A brief history of World War II shoot 'em ups

Between modern marketing and the Internet, these days it's relatively easy to keep track of all the sequels, prequels and spin-offs that come out for a video game. Back in the days of the arcade, unless a video game magazine or a friend told you about a new machine, you were stuck with what was in the arcades you visited. And while the histories of certain games, like Street Fighter (which I covered last year) and Tekken, are pretty well known, there are plenty of sequels to classic arcade games which went almost unnoticed. One such example for me is Capcom's classic 1942. I played the original game in the arcade loads and I played 1943 a couple of times, but I had no idea how many versions there were until I started dabbling with MAME in the late 90s.

So here, 60 years after 1942 (if you see what I mean), is my brief history of World War II-themed shoot 'em ups.

1942 (1984)

The formula for 1942 was simple. It was a vertically scrolling shoot 'em up, set during World War II, rather than space, like so many others from that era. You pilot the Super Ace, which looked exactly like a World War II Lockheed P-38 Lightning. Your mission was to blast through waves of Japanese fighter planes on your way to Tokyo to destroy an air base. Shooting down a sequence of red aircraft would deposit a power-up, which could be double fire-power, wide shot or two small escort planes. You could also perform a loop-de-loop to avoid enemy flak, although I never found it be particularly useful.

Despite its sober setting and authentic looking fighter craft, there was something endearing, almost cute, about 1942. Perhaps it was the put-put-chugga-chugga-peep-peep music, which sounds like your Super Ace is struggling against gravity, let alone the Japanese air force. 

Its popularity catapulted Capcom into the big league and it would become their first game to spawn a sequel.

1943: The Battle of Midway (1987)

The first sequel arrived three years later. The basic gameplay did not really change, you still had to battle the Japanese air force over the Midway Atoll, you still got power ups from blasting waves of red planes and you could still do a loop-de-loop, if the desire takes you. However, everything was sort of beefed up. The second button was now a special attack (lighting or a tsunami), but which took part of your life bar (a conceit also seen in Capcom's side-scrolling beat 'em ups, like Final Fight and X-Men. The game also removed the traditional three lives and replaced it with a single life bar, which depleted as you took damage, but could be replenished by collecting POW icons. It also added two player co-op, a feature that would stay with the franchise throughout. The music also changed to something more rousing and military-like.

1943 will added two player co-op, timed power-ups and special attacks.

In Japan only, Capcom released an updated version of the game called 1943 Kai, which featured reworked graphics and sound, replaced the P-38 with a Boeing Model 75 biplane and added insane power-ups, like laser guns, which were totally incongruous with the game's WWII theme.

1941: Counter Attack (1990)

The next game in the series came out another three years later, but was set two years earlier. The conflict shifted from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Player 2 now flew what looked like a British-made Mosquito Mk IV fighter and instead of the bomb and loop being separate attacks, they were now a single action, so you avoided flak and wiped the screen of enemies in one action. The game also introduce a powerful homing attack, which had to be charged by holding down the power button  — R-Type style.

1941 gave player 2 a Mosquito Mk IV and added narrow canyons to navigate

19XX: War Against Destiny (1996)

A number of things changed with the third sequel, 19XX. For a start, the player was given a choice of three fighter planes; the Super Ace was now identified as a (P-38) Lighting, the Mosquito was more powerful and the new plane, the (Japanese-made Kyushu J7W Shinden prototype) was fast and nimble. Each ship got a unique weapon too. The game also introduced mission briefing before each level, where you got a summary of the boss you'd be facing at the end. Capcom also lifted the medal system from the Raiden series. Tactically, the most interesting change was to the charge weapon. Now, if your charge shot landed you got several seconds of homing attacks on top of your normal primary weapon. When it came to taking down bosses you had to decide whether you chipped away with the main weapon or charged up in the hope it lands and you can then hit it with homing attacks.

A choice of planes and mission briefings were just some of the changes in 19xx.

Between the mission briefings and the post boss cinematics, 19XX really feels like a modern arcade game and it's one of the best in the series.

1944: Loop Master (2000)

Developed by Raizing/8ing (the guys behind Battle Garegga), 1944 is a different game again to its predecessors. The Shinden and Mosquito were dropped and instead the plaayer 1 was given the Lighning and player 2 was given a Mitsubishi Zero. The charge attack no longer had a follow up homing attack, instead you got an aerial assault, which (like the loop) kept the player out of harms way for a brief time. The wingman also played a bigger part, with the power-ups floating down to the bottom corner of the screen to be picked up at the player's discretion. The medals were also replaced with gems.

