It is 1942, World War II. Your mission: To fly your Lockheed P-38 Lightning airplane past thousands and thousands of Japanese aircraft all the way to Tokyo, where you will destroy the entire enemy airforce!
Basicly, 1942 is another vertically scrolling flight game where you shoot down swarms upon swarms of oncoming enemy aircraft and gun ships, all while trying to avoid the enemy weapon fire and, not to mention, the kamikaze pilots behind them. At the end of some levels, players even have to fly against the feared Japanese bomber, Ayako, a plane over 5 times your size, to complete the level and move on to the next.
Each level ends with you landing on your own friendly aircraft carrier, and then taking off again to complete the next of the 30+ levels of this game.
Each level is pretty much the same as the one before it. Swarms of light fighters coming at you, a couple larger gun ships terrorize your flight, a very large bomber at the end to contend with, and then your friendly ship waiting for you at the end. However, like all good games, each level gets harder than the last.
Besides the basic left and right, up and down, and fire controls, players also get to earn “loop” maneuvers to help them avoid oncoming planes and enemy fire which come in handy quite a bit in the later
levels when you have multiple swarms coming in from multiple angles.
Of course, not unlike most games of this type, shooting down certain craft or groups of swarms also yields a power-up for the player’s P-38. Power-ups can range from just extra points, better weapons, or even a wingman to help you out, shooting along side of your plane.
Soundtrack for this game wasn’t too bad. Its your standard rattatattat and explosion sounds that most other games had at this time. Nothing too glamorous or too lame for when this game came out. Graphic of the game were pretty good. Standard looking plane shooting other standard looking planes, either one of the exploding in a standard looking explosion.
Personally, I loved this game as a kid and still get all warm and fuzzy inside when I seen the old arcade version still sitting in the corner of my local pizzeria. The basics of the controls, the sounds of the explosions, and the visuals of controlling a great WWII fighter plane through seemingly endless amounts of enemy fire has definitely cost me few rolls of quarters.
