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Conquer The New World All Over Again

© Brian Tubbs

The wait is over. For years, this editor has longed for a real-time strategy game with impressive graphics and sound that would allow one to play as General George Washington, leading the rag-tag Continental Army to victory over the mighty British Empire.

Until this time, PC strategy game enthusiasts wanting something on the Revolutionary War have had to content themselves with rare and hard-to-find, low-budget, niche-market programs with box-shaped units and rough terrain features. Nothing on the impressive scale of Microsoft's "Age of Empires" or Sierra's "Empire Earth" or CDV's "Cossacks" was available.....until now.

CDV, the makers of the widely-acclaimed "Cossacks" PC game, saw this vacuum and have put out a worthy title to fill it. The front cover of the PC game box features an American Continental soldier standing proudly in the midst of battle, holding a sword and bearing a United States flag, while proudly gazing off into the distance. Nothing else was really needed to push this salivating editor over the edge and compel him to reach into his wallet and pay the $39.95 purchase price. (It did take a wee-bit more than that to get his wife to approve the transaction).

When this editor arrived home with his proud purchase and had performed the obligatory family chores, including reading his four-year old daughter her bedtime story, he was on the computer faster than the militia ran away at Kip's Bay.

Tearing open the box and tossing the directions aside, he shoves the CD in the computer and immediately goes to the final campaign scenario - that of the American Revolution, playing as the Americans, of course. (One can play as the Britons). Well, the editor quickly found out that he had charged into this campaign with as much preparation as the United States entered the War of 1812. He also learned that colonial militia (the only unit available to the Continental player initially) are as reliable on the PC screen as they were in real life. When trying to place them in front of an advancing British column and hold their fire until the British were close enough to taste their lead, the militia wanted no part of it. They took off in the other direction, scattering themselves all across the map.

The game proceeded along these same lines, until finally the British began methodically destroying the storehouses that the Continental player is supposed to defend. In a matter of just a few minutes, the game stopped and the banner on the screen let it be made known that the Continentals lost.

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