The advent of downloadable games has produced a veritable avalanche of arcade shooters. With two-stick, psychedelic shooters seemingly taking most of the space, Capcom’s 1942: Joint Strike’s top down, 2.5D approach feels surprisingly fresh. Fresh, however, can only get you so far.

1942: Joint Strike is broken down into five distinct levels, each having a boss at the end. Prior to the boss encounters, you will have to blast through a horde of fighter planes, helicopters, tanks and anti-aircraft to reach said boss. To help you fight, certain enemies will drop weapon power-ups that will allow you to shoot laser beams, and two different types of rapid-fire spread-shot bullets. These power-ups can stack and be upgraded, but only three times and must be upgraded sequentially–meaning, if you get two laser upgrades and then get a spread-shot upgrade, your laser upgrades are gone. It definitely makes the game harder, but also more strategic. Having to maneuver around both incoming fire and a potential upgrade that you do not want adds a nice layer of depth to the gameplay.

Additionally, unlike the recent trend that has been seen in many arcade releases, when your lives are gone, it’s game over and you must restart the game from the beginning. Finishing the final boss on the normal difficulty setting will be a challenge for any seasoned gamer, and adds value to an extremely brief, hour-long game. Online leaderboards are also included, if you want to show off you high scores to your friends on PSN. However, Joint Strike currently does not have trophy support, so you sadly won’t be able to boost your gamer level.

As the “Joint Strike” subtitle suggests, there is both local and online co-op. The online co-op is a smooth, lag-free experience, and might be the preferred method of playing the game if you want to complete the game at the higher difficulty levels.

The game looks and sounds fine, though nothing extremely memorable stands out aside from the bosses. Most of the bosses in Joint Strike will take up the majority of the screen as they fire bullets, flames, and all sorts of other junk at you. However, it seemed like most of the boss battles ended up devolving into using my screen-clearing bombs, firing off my missiles, shooting and dodging into until death, and then rinsing and repeating the process until the bosses are dead. The bosses definitely do some interesting things, but the strategic element is all but broken in these battles because it’s easier to defeat them using the aforementioned strategy.

Ultimately, Joint Strike’s short length makes me stop short from a full recommendation. For arcade nuts that love to rack up a high score on the leaderboards, you’ll appreciate the challenge that Joint Strike brings, and the ability to bring a buddy in on the action is definitely welcome. For the rest of us, there are better options available.