Now that Geoff is no longer with Ausdroid I am comfortable taking the title of old man Ausdroid. It may have been a long time ago, but I still remember that far too much of my youth was spent playing what we thought at the time were amazing video games. My favourite of all time was 1942. I loved it and although I wasn’t great at it I really enjoyed it. Capcom have now released a mobile port of it for Android: 1942 Mobile.
Over the last few years I have tried several copies of 1942 on Android with varying success but when the original version came out I was excited to give it a go. I ponied up the $1.39 (well, the Ausdroid PR account did) and gave it a go on the Huawei Mate 9. Open the app and you are greeted with the 16 bit interface, a throwback to the 80s that has become so popular lately. Log in with your Google Play Games account and you are good to go.
If you haven’t heard of 1942 here is the Play Store synopsis:
Set in the Pacific theater during World War II, this vertically scrolling shoot ’em up tasks players with battling through the entire enemy fleet. Shoot down enemy planes, avoid enemy fire and perform rolls and loops to avoid certain death in this epic nail-biter from the past.
So how did it play? I suspect that it plays as well as it did back in 1988, stuttery combined with a smattering of lag. Oh the nostalgia. Unfortunately for Capcom, gaming has come a long way since I was a teenager (yes, I am that old) and the movement of a plane milliseconds after your finger moves is no longer acceptable. The plane seemed to move ok with my finger moving slowly but move the finger fast, as is required in this game, and the plane will stutter from one location to another and was thus difficult to control where it would be at a certain point in time. Watch the YouTube clip below and watch the stuttery movement of the plane.
Controlling is done from a large empty section of the display below the gameplay. This is a good implementation as many games in this style need you to control the plane on the gameplay itself which can cause issues with visibility. There are two gameplay modes, classic and casual. Casual is if you just want the occasional game but if you want to play the long game then classic is for you.
Overall the game is a major disappointment and I’d have to say save your $1.39 and check out one of the copies which are so much better (I refunded the Ausdroid account on this one). I swear I remember the 80s being much better than this. I’d recommend Sky Force Reloaded, Sky Force 2014 and/or Sky Force Anniversary if you want to try a similar game that behaves like something made in the last 20 years. The Sky Force games are also great with multiplayer on the Nexus Player/Mi Box.
What is your favourite vertical shooter game? Give me some ideas of new games to try.
Now we just need Wonder Boy! (my personal fave at the time)
Well that’s disappointing. I saw the title and like you remembered ‘the good old days’ shovelling 10p coins into the arcade machine. Did you mean to roll so often in that video Scott or was a factor of the controls too?