1942

THE BAD:
A little too hard at times. Not much variety in gameplay. Absolutely horrible background music.

SUMMARY:
A vertical-scrolling shooter based on the arcade game of the same title, 1942 puts you in your own airplane with the task of shooting down enemy planes and attacking enemy battleships in the sea during World War 2. You can play on your own or with a friend via alternating play.
As is typical with arcade-to-NES titles, the graphics compare very well to the arcade original. They're not the most detailed but in terms of comparisons to the arcade, they're about arcade-perfect. The sound effects are very realistic, especially the machine gun firing sounds and airplane explosions, but the background (constant whistling-type sounds) music is extremely annoying and headache-inducing. Controls are responsive & simple-mostly fly back & forth and shoot, but this game also added a trick that gives you limited opportunities to loop your plane around to avoid enemy fire-nice little addition. Otherwise it's just straightforward gameplay against endless waves of fighters, and it gets rather difficult after a while.
Still, it's a realistic, rather intense shooting game/simulation and is good if you're looking for a challenging arcade port. It's also a good warmup for if you're going to play the sequel, 1943.