Why TF Do I Keep Playing: 1942

After three decades I should be a top gun. I'm not.

There are 32 levels in Capcom’s shoot ‘em up classic 1942. After over three decades of playing this game, I have seen a whopping two of them.

I can’t even claim to be bad at this game. I’d love to be bad at this game. But no. I actively suck at this game. And not just at the money-hungry, arcade version either — although that is the version I spend the most time with — I suck at the home console conversions as well. Back when emulation only extended to videogaming’s early consoles I spent an embarrassing amount of time playing the NES version on various handhelds, consoles and PCs and how far did I get? Level 2. Occasionally.

And yet I keep playing. Day after day, week after week, year after year and, at this point, decade after decade. The question is why. Why the flip do I keep playing 1942?

Up, up and away

The game is a vertically scrolling shoot ‘em up set during World War II’s famous Battle of Midway. You are an American fighter pilot shooting your way through squadron after squadron of Japanese rivals. This is not a tactical dogfight. This is a fast-paced, brutal and vicious battle for survival.

Each level I’ve seen, which is two of them, begins with you taking off from an aircraft carrier, shooting your way across the sea and then somehow landing back on the same carrier at the end.

A quick look at the game’s wiki page reveals the plane you’re piloting and the planes you’re taking out are all based on real-life aircraft, which I won’t bother naming here because they’re all just a meaningless jumble of letters and numbers to a non-WW2 aircraft enthusiast like myself.

Instead, I’ll just say you’ll face standard military-green planes that swoop down in formation before breaking and flying in circular patterns shooting at you, bigger green planes that require multiple hits before falling and can shoot omnidirectionally, little red planes that drop a much-needed power-up if you can shoot the whole squad before they fly off and an end-of-level boss which is — you guessed it — a very big plane that shoots many, many bullets at you.

One of the smaller big planes you’ll face. I presume.

There is no health bar. Planes don’t have health. Like Eminem, you only get one shot. Unlike Eminem when you get your shot you don’t get rich and famous. In 1942 you get dead.

Your only defences in this game are your instincts, your reactions, your joystick dexterity, your old-fashioned luck and your plane’s barrel roll manoeuvre. The barrel roll can is a get-out-of-jail-free card. When you push the button your pilot pulls up and you fly out of danger, dodging the threat, before circling back down.

That bullet about to hit you? Barrel roll. That plane about to fly into you? Barrel roll. That bullet and that plane and that other plane and those other bullets that you’re about to fly into? Barrel roll.

It doesn’t always work. It’s quite possible to barrel roll out of danger and straight into a path of bullets. Still, when you pull it off you feel like Maverick, outsmarting the enemy while wearing cool shades and raining down cruel death upon them.

When you don’t? Well, you feel like a right goose.

An ace fighter pilot would flip out of harm’s way with a well-executed barrel roll. I’ll probably just fly right into that green fella there.

Despite my suckage, 1942 is a game I keep returning to. Any new device I get it’s always the first game I play. I’ll boot it up, start a run and a minute later shut it back down. I always think this run I’ll get further. But I never do.

I’ll often reach the final battle of level one, but not always, and maybe get halfway through level two — or in the game’s curious parlance that sees it counting down the levels, stage ‘Last 31’ — but heavens forbid I reach the mysteries of stage Last 30.

This brings us back to the big question; why the flip do I keep playing 1942?

Well, it’s fun. The game was a global hit, one of Capcom’s first big wins, and it oozes with arcade appeal. The retro charm of the graphics still holds up today and looks superb. I’m fairly time-poor and I know that when I play 1942 I won’t be spending much of the little time I have playing it. In a twisted way, that’s a big part of its appeal.

The gameplay is fast and furious and there’s an undeniable stressful thrill to dodging and weaving around the enemies and their bullets that’s incredibly addictive. That said, the inner rage that boils when getting shot down or crashed into is also palpable. Often because I know it’s mostly the result of my own unskilled piloting.

Take the squadron of red guys out for a power-up

But this also makes 1942 annoying and frustrating. At least to me. Each death, which I’ll remind you comes quickly and often for me, doesn’t make me want to insert another coin, hunker down, put in the time and git gud. It makes me want to rage quit.

I don’t. I’m not an aggro man-child who never learnt to process his emotions and whose development is now arrested. No. Instead, I simply push that anger to the pit of my stomach and continue to play until my credit runs out and then I quit. Like a man.

These frustrations are what keep the game’s addictive qualities in check. I simply can’t play 1942 for more than three runs at most. Originally, I had thought the game would be a perfect candidate for our regular The Cost to Beat the Boss feature, where we work out how much money you need to spend to clock an arcade game, but I quickly realised there was absolutely no chance in hell of me being able to keep my cool long enough to keep flying to the end of the game. The cost to beat this particular boss would be my sanity and my stress levels.

Today’s top percentage? Nice.

It’s simply ludicrous to me that Capcom gave this game 32 levels. 32! Dear lawd. I can’t imagine anyone ever being able to dogfight through all 32 levels of this bullet hell at the arcade back in the day. No matter how deep their pockets were.

I have a deep history with 1942. It’s one of the first arcade games I played as a kid at the Uncle’s Takeaways that was on Auckland’s Mt Albert Road in the 80s. It clearly left a lasting impression.

The coin my dad gave me while we waited for dinner on a Friday night never lasted very long or got me very far, but I always wanted to keep playing. To have one more go. To try and get further. But I never could.

In the decades since, not much has changed.