Post by Martin Repyou should try and get a second-hand copy of
Shanghai Second Dynasty. Can also be played [online]
I never recommend that folks try to get that old program anymore, for three
reasons.
1. Now that it's out of print, it's extremely difficult to obtain.
2. Now that Windows XP is becoming widespread, and the game was not made to
support Windows XP, a lot of people who have the game are running into
problems installing or running the game. And they are having problems
getting the v1.1 patch to work, especially if their machine has a non-US
OS... since the game isn't being supported by Activision anymore, it's a
mess for users of newer machines.
3. Since Activision is not actively supporting the online servers, there is
only one now that still works. The last time Martin and I tried playing S2D
online, it looked like two servers were still OK, but the first one we tried
didn't work properly. I don't know how much longer that one remaining
server will continue to have the Shanghai Second Dynasty software running.
Accordingly, I just recommend Four Winds and HKMJ. If someone's interested
in Japanese mah-jongg and also can read Japanese, for that person I
recommend that they check the plentiful Japanese download sites.
Cheers,
Tom
P.S. Let me go ahead now and give the comebacks to expected objections to my
three points raised above.
1. I occasionally hear that a bookstore in the Netherlands has a couple
copies, or a shop in New Zealand - but when I tell folks this, they often
don't want to incur shipping charges from that far, and one guy told me that
the New Zealand shop refused to sell the game to him because there's an
"Australia only" label on it or something. I've got one woman who repeatedly
advertises on my bulletin board, looking to obtain a copy - she hasn't had
any luck as of yet.
2. Shanghai Second Dynasty works fine on MY Windows XP machine. Perhaps
because I installed the game before installing Windows XP. And perhaps
because I am both intimately familiar with the game's idiosyncrasies AND
have the patience (born of the need) to MAKE it work on my machine. I
recently discovered (through a user email) that Shanghai (First) Dynasty
does not work on Windows XP (and it indeed does not) - and I even had
trouble getting it to work on my Windows 98 machine (had to fiddle with
monitor color settings to fix that one). But although I can get these games
to work on my machines, that doesn't mean that the average mah-jongg
aficionado would have an enjoyable experience with them.
3. Yes, last time I tried it, the online feature did still work. But just
barely. And it always was a pain to make it work. It just isn't worth the
trouble for the casual gamer. For online, better to go to Yahoo or IMS.