1943: The Battle of Midway for NES

1943: The Battle for Midway NES is a video game that allows the player to experience what it was like to be involved in that particular battle in our world history. Everything from attacking the "Japanese Air Fleet to pursuing Japanese Air and Sea forces though at least sixteen levels of the game to take on the Japanese Battleship Yamato.
 
There are eleven levels that take the player through Air to Sea battles and there are five levels that are strictly all aerial battles (dogfights) against Japanese bombers and a "Mother Bomber" that needs to be taken out. The player's plane is a P-38.
 
In the game, two buttons are used. One for regular attacks with several weapons and the other is for special actions like executing a loop or "one of three special attacks that damage" the enemy plane. In this game, the player gets only one life and one refillable energy meter. Energy is reduced by being hit by the enemy fire which is a minor loss, getting rammed by the enemy plane which in the case the bigger the enemy plane the more damage done, and using the special attacks of lightning, cyclone, and tsunami. The game is over when the P-38's energy is gone.

There are special weapons to be used but only for a limited time since after a while, they revert to normal. These are shotgun, three way machine gun, auto, laser, lightening, Tsunami, and Cyclone. During game play, the player needs to succeed in destroying at least 70% of boss or having to repeat the level again. When the player advances to the next level, the energy meter is refilled and points are tallied.

If the player succeeds in destroying a complete formation of the enemy planes then the player receives a power up. The most usual type is the POW icon, this will increase a little of the energy loss. If this icon is repeatedly fired upon, it will turn into "different weapon power-ups that will wear out with time, usually one point per second." If replacement power-ups are not picked up on a regular basis, the weapons will revert to the standard stock guns. The best that a player can get in these cases and this is rare is the "Yashichi" symbol. This will replenish all of the player's energy. When the plane symbol comes up, that means that reinforcements that the form of wingmen; however, watch out for the green plane that comes up from behind. If destroyed, the player will get a bonus. Each level has hidden bonuses. If the player is lucky and hits the invisible cat-shaped statue the player's P-38 will be able to use laser weapon for about a minute.

Here is a list of the Aircraft Carrier Bosses that are the main targets.
The Rikaku
The Kaku
The Ayako 1
The Kakushi
The Kyoshu
The Ganryo
The Choko
The Roshuku
The Ayako 2
The Kayu
The Bunshu bomber armada
The Chojin
The Riju
The Ayako 3 Mother bomber
The Kaga; this carries the Ayako 1 four-engine bomber.
The Fuso
The Akagi; this carries Daihiryu 1, a Japanese Ki-67 bomber squadron
The Ise
The Hiryu; this carries a Ayako 2
The Mutsu; this carries a Daihiryu 2.
The Soryu; this carries the Ayako 3, the Japanese mother bomber
The Nagato, a battleship
And the final boss is the Yamato.
This list goes on. In all, there twenty-six stages.

There are ways to get around such problems such as energy loss and this is called "cheating." Now cheating can come in various forms, just depending on how ingenious the player is. Cheat enablers come in the forms of cheat books, game guides, and cheat cartridges. This has slowly became part of the game industry. Oddly enough, the cheat codes are developed these days not by the gamers but by the game developers.

Why, you may ask? The reason is simple...to get the single player to play the game more. The game developers know that many players do not have the time to complete the game by themselves so the developers make the cheats more accessible to the casual player.

One of the popular ways to "cheat" is using a trainer. This is a program that modifies the behavior of a computer game, which includes addresses and values. These can "freeze" a memory address from "lowering or changing the information stored." Like that of energy or life meters. These are designed to suit the player's needs.

However, with the popularity rise of gaming and using external soft and hardware cheating, there are posed legal copyright issues. So while some forms of "cheating" are excepted, others are "walking on a fine line" legally.