1942

"Endless dull slowness mixed with stupidity: an offensive WWII cash-in."

1942 is unrealistic to an absurd degree. Never in United States wartime has a single fighter jet tried to pack in as much damage as your lone fly-boy attempts to do here. I know that the military was probably a bit weakened by the simultaneous fight with Germany when the fight with Japan ''commemorated'' here was occurring, but I imagine the Air Force consisted of more than a handful of planes for a single pilot even then. Hundreds--thousands of Zeroes and other assorted pieces of Japanese aircraft are brought down by you in your little jet. I mean...come on!

I'm not one to break down my occasional reviews into component parts like most others...but I think the story of 1942 gets a big 1. It's not a terrible cliche--you don't save any princesses--but I take offense when a bastardization of war (a human tragedy of the first degree) occurs. This is an offensive 'Pearl Harbor'-like cash-in on something which deserves respect and reverence.

I'm mad about the existence of the game in general, but the actual gameplay is the only thing considered in that 2 I gave it. It's a shooter: you fly around in your plane and shoot the multitudes of jets that want you dead.

So far, so blah. But it gets worse. There are endless waves of these things each level. Each level is very long. The only variation you'll get is that sometimes you'll get a power-up. A few of the planes are harder to shoot down, so you'll have to hit some of them a few times. Plus, you seem to be flying very slowly. Your surroundings move down as you progress, but they move so slowly as to give you the impression that a drunken turtle with a broken leg dragging a grand piano could beat your fighter jet in a race. Did I mention how unbearably long each level is? They're probably that long because you're moving so slowly.

At least your enemies chug along at about the same rate. That keeps it from being insanely difficult in addition to tedious. However, a little challenge coming from super speedy Zeroes may have made the game a little bit interesting. As it is, it's easy and boring. The graphics are a joke; I'm not even going to mention the sound since I always play Nintendo on mute (therefore, I've never heard it); the levels are long, repetitive scenes of the same junk.

In fairness, you get to do a little dare-devil loop maneuver to get around some enemy fire, so 1942 did try to be cool. It failed--the loop represents more of the game's slowness in all its glorious detail. Time stands still as you wait for your plane to get back into the right position. It's not very often that a plane making a loop-dee-loop in mid-air will be as boring as this game can make it.

Each level is the same. They are all unbearably long and boring. Am I repeating myself? You bet. So did the game. It's the same dull, austere, mind-numbing crap over and over and over and over!

This is a terrible shooter. Being boring is a fatal flaw when you are trying to entertain. It is the Nintendo :::Entertainment::: System, after all. 1942 is dull, and its ending is famously dull. You've probably seen it before; it's pretty notoriously stupid and insufficient for the amount of blood, sweat, and tears you need to expend to reach it.

I suppose I am angered more by the game's lack of feeling that by its idiotic conclusion or the enormous amount of dull tedium it contains. They cheapened the memories of our veterans and their achievements to make this stupid video game. Some emotional drive should be a pre-requisite when dealing with war issues. Tragedies occur and should be treated as such, not as a thousand identical sprites bursting into flames to provide the player with points. 1942 was monumentally insensitive to the realities of World War II while providing very few with a mere modicum of enjoyment (while most people will be bored to tears by it). 1942, you are one of my most hated games. Congratulation.

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 01/03/02, Updated 01/03/02