1943 – One Year After (C64 review)

Developer: Greve Graphics
Publisher: Action Software (American Action)
Released: 1987

Despite the title, this game has nothing to do with the Capcom series of vertically scrolling shoot-em-ups.

It was developed by Greve Graphics who also developed the C64 titles Blood 'n' Guts, and Captured. 1943 - One Year After makes a terrible first impression with its text-heavy title screen and intro music that sounds like someone having their first keyboard lesson. Once you get into the game there's an unskippable intro that shows your plane scrolling upwards while refuelling - this takes 30 seconds and you're forced to watch it every time you want to start a new game! When the action finally starts you're treated to a tiny screen area that's cropped in portrait mode. It's likely this was done to make it look like other arcade shooters of the time but here the screen just looks too narrow with very little room to manoeuvre.

Although the game isn't as fast paced as the Capcom series, you'll still struggle to avoid enemy fire due to the colour palette. All incoming fire is presented by a black dot - the problem is that these dots frequently blend into the backdrops which are full of black outlines. The game does have a nice barrel roll animation though and I like the left-hand-side map which shows you how far along the stage you are.

Overall though this title is a chore to play and it doesn't allow the precision needed to enjoy this shoot-em-up experience.

Random trivia: Greve Graphics was the first Scandinavian video game company. They released five titles between 1985 to 1987 before eventually folding around 1988.