Perhaps the first two examples were incidents of random, bad luck, but the third should never happen in a shmup. The hitboxes on the planes are so large that you might have an easier time pushing John Goodman through an electrified turnstile. Omega Five is an example of another shmup with some very large fighters in claustrophobic settings, but Natsume had the foresight to give each fighter special maneuvers to deal with the challenge. It seems like Backbone tried to take a similar approach, but with very different results.

Instead of unique combat abilities, each of the three planes is put into a stereotypical category – fast and weak, slow and strong, and mid-range. It’s a good concept, but needs refinement. The fast plane is great for dodging, until the screen is filled with undefeated enemies. The slow plane takes enemies down faster, but it’s too slow to catch them all, let alone the floating power-ups. It feels like all the planes and enemies were thrown into the levels with no consideration for how they might work together. As for the mid-range plane, that one is just fine.

The game should have taken a cue from its strikingly similar second-cousin, Strikers 1945. In that series, every plane has the same attributes, but different firing-patterns, power-ups, and special attacks. 1942 tries to shake things up with three of its own weapon power-ups, but they don’t seem to work as intended. The narrow laser lacks the expected kick and the wide berth of the spread-shot forces you into odd angles to hit anything. Stick with the average machinegun with the average plane, and you’ll be all right.

I play a lot of shmups, so I invited a friend over to see if 1942 could cater to the more casual crowd. Point for point, he brought up the same issues. Of course, I couldn’t waste the opportunity to try out the two-player Strike system. To cope with the onslaught of additional enemies, both players get one of three Strike attacks that must be used in tandem. If you watched the trailer, you’ve seen the Chain Lightning Strike, which strings lightning between the planes like razor wire. As much as I love the idea and hate to repeat myself, only one of the Strikes is effectively worthy. The other two, including Chain Lightning, force the player into awkward positions that usually do much more harm than good.

By the end of my two-player experiment, my friend had lasted all the way through three of five stages, and I was bored. For the casual player, stage four is where the challenge really begins, while experienced players might mistake it for the opening stages of other shmups. After breezing through the easiest setting, I hopped into gear, redlined the difficulty, and stalled. The only discernable difference was the number of starting lives. Suffice to say that I sauntered right through that as well, with the slow plane no less.

There is no boss-rush mode, time-trial mode, or any other extras that you might find in other shmups. The only thing left is to go for the top spot on the leader boards. The game does have an intriguing scoring system in which you get multipliers for sticking close to enemies, but even that doesn’t always work. There were times when I sat motionless to shoot down horizontal streams of enemies for multipliers of x16, x16, x4, x16. Nothing changed, so why the x4? Unreliability truly is the recurring hallmark of 1942: Joint Strike. Like a used-car dealership, it seems to have a vehicle for every budget and lifestyle, and each one is covered with a thick sheen of low-grade wax. Yeah, they look tasty, but you have to wonder if even a single one can make it off the lot.

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