SWORD OF THE SAMURAI

 When an entertainment product is referred to as a "sleeper," it doesn't mean
(as some believe) that it's boring enough to put you to sleep! Rather, it refers
to the product's unexpected success. SWORD OF THE SAMURAI from MicroProse is a
true sleeper -- on an artistic, if not commercial, level. This is one of the
richest and most complex games ever released; it's graphically and musically
advanced, extremely versatile, and involves a wide variety of game elements:
arcade swordplay, wargame strategy, role-playing, exploration, and mapping. Yet,
although the game presents a staggering number of ways to start and progress,
it's also friendly enough to allow you to practice nearly any of the component
elements individually. (This review is based on the IBM-PC version.)

 The overall flavor of SAMURAI is role-playing, though the execution is largely
arcade and requires skill with a joystick or the keypad. The main object here is
to take your character (to whom you give a name and assign certain strengths and
weaknesses at the outset) and advance in level. Play your tiles right and you'll
advance from a samurai among rival samurais to a hatamoto among rival hatamotos.
Advance from there to daimyo, the lord of the province. There are 47 other
provinces, all with their own daimyos. Should you conquer a minimum of 24, you
can declare yourself Shogun, but you'll have to defend this title against a
consortium of competing daimyos.

 There's no facility for female characters, although (as the designer's notes
point out) females played an undeniably subservient role in the samurai culture
of feudal Japan. Historically, the game focuses on a 110-year period of Japan's
history (1490 to 1600), an era also covered by several other games (NOBUNAGA'S
REVENGE from Koei, for example).

 Your Samurai begins with whichever specific advantages have been given to your
family. You might start out excelling in swordsmanship, or you might have
greater land holdings, a greater number of servile samurai, or greater honor. In
order to increase in rank, you'll need to increase all these attributes.
("Honor" is an amazingly resilient term in these circumstances, since much of
your progression is dependent on your ability to seem honorable while forcing
others to act dishonorably.) Some of the many methods of increasing your
stature: marrying into a good family; performing tasks for your superiors
(rescue missions, battles); making your peers seem dishonorable or killing them
outright; helping others; donating land; even indulging in the occasional tea
ceremony.

 Aging is an important factor; your original character will die long before a
Shogunate is attained. When your character marries, sons and daughters are
randomly generated (slowly), and when your heir -- it must be a son -- takes
over for you, you'll find your new character significantly reduced in attributes
and acquisitions. Thus, it will happen that your most successful characters are
quite old. At some point, they'll start losing their abilities and you'll have
to retire from worldly affairs.

 Every time you think SAMURAI has shown you all it's going to show, it surprises
you with new varieties of situations. Elements of the game (such as the overhead
traveling map within your domain) vanish to make room for new wrinkles. For
example, early in your career, you may choose to prove your honor by rescuing
hostages or members of your Daimyo's family. Later, when you _are_ a Daimyo,
you'll find yourself _forced_ to defend your family, your guests, and even the
peasants who inhabit your domain from assassins and bands of thieves. Early on,
you'll also have little opportunity to use your troops in actual combat, but
when attempting to become Shogun, you'll constantly employ troops to overtake
other Daimyo's domains.

 SAMURAI's graphics are excellent, with support for EGA and VGA, as well as
16-color Tandy graphics; 4-color CGA mode is also supported, but Hercules
monochrome graphics are not. The screens display muted colors, simple patterns,
bold calligraphy, and traditional Japanese artwork. Even the swordplay screens
(in which two characters face each other and perform arcade-style combat) are
highly stylized and altogether different from traditional computer graphics. The
settings for these battles vary greatly, from outdoor scenes to the traditional
tatami -- bamboo mats -- of the training area. Other combat sequences utilize an
overhead scrolling map of rice paddies, or towns, or complex multilevel mazes
within homes or castles.

 The music on the Ad Lib or MT-32 is also extremely authentic and atmospheric.
The MT-32 music in particular is remarkably realistic, with gongs and plucked
strings and all the traditional eastern musical detailing. I did find the music
repetitive, though: A single game can take many days to play (depending upon the
difficulty level you set), and although the themes do vary as you change level,
you may spend many hours at one level...listening to the same few themes over
and over. Still, this is a niggle; these compositions for computer are
brilliant.

 The experience, in sum, is one of total immersion in Japanese history. At the
easier levels, the arcade sequences are not terribly challenging, but the
strategy is demanding at every level, which keeps the game from becoming _too_
easy even at the lowest level. Moreover, there are brief flashes of devilish
humor throughout. During the game's intense disk accessing, there are delays,
but rather than offer a crude "Please Wait" or "Loading..." message, the game
gives us random bits of appropriate Oriental philosophy. My hands-down favorite
is: "Suspend expectations of imminence."

 If you're playing the MS-DOS version, be sure to print a copy of the "read.me"
file provided on disk; it includes some important information not presented in
the manual. The game is hard-disk installable and requires a minimum of 512K of
RAM. Either 5-1/4" or 3-1/2" disks are included; check the label on the spine of
the box to see which version you're buying. The copy protection is my only
sticking point for this game: There's both a key-disk scheme and a document
check. Thus, you must keep the manual _and_ the original Disk "A" nearby at all
times. Key-disk protection is just about the most heinous, unfair, and punitive
form of copy protection around. If you object to it strongly (as I do), be sure
to write a letter to MicroProse demanding that they cease and desist. Key disks
are far more liable than manuals to be destroyed by a wayward dust mote in a
disk drive, or a fingerprint, or simply the ravages of time and constant access.
After 90 days, should your key disk fail, you'll have to pay a whopping $15.00
for the privilege of playing your game again. If this game were not so good, I'd
advocate a boycott.

 But, for better or worse, SWORD OF THE SAMURAI is a highly recommended game --
for wargamers, arcade gamers, and CRPG fans alike. To paraphrase the program
itself, "It is good to see MicroProse do a good deed. MicroProse is a game
company of exceptional honor."

 SWORD OF THE SAMURAI is published and distributed by MicroProse.

*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253