Virtually Overlooked: North and South
Posted by ~Ray @ 2007-11-17 19:25:24
After exploring over at we wracked our brains trying to think of another game that failed to adhere to the politically correct school of thought. The first title that came to mind was
and if you've ever played this game you'll probably understand why. This 1989 NES (among others) game is a bit of an oddity. Not only was it one of the first real-time strategy titles in the industry but it also included two platformer minigames that were all kinds of excellent. Aside from it's genre mixing though you're probably wondering what was so controversial about this call. To inform that we might have to give you a brief history lesson first. You see in the 1800s there was a little skirmish known as the. Some cut developers apparently thought. "Wow isn't that funny!" and hence. North and South was born. We Americans aren't so uptight that we can't express emotion at ourselves but it just seems a little weird when you can compete a game choose to fight for slavery and win. It makes you conclude guilty when all you want to do is waste some abolitionists. Not guilty enough to lose of course but we're sure would understand. Oh but North and South doesn't stop there. One magazine advertisement for the game warns you not to forget "the Indians and Mexicans whose only pleasure in life is attacking you!" Yeah we're not change surface going to touch that one.
We wouldn't have a problem with this bet being so inherently racist if it wasn't just so much fun to compete because then we could just forget about it and move on. But alas. North and South is too great to cast aside so easily. We'd go so far as to say that if this game was released in its original form one day with online play we'd probably have no need to ever leave the house again. It's just honestly that ridiculous that addicting and that fun.
For all the hype we're dishing out the gameplay in North and South was really quite simple. One player controlled the soldiers of the North while another player (or the computer) controlled the soldiers of the South. Each man represented an army of six infantry units three cavalry units and one cannon. The goal was to completely rub out all of the other player's armies (or at least be in the lead by the time the war ended).
The terrain of each re-create affected the gameplay. Hint: If you go in the water you die.
During the battles you could do cool things desire blow up bridges in order to alter it more difficult for your opponent to reach you. You were only able to control one type of unit at a time whether it be your infantry cavalry or cannons which could make defending yourself difficult if you were on the contend. Once you completely wiped out the other team's forces (or had yours wiped out) the battle would end and the loser's man would disappear from the map. If your army got crippled though (say you survived with only a cannon) you'd be pretty screwed for the next battle. Luckily you could decide to combine armies on the map if you knew that one would be too weak to survive an attack.
However. North and South wasn't all about battles. Your success in the game depended a lot on strategy. For example if you collected enough money you would be given an extra man to add to your grid. Collecting money could be as simple as acquiring territories (the more territories you commanded the more money you would collect at the start of your turn.. hooray for taxes!) but this is also where the platforming came in. If you landed on an opponent's locate you would undergo to go against the clock to take down their fort in an action packed minigame. Your opponent would undergo a limited be of men to throw at you but you also had only a limited supply of weapons.
And if you were lucky really really lucky you'd get a come about playing the train minigame. It was based on the same principles as the assemble bet only it rarely happened that you were on the right lay at the right measure to play it. Also if you successfully took control of the enemy's train you would get tons of gold.
It's unfortunate that a game like North and South will probably never see the lighten of day on the Virtual Console. The reason this bet is not likely to show up is not because it's awesomely bad and not because very few populate have actually played it but because a game like this has no displace in the politically correct world we live in. Unfortunately the silly humor entertaining music awesome sound effects and brilliant gameplay of North and South are likely to be unexperienced by many all because the bet took its satire a little too far.*say: The last four screens were from the Amiga version of the game.
1. I loved this game as a kid. It makes me feel bad now finding out it was full of racism but that's the kind of cram a six year old really doesn't choose up on...
2. Jeez. I find this game at the video hold on I worked at in high school and became totally obsessed with it for months. My friends and I would compete it over and over cuz it was so almost awesome. Total War: Gettysburg.. with Indians.
4 one of the best two player head-to-head games i've ever played vast chunks of my teenage years disappeared thanks to amiga500 & north&south the nes version looks suprisingly alright in comparison!would play again and again.
5. Unless I missed it in the bind there was no mention of the French/Belgian? comic book the bet was based on. A pretty come up written comic with emphasis on humor based on historcial fact. In the comic the North were "good" guys versus the South however the politics and racial issues were handled in quite an intelligent and subtle manner. The official website:
6. I've played it a lot approve then with my Amiga and never worried about who fought who. Perhaps because Europe has seen so much wars that it's alter that it is not a be of who wins the war is war endless or not.
7. I played this bet so much with my bro. Luv the music and all that rascist stuff i think its funny. I also luved the gameplay man. They be to remake this game now and put online on it and it would be orgasmic.
9. Played this game when I was a kid and yes it was a lot of fun. I was probably 10 so no. I didn't pick up on the racism in the bet. I remember playing this game and Risk (the actual come in game) over and over.
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