1942

There was some controversy a few years ago when Electronic Arts released a World War II-era shooter that took place in the Pacific Theater. For Westerners it was a nice change of pace as most WWII games are set in Europe. For the Japanese it was weird to kill digital representations of the grandparents.

Or apparently not.

 So it's a little weird that in this game, made by Japanese developer Capcom, has... I'll just let Wikipedia tell it: "...the goal is to reach Tokyo and destroy the entire Japanese air fleet." Yikes. For years I thought that this was rebranding done for the Western market, but no: that is the actual goal.

 For those of you that care about these things, 1942 is a top-down, vertical-scrolling shooter. You control a plane and shoot down other planes, with help from a few power-ups.

  Sidebar: Where did the term "power-up" come from? Again, Wiki has the answer: "'Power-up' and '1-up' are examples of a common form of wasei-eigo (Japanese pseudo-Anglicisms), in which the word "up" is prefixed by some desirable quality. The general meaning of X-up in Japanese is 'this will increase your X' and this construction is regularly used in areas such as advertising. This is similar to another phrase, X get!, as seen in Super Mario Sunshine's Japanese version's 'Shine Get!' phrase." Wonder how it moved over to the West. Also wondering if maybe I should do this by release year and if it's not too late to change.../Sidebar

Capcom games tend to age well, and 1942 is no exception. It does show its age with sticky controls and odd enemy patterns, but the core gameplay is solid: shoot, dodge enemy bullets, repeat. The sound is beyond excruciating, though. It's nothing but sharp beeps and dull drones. Mute it and put on some tunes of your own and you'll enjoy the experience a lot more.
Time played: 15 minutes.
How was it?: Thumbs up.
Will you play it again?: Probably not, since the superior-in-every-way 1943 exists.