At Home with the Underdogs

I'm in Japan, with just my old Thinkpad laptop, so I can't play Star Wars Galaxies. Jane has a newer Vaio portable so she can manage single player NeverWinter Nights. In situations like this, during dark nights on long trips, I turn back to DOS games. Today I was visiting the very holy Home of the Underdogs, I was going to download Master of Magic for further play. I have a lifetime favorite title MUDS on my harddrive but I felt like a change of pace.

But to further my game studies, I should be playing old games that are new to me. Games that other people have raved about, or games that are highly rated online that I've never experienced. For example, the Koei series of ancient Asian history strategy games. So I downloaded the acclaimed title, "Romance of the Three Kingdoms." DosBox allowed me to run this 1989 game in Windows XP. But I could not handle the first moment of play - "Master Lu Bu, Please Enter Orders (0-20)." A blessed game archivist has scanned the manual for this game, so it is available on HOTU also. But I don't have the patience right now to read through a 55 page PDF to understand those 20 options and their implications. So I'm back digging through the old stock of Koei games on HOTU, looking for something to download and play at 33k bps - a game with a more modern interface for a gamer with a weakened attention span.

Comments

[b-ruce]

Wow, I haven't seen that screen in over 10 years!

But I must say if you're looking to play an earilier version of that series I would start at #2 or 3. Much better interface. But still pretty confusing. I guess one could compare it to the Civilization games but more empasis on battles and no technological advances.

b-

[BoringBot]

try wasteland in the rpg section, or dark heart of uukrul. both of those are really great. wasteland is very fallout-esque if yer into that scene, and its not too hard for a beginner.

[Christian McCrea]

This marks me out as a purist, but i found playing the old games (and the fantastically addictive modern versions, Dynasty Warriors 3/4 and Kessen 2) far easier once I'd read the ancient novel. Somehow, I just *got* what the old games wanted me to do more once I started to read the novel.

[b-ruce]

Yeah I think you're right. Reading the book did help a whole lot.

And it's really not a bad book at all. It's like the Illiad of the East.

[dr_colossus of dataleak]

I remember I loved to play Genghis Khan from Koei back on the old Amiga days alot!

[Yee]

Its a place to find all the oldies Game.....