Before titles like Street Fighter or Mega Man dominated the market for Capcom, 1942 was tearing up the Arcades and carried on as a popular series of shoot'em-ups. Recently the series had a revival on the XBox Live Arcade as a 3D amalgamation of the previous titles and now fans of the series can play a retro-remix of this title on their iDevices with '1942: FIRST STRIKE'.

Players can switch between tilt-to-move or touch-and-swipe controls for maneuvering one of three available planes. Like other SHMUPs on the App Store, auto-firing is permanently enabled, leaving your fingers free to hover over the screen clearing Bomb or devastatingly powerful Rocket strike buttons. Movement is a bit twitchy and sensitivity options are available to help players out, but barring the boss fights there's very little to dodge on screen.

The classic WW2 Pacific theater theme has been carried over for First Strike, with updated polished backgrounds and detailed 2D sprites that have been wound back from the 3D XBox title. Power-ups are available, however each weapon only seems to have two levels of powers and once you gain your wing-men you essentially hit the peak of your available upgrades.

'1942: FIRST STRIKE' is a very short title and definitely something you could easily finish in a couple sessions and coupled with the relatively low difficulty there's not a lot of replay value. Still, First Strike is a fun title and whether you're a casual or a hardcore fan you will have something to enjoy.