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After reviewing 1942, the Ed gave me this one, thinking it was the sequel. Thank God, it's not!

1942 is a very playable, addictive game, with good sound and graphics. 1943 has none of these qualities. It's just a very poor imitation.

To give an example of what I mean, take the backdrops. On '42 they scroll smooth, fast, and seem to vary. On '43 they are small and scroll very slowly across the screen.

Anyway, the plot for '43 goes like this: Destroy the enemy planes which will fly like a bat out of hell towards you. When you finally reach the end, apparently stage 999, you must destroy Admiral Yamoto once and for all.

Your plane, a P-38 Lightning Fighter, has the ability to perform these rolls. These are useful for getting out of sticky situations where you're trapped by bullets. You can get extra stuff by collecting PoW signs. Well, I think you have to collect them. Every time I thought I'd got one, I exploded. So do you really have to pick them up? Also, you only have a certain amount of time to grab them and, on top of all that, if you're not careful you can shoot them!

Your plane, as it flies up the screen, is very small and fires missiles at the rate of one per hour. Maybe this is a slight exaggeration but when you see how slow the game is, you'll understand.

Enemy aircraft are mostly small black planes which look more like half-defined characters than sprites, and then there are other large grey planes.

Oh, I mustn't forget the small white enemy plane which turns into a PoW sign when shot. These planes fly out of control and mainly come to rest on your wings, so watch out.

This game apparently has six hours of scrolling backdrops, but don't get excited. It probably has the same amount of 1942, but the scrolling is so slow that it takes six hours to reach the end.

With terrible graphics, naff sound and too slow gameplay, this game 'One year after' should be 'thirteen million years before'. Or at least the programming skills were.

One of the worst games I have ever played.