USAAF Mustang

USAAF Mustang is a horizontally scrolling shoot 'em up arcade game originally developed by NMK, and published by UPL in 1990. It was ported a year later to the Sega Mega Drive by Taito Corporation, while being renamed Fire Mustang. NMK Co. Ltd. also developed the Sega Mega Drive version.

USAAF Mustang
Developer(s)NMK Co. Ltd.
Publisher(s)UPL, Taito
Platform(s)Arcade Game, Sega Mega Drive
Release1990, 1991
Genre(s)Scrolling shooter
Mode(s)2 player co-op, Single-player

The game is a very standard horizontal scrolling shoot em' up with only one type of available weapon and a bomb weapon. Players took on a fictional campaign in a World War II setting as a USAAF fighter pilot in a titular North American P-51 Mustang against the Nazi Luftwaffe and the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service.

Gameplay

Players were sent around stages in Europe and Asia against either of the two featured Axis powers. Every level was filled with a wide variety of different fighter craft and ground forces that all preceded the end-level boss (generally a large aircraft). Eight levels in all; the game repeats endlessly thereafter.

Players had a typical vulcan weapon that could be upgraded three times in order for the shot pattern to widen. Players also had an unlimited amount of ground force bombs that would increase in firing speed with the vulcan. The player's bomb weapon was a weapon called "The Forcer" that fired a large fireball straight forward.

While the arcade original featured a second player to join in, the 2 player addition was removed from the Mega Drive port.

A bootleg version of the game exists and it uses musics from Seibu Kaihatsu's Raiden.

Historical Inaccuracies

Despite the game's setting, certain liberties are taken from real life as well as anachronisms.

  • The first mission takes place in 1940, near Spain, but Spain was a neutral country and never joined the Axis and the United States had not joined World War II until December 1941.
  • The final enemy of the second stage is a Japanese cruise missile submarine. Neither the Imperial Japanese Navy, nor other navies – besides some experiments done by the Germans with their U-boats – had by then that kind of vessels.
  • P-51 Mustangs were not available until late 1943 and neither were the Dornier Do 335 fighter planes first encountered in the first level (flying in a rectangular formation) which was not issued or used by the Luftwaffe until mid-1944, and the Japanese Shin-Den, featured as enemies in the second stage, of which just two prototypes were built and never saw actual combat.
  • The most obvious, but more excusable, inaccuracies include the Vulcan and Forcer weapons as well as the enemy ground force's use of homing missiles; most of which were used for the sake of arcade game challenge and presentation.

Bosses

Arcade

Stage 1: A plane similar to The Me-363

Stage 2: A Japanese U-boat

Stage 3: Japanese Captured Avro Lancaster

Stage 4: A German Captured M3 Lee

Stage 5: 3 Messerschmitt Me 264 (1 Black and 2 Brown)

Stage 6: Maus

Stage 7: Yamato

Stage 8: Bosses from Stage 1,3,4,5 and 6

Reception

In Japan, Game Machine listed USAAF Mustang on their August 1, 1990 issue as being the sixteenth most-successful table arcade unit of the year.[1]

References
  1. "Game Machine's Best Hit Games 25 - テーブル型TVゲーム機 (Table Videos)". Game Machine (in Japanese). No. 385. Amusement Press, Inc. 1 August 1990. p. 29.
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