billy That’s it! Damn! I almost thought this was going to be hard. No tripping you guys up.
I actually have a weird love for this game. I can’t recommend it at all as something enjoyable, but it has this really great mise on scene to it that’s eery and cold. It’s 90% staring at one of two world maps and a criminally unintuitive menu system with a ticker on the bottom (which scrolls way too fast). There isn’t any real “history” list to keep track of events, so you have to stare at the screen or you’ll miss something important. When something actually happens that changes the music/imagery on screen, it’s practically a jump scare.
Playing the game is like: “I’m going to look away from this screen that never changes to take a sip of my drink … woah! Wait? Something happened? What?”
Or: “I guess I’ll try some bullshit with diplomacy, but it never changes anything and I have to look down scratch my leg …”
“… oh crap! They responded? What did they say? It scrolled too fast!”
There is a RTS element when you invade a country, which breaks the extreme monotony of the main game, but it’s clunky, super slow, and again … unintuitive as hell.
Even weirder: it’s a Sega CD game (which I am a huge fan of)! A platform trying so hard to convince the world it was next gen and super fun, with the least flashy concept ever … staring at a map.
It’s probably most famous for its Japanese cover:
But I kinda like the US cover more:
One last thing, I mentioned the game nailing its mise en scene, listen to this voice/music describing the economic warfare mode (I wish the video had the visual as well of a politician sitting at a desk in the dark). I always found these intro voice overs creepy and unsettling. Okay. That’s the last edit! I promise! :)
That’s it! Great job!