0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Asterix

       

Asterix: The Gallic War also known as just Asterix for its UK and French Playstation releases as well as several other names including Galliska Kriget in Sweden, La Batalla de las Galias in Spain and Астерикс и Лекарство От Рима in Russia is an action strategy game based on the much loves French comic book series Asterix written by René Goscinny.

The game was developed by Sourcery Development which would later become part of Warthog PLC, the game was published by Infogrames and was released exclusively in Europe on the Playstation and Windows in March of 1999.

The game takes a light hearted approach to the action strategy genre think of a map similar to Risk with in this case Europe broken up into smaller regions with the player aiming to reclaim the Gaul terrorise from the advancing Roman empire.

To do this the player must move their forces from a Gaul controlled region into a neighbouring Roman controlled region doing this will have three outcomes you will either player a side scrolling action sequence, or your men will go to war with the forces of that region

Additional you may play one of four mini games, these mini games include Throw the Roman and Bowl the Roman, side scrolling action section have you collecting coins and other items while fending off Roman soldiers completing the task successfully will result in the Gaul army going control of that region was well as its resources.

The sequences are reserved for the larger regions on the map, generally the smaller less significant regions just play out combat between the two opposing armies, with the player only choose how many of his army they send into battle for that region, the game has nine distinct levels such as a Roman Camp, Gallo Roman Village, the Alps and a Pirate Ship.

The main premise of the Asterix comics is The series follows the adventures of a village of indomitable Gauls as they resist Roman occupation in 50 BC. They do so by means of a magic potion brewed by their druid Panoramix, named Getafix in the English translations, which temporarily gives the recipient superhuman strength.

The game continues with that theme with the Gaul lands occupied by the Roman empire, all but one Gaul region remains, the player plays as Asterix and along with Obelix and the rest of the Gaul army must push the Roman empire from the Gaul lands one piece of land at a time.

Generally the game reviewed above average from most reviews a couple fell to a fairly average score with one very poor review score thrown in as well, but as usual we will start with the best which comes from Absolute Playstation who scored the game at a 78, who compared the game to Risk and said if you like that then Asterix may be worth checking out.

Up next is French publication Jeuxvideo.com who scored the game at a 75 and called it a nice surprise for Asterix fans who should embrace it they did however want that it is not a very difficult game and the action sequences not very complex, they concluded with what a pleasure to find the Gauls on Playstation in such a nice adaptation!

Dutch publication Power Unlimited summed the game up with one sentence, Asterix is ​​a nice, simple, old-fashioned game: nuff said in their 64 rated review. NowGamer were more critical in their 60 rated review saying the incorporation of two genres could have been stunning.

However they concluded with  is to dilute down the gameplay on both levels making each part vacant of thrills. It’s a shame we didn’t see more of the Gaul in all his fist throwing glory because if we had of done it may have prevented this stinking like a string of garlic sausages.

Down to the other end of the review scale now where we find the lowest review score for the game from Svenska PlayStation Magasinet, the Swedish publication called the game a substandard combination of a Risk clone and a tricky collector game with some battle strokes, they concluded with if you encounter this game run elsewhere.

A jump up in review scores for the next two with German publications Video Games and Mega Fun scoring the game at a 53 and 55 respectively, starting with Video Games who’s reviewer is a fan of the Asterix comics and is clearly disappointed in this game calling it a carelessly lurid thing that has not earned the Asterix name in any way, with the review recommending the comics rather than this game. Mega Fun’s reviewer called the game simple for anyone with experience of strategy games.

This is the part of 0 to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com, eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable at other retailers.

So lets get down to business with Gamedude who unsurprisingly don’t stock this European only release same goes for eStarland.com and Amazon.com, more surprisingly Retrogames.co.uk don’t stock this title either. Switching to the co.uk version of Amazon where we find a very limited supply of the game available.

At the time of writing this there are only 3 copies available, the first is a complete good quality used copy of the game and can be picked up for £12.95 which is around the $17 mark or 15 Euros, From here the remaining two copies are significantly more expensive.

The second copy can be ignored this is a disc only copy in acceptable condition and is priced at £25.96, the remaining copy takes another massive jump in price which is at £73.13 + a £1.21 shipping fee this is for a very good condition copy of the game.

Written by

P J Gibbon