An idea of how much I enjoyed playing The Creative Assembly’s, by way of Sega, Napoleon: Total War pretty much all weekend long: I just ordered all four parts of Max Gallo’s biography of Napoleon from Amazon France. I don’t even speak French! (Well, a very little bit, but certainly not enough to read a four-volume biography written by someone who’s a member of L’Academie française.) That’s a pretty big endorsement: the game re-kindled my interest in Napoleon so much that I bought books that I can’t even read. Wild.
It’s such a computer game. The game is the sequel to last year’s Empire: Total War, which was one of the best PC games released last year, but rather than take an on entire era, from every country’s perspective, Napoleon focuses on the many awesome campaigns of the greatest man to ever walk the planet. There’s a reason why Bender Bending Rodriguez styles himself after Le Petit Corporal.
I’m terrible at the game. Like, my idea of military strategy can best be described as Russian: throw bodies at my enemies until I’ve exhausted their supplies. Thankfully, Napoleonic France had the biggest population of all the European countries (yes, even slightly bigger than Russia’s), so it’s pretty easy to recruit infantry to make up for my strategic failures. Outside of the battle scenes, which look terrific on my recently built PC, I’m over here managing my country’s resources. We’re nearing bankruptcy! The workers in Milan have gone on strike! Our cannons in Turin have been attacked by a bunch of Juventus fans!
If nothing else, I’d make a very good bureaucrat. It’s so fun to steer the ship of state, balancing income with expenditures, as my troops sweep across the Continent. Get out of my way, Austria! It’ll be a cold day in Hell before I bow before some corrupt Viennese prince!
The game is fun, in other words.