Towards the end of the 16th century, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, through conquest, united Japan for the first time. A brilliant strategist, his appetite for power was not satisfied with this achievement. He set his sites on something bigger....

Hideyoshi requested that Korea allow passage of his troops on their way to invade China. Korea refused, and in 1592 Hideyoshi landed between 150,000 and 200,000 troops on Korean shores. The Japanese possessed a weapon the Koreans had not encountered before -Guns. Using matchlock guns that had been copied from the Portuguese in 1542, the Japanese advanced quickly, seizing the capital, Seoul, within two weeks.

And so starts War Diary, for you historians out there you will notice that these events sound strangely familiar. That is because they all happened, this game is based on actual events that happened in the Korea during the 16th Century.

War Diary is very similar to the current strategy games (Warcraft and Red Alert), except for the following two areas, 1) it is based on history, and 2) it only costs $19.95, which is a bargain in my book.

The game play is the same as its cousins, you have to build support buildings, characters, and weapons. You also have four primary resources that you must manage Money, Food, Trees, and Iron.

Buildings are used to build things, like other buildings, characters and weapons. Characters are trained in buildings, you must have a barracks before you can start creating troops for example. The types of buildings that you can build are: Main Hall, Barracks, Arms Works, Guard Tower, Blacksmith's, Shipyard, Temple, Tool Works, Heavy Arms Works, and Stables.

Characters are your pawns in this chess game, you must create the correct strengths and combinations of character to win the war. The characters are created in the Barracks, in other words you must have a Barracks to create the characters. For some of the specialized character you will need a Temple. The characters that you can create are Peasants, Footmen, Archers, Gunners, Priests, Knighst, and a Specters.

Weapons are your defense and offense against the enemy, you must have them in order to survive. Also you must keep creating them because they can wear down and even break. The weapons that can be used are Sword 1-6, Arrow 1-6, Cannon 1-6, Ballista 1-3.

The game is setup on an overnight schedule. Who knows what tomorrow may bring rain for instance or maybe lightning, the environmental effects add to the game play.

Once you understand the rules you must start to create characters and buildings in order to build your support base. After awhile your army starts to build up and you feel confidant that your base of operations is safe. You send your army out exploring to find the enemy and finally pulverize him. Managing your army is pretty straight forward, you just click on a location and your troops move there and clear out whatever is in your way. Game play is very fast and mostly unencumbered, except for the weapons.

This game is different from other games in that each character has a weapon and that weapon can wear out, or it can break. At which time the character is weaponless, until another weapon is chosen or provided. This can be become a huge pain in the butt. The game also must run in DOS mode, which is intelligently explained in the manual and is easy to set up. Additionally War Diary run almost entirely off of the CD-ROM drive, so it take virtually no hard disk space.

When you spend $47 for game you are buying fancy graphics, hype, a pretty package, and great game play. With War Diary at $19.95 you are only buying one and a half of those things, and no its not the pretty package. You are buying great game play and decent graphics, which is one area that I would improve in the game.

War Diary, is a great game for the price. If you enjoy Warcraft and Red Alert and would like to try something that has a bit history then War Diary is a must. It's only $19.95!

Downloads:

• The Game Factory Home Page
• War Diary Home Page
• Download the Demo
• Buy the War Diary Online

Goto War Diary:
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