1943: The Battle of Midway

"The Battle Of Midway in your living room"

1943 is an arcade game that's based on the events that made up the Battle Of Midway during the 2nd World War. At the controls of your P-38, you must face the enemy.

The game is splitted into missions. In each of them, you must face small planes, bombers, and transport planes that launch small planes. In some missions, the attack comes from well armed battleships. At the end of each mission, there's a last battle in which you must defeat a gigantic bomber, a battleship or a serie of small transport planes. Destroy the enemy and go to the next level.

Balls are your base arsenal. If you shoot a POW Icon, you can upgrade your weapon or add some energy to your meter. The special weaponry and the energy of the P-38 both work on the same meter. When the time of the first meter (Special weapons) run out, you go back to simple balls. When your Energy meter hits 0, the next shot that will hit the plane will make it explode and end the game.

Manual

Even if this is an arcade game, the manual is not enough to appreciate the value of the game, since it is described in 2 sentences. Even if the items that give additional points are shown in the booklet, the way they influence your points is not mentionned. Too many things are not explained in this manual.

Luckilly, 1943 is not a game that's hard to understand. After a few minutes, you should get the basics and start to use patterns.

Game Elements

The P-38 works with energy and his power of destruction depends of the use you make of your special weapons. On your way, you can get energy and special weaponry by finding the secrets, the POW Icons and the Energy Points. To survive the high level missions, you will probably need all the ressources of that kind you can find. Getting them all while in the heat of battle demands a good eye and a good ability.

The objects that give bonus points are unusual for a war game : Cows, hats, flowers. Shoot a battleship and a cow pops up !

Sound & Visual Effects

On the Visual side of things, this game is acceptable for its time. In the main part of each game the water is a blue background with white dots. You can easilly see your enemies, but nothing stands out. The image is medium. At the end of some missions, the enemy is drawed on a bright blue background. The Explosions are good, for it's time.

The music and sound effects are adequate for this kind of game.

Challenge

At the lowest levels, the enemy planes come from the top of the screen. At the higher levels, the enemies can come from the top, the bottom and the sides of the screen.

I recommend a rapid fire controller to play 1943. Even with such a pad, you will have a tough time completing certain levels. If you don't have one, your finger will be out of order before you can get somewhere.

Final Word

You will have fun playing this. After a friend thinks he found a pattern, try to get the controller off his hands before he's done. (Good Luck !!)

I don't know why, but all those that played this say that 1943 is an excellent stress killer. This is a game you can probably find these days in a pirate X In 1 type of cart, or you can find the rom and play it on an emulator, it has been emulated perfectly.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/03/01, Updated 03/03/01