1943 (NES)

Shoot 'em up week shuffles along!

Difficulty - ***1/2

Controls - ****

Sound - **1/2

Graphics - ***

Overall - 13 stars out of 20

Scramble! Scramble! Get into your P-38 plane and take off to eliminate your targets. Capcom brings us its smash arcade hit, 1943!

1943 spans twenty four action loaded stages. Each one of them is going to be a test of not only how you gun down your foes, but how you avoid them, upgrade your plane and select which special weapons to choose!

If this all sounds like a lot trust me its not. Thankfully Capcom gives you a password every few stages. Unlike most one hit kill shoot em' ups in 1943 your plane begins with health. Getting hit, using your lightning attack and just gradual time will tick health off the meter. If you happen to get hit with zero health, your ship blows up and you start the stage all over.

Piloting the P-38 is a cinch. The 'B' button fires your guns and the 'A' button uses your special lightning attack. That's right, not only can mother nature use lightning but so can you! Your plane can also do a somersault to avoid enemy fire (really cool feature). Your plane however is rather slow.

For twenty four stages there isn't much music to choose from. You get maybe a handful of different tunes. The one really annoying music you'll hear (especially in the later stages) is the 'out of health' theme. Ugh. The sound effects of your various sub-weapons are really good. One thing that I really enjoyed was the sound of your plane taking off at the start of each stage.

While the graphics are good its nothing really outstanding. You get some detail in the enemies and larger planes you face off against. There is a lot of screen flicker in the game (lightning attack for example). And while the icons look good its really weird too see some of them in the game (Dragonfly, barrel, space man and even a cow!). After each stage you're treated to a big screen shot of the enemy boss bursting into flames (awesome!)

While there isn't much variety in the music and some of it is downright annoying, you do get twenty four stages. Tight controls and varied weapon and ship upgrade selections make this game unique. The graphics are solid but nothing spectacular. All in all this is one solid shooter that's a blast from the past!