• STRIKERS have been called in to stop numerous terrorists around the globe.
• Choose from 6 different high-tech, top-secret planes to fly missions no other pilot has successfully accomplished.
• Multiple specialized attack and defense capabilities for each fighter.
• Call in swarms of fighter planes to assisst you in tackling gigantic aerial foes!
• All the action from the arcade classic! Features two modes of game play!

Discussion
Ah, space ship shooting games, a chunk of the video game era that will never die. To the PlayStation comes Strikers 1945, which in reality is the sequel, but hey, at least we got this one.

In Strikers 1945, you choose from one of six planes with different abilities and must survive stage after stage and wave after wave of enemy fighters and ground troops. Relatively simple and straightforward as most games in the genre go, the game provides a fair amount of bullets to dodge while providing the regular assortment of air and ground based bosses.

Control is regular fare, with a small caveat – stick with digital control. You can use the analog mode on the Dual Shock, but there is way too much neutral ground in the stick’s center area. Digital controls fine, but you’ll need to react a smidge faster than you think you have to if you want to survive the boss fights.

The graphics are fine, sound is the standard shooter requirements and there’s really nothing to be had in terms of unlockables and the like. Other than the minor control quibbles, Strikers 1945 is a fun romp under the wrong name.
 

• The game is letterboxed vertically to keep the arcade ratio, hence the side gray bars in the screenshots.
   
• Strikers 1945's ID Tag number is 1337 - the modern day computer slang for 'Leet', or in normal English, 'elite'. Considering the hardcore aspect of most Japanese based shooting games, that's damn funny.
   
• You'll often hear people refer to this game type as a 'schmup', which is verbal short-hand for 'shoot'em up".
   
• The US PlayStation game is actually the sequel, Strikers 1945 II under the original game's name.
   
• One of the reasons for the above naming scheme may have to do with a rather amusing reward system the original had. If you were to earn Gold Medals in every stage, the final credit scene would be your female pilot topless (though any naughty bits covered).
   
• The game's US cover could win an award from PhotoshopDisasters.com given half the chance. Besides being an all ready chaotic mess, most of the mess has been cloned / copied and pasted without attention to details. Look closely at your copy, and you'll see where they simply copied one plane and then reversed the image and pasted it elsewhere. Even worse, the 'Pancake' plane, the blue on in the lower center, has been cloned over missing its left half!
   
• Speaking of design disasters, the US cover Fonts are all ass-backwards and not even close to the game's original style. The main title screen shows the real font.
   
• There were a total of four games in the series - 1, 2, 3, and Plus. Plus was actually a remix of items from the first two games, similar to the way SNK remixed the first 2 Metal Slug games. Strikers Plus can be found on the Neo Geo hardware.
   
• Having tried the Dual Shock's D-Pad and Analog stick for this game, stick with the D-pad. There's a weird amount of neutral ground with the analog stick that spells disaster in tight situations. Arcade stick is the best way to go.