A long while back there was a series of games. I believe they started with 1942 and ended with 1943, I'm not exactly sure. Anyway I know that 1942 is a real game and I know 1943 is a real game because I just got my hands on a copy of 1943. This is a classic game. However the game does have one major weakness which I will speak of. Basically the 1940 series is just like any other airplane game like Raiden III or Raptor: call of the shadows except it takes place in world war two times. The basic story is that you are on an aircraft carrier. Your carrier gets the crap kicked out of it by Japanese planes. You are the only plane left on the whole carrier. You have to take off and destroy the whole Japanese airforce and navy all by yourself.

Gamewise it's a pretty simple game. You move around, you shoot, and you dodge. There are all kinds of boats and planes and things to fight, so you wont get bored. The backgroud keeps changing and the games gets progressively harder as you go along. Pretty much standard fare. However there is one problem. Your plane doesn't have "life" or shields as other games of this type do. You don't die in one shot either. You have a number in the bottom right corner of the screen. This number goes down and down and down as the game goes on. If you get hit by something it goes down a lot. I don't know why it goes down by itself though, that's just messed up. You can die even if you never get hit by anything. Doesn't make sense to me. Anyway when the number goes to zero it makes an annoying danger noise and you eventually die. However If a strip of red planes flies across the screen and you kill all of them they leave behind a goody! The goody can be anything from a pow to change to a cooler weapon to a pack which raises your number by a speck to a lightning thing which raises your energy to full. Oh yeah that reminds me. If you press B you shoot, but if you press A you flip over your plane and zap the whole screen with lighting. It's pretty wicked. For some reason they make a plane that can't stay in the air too long, but they can make it shoot lightning.

Anyway the game is pretty decent despite the high annoyance factor of losing energy when you aren't getting hit. If you are really good though, you can survive for a very long time. I can get to level 2. Each level starts you off flying high, then when you spot the target, usually a boat, you get in closer, boats show up, and clouds go away. Then when you beat the big boss, you go to the next level and do it all over again, except with new and exciting planes each time. The main quality of this game lies in it's classic nature. It's like wine. It sucked when it was new, but it got old and tastes better now. You wont get addicted to it, but it's fun every now and then. The music also sounds a lot like music from some megaman games just different notes to the same tune. Capcom reusing the tunes eh?

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