" Then the game over screen tallying up your final scores. Problem is its only programmed to handle 999, 950 points. Any more and your points reset to zero.

I guess for an early nes shmup its ok, but I wish it was a better arcade port. Its a shmup, it should move smoother than this. And for the love of god the sounds are terrible.

 single handedly defeat the entire Japanese air force and this is all I get?

Rating:C- (as in see my bleeding ears?!)

Difficulty: 6/10

Completion Time: Several hours. More than I'd like to admit.