Introduction

Ever since I saw the original film The Seven Samurai, I have been quite fascinated by samurai, perfectionists in swordsmanship and practitioners of Bushido, a strict code of behaviour based on the two tenets of preservation of honour and absolute loyalty to one’s daimyo (warlord).

Later, in the early eighties I read James Clavell`s superb Shogun, an historical saga set in the Sengoku period of 16^th century feudal Japan, which brilliantly portrays the attempts of early western traders and the Jesuit fraternity to exploit the country’s riches, mainly the silk trade. It also vividly demonstrated the brutal side of Japanese life, where for the common people, "tomorrow did not exist" (Clavell, Shogun) and the spiritual need for preservation of honour gave life and death equal value.

The book became an international best seller and was followed shortly afterwards by an equally successful nine-hour feature-length film version, starring Richard Chamberlain, Toshiro Mifune and Yoko Shimada.

Ruthless daimyos ruled over the Japanese provinces at that time, commanding samurai soldiers dedicated to their master, and often forcing total subservience on the rest of the populace, all in the cause of conquering every province in the entire country to become the next shogun of Japan. They wielded a barbarian justice where assassination and seppuku (ritual, often obligatory, suicide) were commonplace and execution was a common form of punishment, often instantly by decapitation or sometimes more slowly by being boiled in water.

This is the setting for Electronic Arts` Shogun: Total War, a strategic campaign and tactical war game, in which the player takes the role of a daimyo competing with six other rivals to conquer all the provinces and so become the next shogun. The campaign consists of a seasonal turn-based strategic phase involving a mixture of diplomacy, intrigue and resource management elements, and an optional real-time tactical phase, where the player directly commands all his troops on the battlefield.

Single historical battles can also be played and there is a facility to set up customised battles. Multiple-player battles (but not the campaign) can be conducted on EA Play via the Internet or through a LAN.

Installation

Installing Shogun: Total War is a straightforward process but the game does require minimally a 233 MHz Pentium (300 MHz recommended with lots of RAM and a good video card) and a staggering 500 MB for disk space, worth bearing in mind before purchase. In my own case this meant a processor upgrade and some disk reorganisation, thereby making this review a fairly expensive and troublesome exercise. Was it worth it? Well, read on and you will see!

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