1942 (NES)

Do not under any circumstance play this game.  And I don’t mean that in an ironic sense or as attempted bait via reverse psychology.  I mean this is not a good game.  That’s not to say it’s anywhere near the worst game on the NES (there’s some pretty stiff competition for that title), but it’s certainly not an exemplary gaming experience. So perhaps it would be more apt to say, don’t play this game and expect it to be an enjoyable use of your leisure time.

So what’s the deal with 1942?  How about we address that question with a brief questionnaire. 

• Do you enjoy seemingly random electronic screeching combined with incessant beeping noises?
  
  
• Would you consider the above description to be ‘musical’ in nature?
  
  
• Do you enjoy games where you (more-or-less) play through the exact same level 32 times in a row?
  
  
• Do you enjoy games that are so affected by slowdown that they stop recognizing your inputs?

If you answered ‘No‘ to any of the above questions, that’s going to negatively impact your chances of having a ‘good’ time with this game.  In short there are some pretty clear hurdles to enjoying this bad boy.  I’d like to touch briefly on that slowdown specifically though, because it’s maddening.  Sometimes the slowdown in this game is such that, if there’s too much happening on the screen, your weapons become completely unresponsive.  That’s right, if you start getting absolutely blitzed by enemy aircraft, you’ll find that for every five-ish button presses, your gun will only fire once.  Convenient!  So naturally you can also forget about turbo-fire being an effective trick.

But hey, we like redemptive readings around here, and the above paragraphs are reaching maximum levels of copium.  So are there good qualities about 1942?  Well … yes actually, but we have to reach for them a bit.  First of all, this game has the distinction of being the very first game Capcom released and published for the NES.  And while that’s not exactly an auspicious beginning, it would of course serve to launch the incredibly illustrious Capcom library on the NES, which is hands down one of the strongest for the system.

Secondly, it’s not that 1942 is a bad game per se, it’s just that this is a very middling port of a pretty decent game.  If you have an opportunity to play 1942 in the arcade, you’re going to be in for pretty fun time (assuming you enjoy vertical shoot’em ups).  In fact I think most shmups aficionados would consider the arcade version of 1942 to be an absolute classic of the genre.  It was certainly good enough to have spawned an entire series of noted quality shoot’em ups.  Additionally I would also say that the NES version of 1943 (unsurprisingly the direct sequel to 1942), is one of the best shooters on the console, and since that version is a completely different game than the arcade release of the title, it’s only playable on NES.

So what’s left to say about this version of 1942?  Well … she may not look like much, but she’s not it where it counts, kid.  If you’re absolutely wild about 8-bit shoot’em ups, you could probably do worse than 1942 … possibly even a lot worse.  And if you’re a Capcom or an NES library completionist, maybe go ahead and check it out.  All others I’d advise to play the arcade version instead, or just skip ahead to the NES version of 1943 in the event that you’d rather stick with that console.