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by Fussbett 09/03/2006, 2:52am PDT |
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When you have every arcade game in your living room, you discover a lot about your preferences. I found that as I get better at a game, I get less interested. I don't want to play levels 1 through 4 every time I walk up to the machine. I also discovered that I love scrolling shooters the most. Give me a PC and a thousand Mischief Maker posts, and I won't download a single free shooter. But a cabinet and a shooter one button away, I play all the time. Here's the Capcom 19* round-up.
1942 (1984) THIRD PLACE
The first one is still great, pitting the soon iconic P-38 Lightning against thousands of the developers' grandfathers. No bosses, no smart bombs, the only two power-ups both just double your firepower. The second button is LOOP, and it's shocking to go back to this game and discover that the loop button really just makes your plane loop. No lightning, no tsunami, just a loop to dodge bullets. I end every level with all three R's (the R symbol stands for "loop" (the R is silent and invisible)) because if I have time to press the loop button, I also have time to push the joystick and move away from the bullet. I hope you love points, because that's what you're playing for, though there is also the lure of knowing there are only 32 levels to beat as you count backwards through the missions. The military soundtrack of snare drum and whistle is awesome.
1943: The Battle of Midway (1987) SECOND PLACE
The big hit of the series. The crazy firepower, the huge aircraft carrier bosses, and managing your hitpoints give you lots to do so it never gets boring even in 2006. I don't have to tell anyone about this game, so I'll just mention that this is the last game of the series developed by Yoshiki Okamoto. He's kinda famous for also making Time Pilot, Gyruss, and the motherfucking Street Fighter series. Catch up with him on his blog to enjoy Japanesey entries like "Assessment of Brave Story Team. I have assessed the members of Brave Story team. I want to pay much more to them, but our assets are limited! (2006.06.16)"
1941: Counter Attack (1990) FIFTH PLACE
The worst of the series, 1941 has minor graphic improvements, several gameplay changes for the worse, and is hard as fuck. An inordinate amount of enemies attack you from the bottom of the screen, like you're running away from an enemy squadron. Like a coward! This would put the famous LOOP button to great use except that using the LOOP button COSTS YOU A LIFE. The game has a unique system where all your "vital" bars are replenished at the end of each level, so doing some loops may not ultimately hurt you, but I can't see why you'd loop instead of risking getting shot, because both outcomes net you one less "vital" bar. I must not be understanding something, but if that's the case, it's even more embarassing for 1941. Finally the second player plane is a Mosquito, not a Lightning. The Mosquito in this game is slower and less agile than the Lightning, but has more firepower. TOTALLY UNREALISTIC.
19XX: The War Against Destiny (1996) FIRST PLACE
Yeah, fuck destiny! You can now pick between three fighters, the Lightning, the Mosquito and the Shinden. Shindens pop up in Japanese games a lot, and I'd imagine because it's a source of pride. The Shinden was supposed to be some really great fighter if, you know, the war didn't end before they went into production. Anyway, 19XX is awesome. Seemingly inspired by Psikyo's Strikers 1945 series, 19XX goes over the top with great results: Big powerups, charge-fire for locking homing missiles to a target, multi-stage bosses, and even charge-able bombs for 3 stages of destruction. 19XX also features great artwork, going to the flat-but-high-res cartoon look that other Capcom games Darkstalkers and Street Fighter Alpha had been making popular at the time. Collecting medals, achieving high shoot-down percentages, ranking up... I'm all about it. Curiously the loops are gone, but I don't miss then. Unlike the other games in the series, 19XX is fictional.
1944: The Loop Master (2000) FOURTH PLACE
Capcom couldn't be bothered to develop another one (was 19XX a flop? :( ), so development was farmed out to Eighting, who paired the Lightning with a Japanese Zero (?!) for the second player. The non-Capcom development shows, with 1944 being very different. Instead of a vertical monitor it's widescreen (great news for MAME players), you're collecting gold diamond shapes for some reason, the artwork is a more common almost-rendered style, and the powerups only double your standard firepower, adding one more stream of bullets horizontally. Good boss battles, non-cheapness and the general change of pace place this above 1941, but I'd play every other game in the series before this weird title. I'd like to see more looping from a game called Loop Master, frankly. You only loop when you bomb. |
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