North & South (1989)

North & South is a fun strategy game, created by Infogrames on the basis of the famous French comic book "Les Tuniques Bleues", telling the adventures of soldiers during the Civil War. The player can choose one of the parties to the conflict (Union and Confederation) and use it to tip the scales of victory to their advantage.

The game is divided into several parts. The most important of these - strategic - takes place on an improvised map of the United States. With the help of soldiers, we must occupy as much of the land as possible. It is especially important to master the railway line, because the trains running on the route bring us income in the form of gold sacks. If you have chosen to land meals from the ship in the menu, you have to annex states on the coast and keep them from the enemy. Thanks to this, we will get an additional soldier relatively quickly and we will significantly increase the chance of winning. If there is an enemy army in the area we occupy, a battle takes place. The battle is extremely skillful, although without a proper strategy there is nothing to dream of winning. The army consists of three contingents: artillery, cavalry and infantry. The player can choose any of them at any time and attack from a convenient enemy position. The battle, of course, is won by the army, which will be able to survive alone on the battlefield. You can also withdraw at any time, but in general this does not lead to anything good. North & South also has other arcade elements. They appear when we try to attack an enemy fort (red dot on the map) or when we occupy one of the states that crosses the railway. In both situations you have to deal with enemy soldiers and complete the task before the alarm clock at the bottom of the screen moves to the right. Although the rules of the game are very simple and at first glance the game cannot offer too much, in reality it is extremely complex. Even if we manage to master the scheme of movement of troops on the map and annex more important states faster than the opponent, it may suddenly turn out that in direct competition we will suffer a shameful defeat. The same is true for the other way round. You can easily win forts, take over trains and make mistakes during the strategic part that can bury any chance of victory. That is why it is necessary to master both factors on an equal footing and gradually move forward.

The audio-visual setting is average and, compared to the Amiga computer version, it looks very pale. Graphics are only 16 colours, while all sound effects and music are supported by the Speaker's PC only. Nevertheless, it is an interesting proposition, mainly due to the high dose of humor, and the ability to play two people at one computer.

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Last updated on August 14, 2015