By the way, last week I tried that Dynasty Warriors BB demo that I got given at Tokyo Game Show. It installed fine, and I got treated to some very nice cinematics of assorted Chinese-esque warriors going toe to toe with series mascot Lu Bu. And then I got to the point where I'd have to log in, and realised that unfortunately the game only works for subscribers to one of Japan's BB networks (hence the name), such as Yahoo! BB.
As I understand it, what differentiates the BB networks from other broadband service providers is that they go at a speed of about 12 megabits per second, which is an order of magnitude faster than most of the rest of the world gets. I'm unsure if Dynasty Warriors BB actually needs all that crazy speed, or whether it's just some sort of exclusivity deal, but in any case it's off-limits to us gaijin for the time being. Sigh.
For those who don't know, Dynasty Warriors BB is a PC-based massively multiplayer installment of Koei's successful console franchise, which sees players controlling single exemplary warriors on large semi-historical battlefields. The player is the proverbial "one warrior worth a thousand", and has the ability to go through literally thousands of enemies like a hot knife through butter.
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4 comments:
I usually shy away from MMO these days, but I have to say that an online Dynasty Warriors sounds like good fun to me, provided I can play cooperatively with my friends in a closed game.
With my impending trans-continental move, I need some online games as options for playing with my UK friends.
Shame you couldn't get it working. :(
Incidentally, Lu Bu was considered the strongest warrior in the Three Kingdoms era, but is actually a relatively minor part of the story, dying before the first quarter of the tale is concluded. He was a real historical figure who lived from 156-198 AD. His horse, Red Hare, ended up being the steed of Guan Yu, a hero so beloved that his statue can be found throughout China and in particular at every police station in Hong Kong.
This has been a randomly triggered unsolicited info-dump. Mention the Three Kingdoms era - I will ramble! ;)
That's one of the things I've been appreciating even more since I've started playing Samurai Warriors 2 - that I'm actually learning something from these games (once I siphon out the what-ifs and the narrative license).
It's been interesting watching Lu Bu's prominence in the Dynasty Warriors series rise. If I recall correctly he wasn't in the first one, and then was a fairly hard-to-get unlockable in 2, before joining Guan Yu as pretty much the mascot of the entire franchise.
Closed online gaming... you might be well served by the forthcoming Hellgate: London, if that shapes up to be half the fun it seemed like at the Tokyo Game Show.
As a Chinese, I would like to claim that people worship Guan Yu for his loyalty to his oath brother and lord, Liu Bei, and justice he stands for, rather than his martial skills.
I'm pretty sure that the Dynasty Warriors Guan Yu bears as little resemblance to his historical counterpart as Snoop Dogg bears to Julius Caesar. But point taken.
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