1943: The Battle of Midway

Voices of: N/A
Developer: Capcom
Designer: Yoshiki Okamoto
Rating: N/A
Genre: Scrolling Shooter
System: Arcade
1987

Times Completed:
Tim: 1

Summary: The American air force attacks the Japanese air force over Midway Island during World War II.

Review:
Tim: At this point, I haven't completely played through many arcade games. I've definitely spent more of my time in the home console arena. I did play Capcom's 1987 vertical side-scrolling shooter, 1943: The Battle of Midway. I had the chance to play it on an arcade machine with my 7 year-old son. It was a blast to play two players.

The game contains 16 levels of nonstop shooting action. It throws a lot at the player and it's easy to die. I never would have beat this in the actual arcade where you have a limited supply of quarters to keep going. We certainly died quite a bit, but continued the game regardless. It's a generally simple game- you're mashing buttons, causing untold destruction on other airplanes, ships, etc. It's simple and straightforward, but fun. I thought the various stage bosses were quite fun and it broke up the monotony of the shooting a bit. The colors are all vivid and the graphics are simple but effective. It does get a bit overwhelming at times- the various explosions, the bad guys, your plane- more than a few times, I got a bit lost in the overwhelming nature of everything happening on screen. To some extent, I suppose that's in alignment with the "fog of war."

The game's final boss is the Japanese battleship, the Yamato. It was fairly challenging and it took us several attempts to finally sink the vessel. It takes up a lot of the screen and it feels like a worthy final foe. As I said, it's all fun like a shooter typically is.

I would never claim 1943: The Battle of Midway is one of my favorite games. It took an hour plus for my son to beat it and it definitely helped to have an unlimited number of lives. Some of the levels required brute force, continuing to throw planes at them. I generally like war games and anything that reminds you of the actual historic battles is worth playing. This is definitely a piece of entertainment- historical accuracy wasn't a concern here. That being said, it was a fun diversion for an hour or so and it was fun bonding with my son while playing it.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: N/A



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