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When Good Games Go Bad....
I'm something of a fan of Koei's Dynasty Warriors/Romance of Three Kingdoms games. It was DW3 that got me so interested in the original Luo Guangzhong novel, which is an incredible and sweeping epic of love, war, duty, honor, betrayal, the destiny of an empire, and the fates of mortals. It's probably not 100% historically accurate, and Luo Guangzhong surely too liberties in describing the personages. It's also quite an insight, if not into the time period of the novel (approximately aD 200) then into the time the novel was written, which was about a thousand years later.
Sidenote: I would dearly enjoy playing in a game -- a pen-and-paper RPG, that is -- set in this time period and using ROTK as inspiration. At least... so long as the player characters weren't the guys who got beheaded because the prime minister was feeling bitchy that day.
Now, never mind the fact that Koei has milked the franchise until it's bleeding. Dynasty Warriors has reached the fourth iteration, 3 had an expansion and 4 has two expansions. (More on this later.) They're up to the ninth iteration of Romance of Three Kingdoms. Kessen II was all about Liu Bei's campaign. Dynasty Tactics 1 and 2 were sort of a midway point between the two game styles. (And just for good measure, Koei also used the DW style of game for a science fiction setting, Crimson Sea, and for two games set in the time of the Tokugawa shogunate, Kessen and Samurai Warriors.)
So recently I gave in and picked up the second expansion to DW4, which is Empires. Managed to get it cheap after trading in a few games that I've had for a while and wished I hadn't bought. Now, Empires is rather neat, a pretty good game all in all. Make a character, and pretty much... take over Three Kingdoms era China, one province at a time. So far, so good.
The game cheats.
Honest! I swear it cheats! It waits until it's just you and the kingdom of Wu left. Then it starts getting nasty. Suddenly the privates and sergeants you were KOing by the score have their aggression kicked up a few dozen levels and your general is being nibbled to death by cats, and then the three enemy generals who were half the map away are zeroing in on you. And they're bringing their friends. So of course you loose the fight. But it's not enough, is it, O demon of digital deception? When the battle results screen comes up, what do you see but CAPTURED over your strongest general. In both the Empire mode games I've tried, Empires has managed to weasel Lu Bu out of my force, the second time not three minutes after the battle started, and when I turned it off the game had just stolen Guan Yu from me in the last 7 turns of the game. >.<
I am reasonably certain that I'm a decent player of this game, considering it's one of the few games I can complete pretty consistently with almost any character at Normal difficulty level, so of COURSE the game cheats! ... Okay, maybe it really isn't cheating, and I'm just not as good as I think I am. =) Still, it's made me freak a couple of times when seeing how the game is progressing well and then turns around and clobbers me with seemingly no effort.
Ah, well. 'Tis but a game, and a pretty enjoyable one even if it DOES cheat! =) Anyway, just to note, if you have never read Romance of Three Kingdoms, I highly recommend it. Be sure to get the unabridged or full edition. It might also help if you get an edition that has the names in Pinyan, they're a little easier to read, even if not entirely phonetically accurate if you don't know what to expect. (The infamous pronunciation of 'Cao' as 'cow' instead of 'Ts'ao,' for example.) If you don't mind, you can have a look at this link where the full text of the novel can be found online, including commentary from readers. Some of the commentary is funny, some if it is inane, some of it is informative. There are a few maps, too, which help in understanding the progression of events. (One of the more remarkable things is that you can still go to many of the locations mentioned in the novel in modern China, they still have the same names.)
That's pretty much all for now. Just some random stuff thrown at you. Pax!
P.S. Also from a completely random direction that I throw out to you... after hearing Metallica's version of Whiskey in the Jar I have never wanted to clobber them with a shillelagh more than I do now. I guess I should be glad they didn't get hold of "Beer, Beer, Beer." I can just imagine James Hetfield tearing apart those lyrics.
Sidenote: I would dearly enjoy playing in a game -- a pen-and-paper RPG, that is -- set in this time period and using ROTK as inspiration. At least... so long as the player characters weren't the guys who got beheaded because the prime minister was feeling bitchy that day.
Now, never mind the fact that Koei has milked the franchise until it's bleeding. Dynasty Warriors has reached the fourth iteration, 3 had an expansion and 4 has two expansions. (More on this later.) They're up to the ninth iteration of Romance of Three Kingdoms. Kessen II was all about Liu Bei's campaign. Dynasty Tactics 1 and 2 were sort of a midway point between the two game styles. (And just for good measure, Koei also used the DW style of game for a science fiction setting, Crimson Sea, and for two games set in the time of the Tokugawa shogunate, Kessen and Samurai Warriors.)
So recently I gave in and picked up the second expansion to DW4, which is Empires. Managed to get it cheap after trading in a few games that I've had for a while and wished I hadn't bought. Now, Empires is rather neat, a pretty good game all in all. Make a character, and pretty much... take over Three Kingdoms era China, one province at a time. So far, so good.
The game cheats.
Honest! I swear it cheats! It waits until it's just you and the kingdom of Wu left. Then it starts getting nasty. Suddenly the privates and sergeants you were KOing by the score have their aggression kicked up a few dozen levels and your general is being nibbled to death by cats, and then the three enemy generals who were half the map away are zeroing in on you. And they're bringing their friends. So of course you loose the fight. But it's not enough, is it, O demon of digital deception? When the battle results screen comes up, what do you see but CAPTURED over your strongest general. In both the Empire mode games I've tried, Empires has managed to weasel Lu Bu out of my force, the second time not three minutes after the battle started, and when I turned it off the game had just stolen Guan Yu from me in the last 7 turns of the game. >.<
I am reasonably certain that I'm a decent player of this game, considering it's one of the few games I can complete pretty consistently with almost any character at Normal difficulty level, so of COURSE the game cheats! ... Okay, maybe it really isn't cheating, and I'm just not as good as I think I am. =) Still, it's made me freak a couple of times when seeing how the game is progressing well and then turns around and clobbers me with seemingly no effort.
Ah, well. 'Tis but a game, and a pretty enjoyable one even if it DOES cheat! =) Anyway, just to note, if you have never read Romance of Three Kingdoms, I highly recommend it. Be sure to get the unabridged or full edition. It might also help if you get an edition that has the names in Pinyan, they're a little easier to read, even if not entirely phonetically accurate if you don't know what to expect. (The infamous pronunciation of 'Cao' as 'cow' instead of 'Ts'ao,' for example.) If you don't mind, you can have a look at this link where the full text of the novel can be found online, including commentary from readers. Some of the commentary is funny, some if it is inane, some of it is informative. There are a few maps, too, which help in understanding the progression of events. (One of the more remarkable things is that you can still go to many of the locations mentioned in the novel in modern China, they still have the same names.)
That's pretty much all for now. Just some random stuff thrown at you. Pax!
P.S. Also from a completely random direction that I throw out to you... after hearing Metallica's version of Whiskey in the Jar I have never wanted to clobber them with a shillelagh more than I do now. I guess I should be glad they didn't get hold of "Beer, Beer, Beer." I can just imagine James Hetfield tearing apart those lyrics.