[typing]
One thing about games that really intrigues me from time to time is the exploration of theme.
Especially regarding national holidays.
You have game talking about Christmas and
Halloween, even Easter every so often.
But one that really get ignored,
other than maybe a movie game here and there, is Independence Day.
You could see why.
It's not exactly a game-like holiday and
it's only in America.
And I'm sorry to say, we don't have an Independence Game today either,
but it's definitely one that brings about some interesting ideas
of intense patriotism.
Liberty or Death.
Developed and published by Koei Corporation in 1993 for MS-DOS PCs
as well as the NEC PC-98, Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis.
And by Jove, I do say that this is the single-most American box cover I've ever seen.
George Washington, Ben Franklin,
Thomas Jefferson, the original 13 colony seals,
a skewed version of the Francis Hopkinson American flag–
Augh! It's glorious!
All it needs is a few more extra patriotic symbols of undying freedom and, man,
you've got yourself the most independent example of gaming box art excellence
known to the Republic for which it stands,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all!
Too bad the back of the box is boring
with only a few bland-looking screenshots and predictable marketing blurbs scattered around.
On the other hand, inside the box–
well, just feast your eyes on this baby.
A respectably-sized poster of that wildly patriotic box art
sure to instill unreasonable feelings of lopsided nationalism wherever it's displayed.
You also get the game on a freedom-loving 5¼" floppy disk
a 72-page manual covering craploads of gameplay information
and revolutionary historical factoids,
and a reference card that tells you how to lose,
which is always useful if you're playing the Brits.
Liberty or Death begins with a liberated intro featuring a dead guy.
A rather famous dead guy, Patrick Henry,
and his famous "give me liberty or give me death" speech
from which the game gleans titular inspiration.
And man, that's some upbeat music for such a sobering speech.
[upbeat march]
Ah, who says "war is hell?"
It's obviously much more of a carnival
filled with laughter and cotton candy.
Once you're done taking in the delightfully dithered EGA graphics,
it's time for some menus.
Start a new game and choose who you want to play against,
and immediately you're picking sides.
Americans defend, British attack,
but either way, you're going to be picking a commander-in-chief from a selection of three on each side.
They all have unique stats divided into leadership, tactics, discipline and reputation,
and in theory, each of them are capable of leading your chosen faction to victory.
But of course, there are some difficulty and game details to choose from that make this even more customizable.
So pick some stuff and prepare to liberate the dookie out of everything.
You begin on July 1, 1775.
And in classic American fashion,
the first order of business is setting a budget that you will inevitably screw up
in the name of making things better for the people.
Each season of the game, you'll get more cash from those that are still alive,
but obviously you want to stretch your funding as much as possible in the meantime
because war... war never changes.
The American Revolutionary War in this case lasted until 1783,
and Liberty or Death places you smack-dab in the middle of managing the bloodshed.
It plays similarly to various turn-based strategy and war games of the time period,
especially those from Koei's historical simulation series, of which this is a part of,
alongside Romance of the Three Kingdoms,
Nobunaga's Ambition
and Genghis Khan.
The idea is that you focus on managing districts, units and your economy most of the time,
and every so often a skirmish will break out and you'll move over to Battle Mode to do that.
Winning these battles is key to succeeding,
and managing your districts and cashflow are key to creating successful armies,
so it's a self-feeding loop of thinking multiple steps ahead with every move.
The number of options is downright overwhelming at first,
even if you're familiar with war games in general.
[chuckles] Or war games in lieutenant.
[sighs] Sorry, it's a bad joke. Moving on.
Yeah, anyway, it's got a bunch of junk to do and it's not always apparent what does what,
even when constantly referring to the manual.
This is one of those games where losing a lot in the beginning is probably the most useful thing you can do.
Sorry, 18th-century Americans,
learning how to play this game made your deaths a worthy sacrifice.
So once you figure it out, is it any good?
Ehhh, it's not exactly what I'd call truly satisfying to play,
but it's definitely got its strong points.
One of those is as a thinly-veiled learning tool, Liberty or Death is outstanding.
In my eyes, the best way to learn is when you don't realize you're learning.
Tons of so-called edutainment games fail at this,
and then you have something like Liberty or Death that pulls it off effortlessly.
Playing the American side and then the British side
really shows how massively the deck was stacked against the 13 colonies
and how terrifying it must have been to be an American revolutionary back then.
And then the sheer economic and militaristic power of the British
is a blessing as much as it is a curse to play with
because you feel a sense of complacency playing as them.
It's like you're so big you can't fall, but
then you realize it's not that simple
due to the tactics and loyalty and planning required to amass an effective British invasion force.
Dealing with other international interests complicates things as well,
with the French, Dutch and Spanish all making demands and taking sides.
That's not even including all the spying, bribing and propaganda you have to utilize in order to gain support
and draft enough soldiers to wage war with.
The battles themselves are a tad simple, though,
with most of the work being in the preparation.
Each map is divided into a grid, with each square representing a specific type of terrain.
There are varying unit types that do varying unit things,
like stabbing dudes with bayonets and building makeshift bridges.
But mostly battles just consist of clicking around to move your dudes on top of other dudes
and then watching the numbers dwindle.
I was most disappointed with this aspect of the game,
but again, it's effective in portraying the idea of how this particular war was fought.
Just be sure to keep your commander-in-chief safe
because if he's captured, then you automatically lose,
and have to either restart
or watch the computer play the game better than you.
Yeah, it's bad enough that you lost, but then to have the computer show you how it's done–
Yeah, that's downright un-American.
And that is Liberty or Death,
a game about the USA that let's you destroy the USA before it becomes the USA.
Pretty awesome, actually–at least in regards to the idea
and the amount of stuff it lets you do.
But much like with Mary, Queen of Scots, the execution is a little off.
It doesn't quite make the cut for my personal list of must-play war games,
but it's definitely worth grabbing and playing
if you're into massive amounts of focused historical context in your games,
especially the Revolutionary War because that's all this is.
Much like America itself, I like this
and I'm glad it's there,
though I don't always love it,
but I accept it for what it is.
[classical MIDI music]
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