This was also the first game in the series with continues. When you're plane explodes your pilot jumps out and floats around with his parachute. When you continue, rescuing the pilot rewards you with a selection of the power-ups you had before you died.

The game ran on Capcom CPS2 hardware and it is a great looking game with a widescreen aspect ratio and lots of little details.

The Legacy

So that's my brief history of Capcom's 1940s shmups, but they weren't the only ones at it. Plagiarism in the games industry is pretty rife, you only have to look at how many Pong clones were made during the '70s, so it's not surprising 1942's popularity lead to a few copy cats, some of which were based on World War I and many of which really stretched the authenticity of their setting.

Flying Shark and Fire Shark (1987 & 1989)

Toaplan made a lot of great vertically scrolling shooters (Raiden, Truxton and Batsugun to name just a few), so it's hardly surprising they got into the World War-themed shmup scene. Between 1987 and 1989 they developed two such games, both with World War I themes and featuring bi-planes, Zeppelins, tanks and lasers! Yeah well, the less said about that the better. The games follow almost exactly the same template as other Toaplan shmups, yet somehow were never as thrilling as either Capcom's classic series or their own siblings, including this next game....

Twin Hawk (1989)

Also by Toaplan, Twin Hawk appears to be set in the second World War, just like Capcom's games. On the whole, Twin Hawk plays the same as the Shark games, as well as the aforementioned Raiden series. One novel feature was the ability to call forth a whole squadron of helper planes for a few seconds, after which they systematically dive bomb your enemies -- which seems a little extreme, but there you go. Given a choice of which of Toaplan's World War shmups to play, I'd probably go with the Hawk over the Shark.

This is going piste a bit, but Hardcore Gaming 101 did a great piece on Toaplan's shmups earlier this year, which you can check out here.

Strikers 1945 series (1995 - 1999)

When I first saw Psikyo's Strikers 1945 I assumed it was a follow up to the firs three 194x games, but it's actually a totally different vertically scrolling shmup with WWII fighter planes. While it would be easy to dismiss it as a blatant rip off, the Strikers games do have a few merits of their own, not least the choice of planes available to the player. The first game had the P-38 Lighting (same as 1942), the P-51 Mustang, the Shinden, the Messerschmitt BF-109, the Mitsubishi Zero and every Brits favourite piece of World War II hardware, the Spitfire. For the second game (Strikers 1945 II, also known as Strikers 1945 Plus) Psikyo added the Vought V-173 "Flying Pancake", but by the third game (Strikers 1945 III, also known as Strikers 1999) Psikyo brought the roster up to date, with the F-22 Raptor, F-117 Nighthawk and the AV-8 Harrier jump jet.

I like the Strikers games, but they are totally over-the-top, even more so than Capcom's later 1940s games. Transforming fighter planes anyone?

1942: Joint Strike (2008)

As well as porting the arcade games to home consoles in several Capcom collections, in 2008 Capcom and developers Backbone Entertainment released 1942: Joint Strike for home consoles. The game features gorgeous high definition polygon graphics and like 1944 it plays in a widescreen aspect ratio. Don't let the name fool you though, it plays more like the later games than the original. I assume this because of the combination of the bankability of 1942 as a name and Psikyo's similarly-named series.

1942: Joint Strike is a bit like a super model: great to look at, but not much going on underneath.

Due to the popularity of online gaming these days, Joint Strike had an emphasis on multiplayer co-op, even adding special collaborative attacks that are only available in two player mode. However, the game was underwhelming. It's difficult to say what it is, because they have all the ingrediants, they've just not cooked it for long enough. However, die hard fans of the series may still enjoy it, especially in co-op mode.

Horizontally scrolling WWII games

While it would be a bit of an assumption to say 1942 inspired the following games, they are nonetheless noteworthy as other World War II-themed shmups:

P-47: The Phantom Fighter  (Jaleco, 1988)

US AAF Mustang (UPL, 1990)

P-47: Aces (Jaleco, 1995)

Progear (Cave, 2001)

Akai Katana Shin (Cave, 2010)

What I think is most suprising of all is how few World War I or II themed shoot 'em ups there have been full stop and the ones that do exist have been made by the same few developers. There may be a few others I've missed (I suppose I could have included Atari's first person vector rail shooter Red Baron), but this is pretty much all there is. Had I been trying to compile a list of space-themed shmups, I doubt I could have even got half way.

MTW