Axis - Allies Description:

Axis & Allies review:
2 stars (Mediocre to Poor) - Like other reviewers, I was disappointed with the game. I was anticipating a game, similar to the previous PC A&A game (i.e. the real board game) with better AI.



The designer liberally violated the A&A rules and made an entirely different game for the worse. I like RTS game (Command & Conquer being one of my favorites) but not when I wanted to play a board game, and I simply could not get into playing RTS of this A&A.



Having said this, this game (without RTS) is still playable (and somewhat enjoyable), if you can accept the fact that it is not A&A. Still the game has many BASIC shortcomings, including:



- Bad font choice. I cannot read how much money I have at any given time because some numbers are indistinguishable. The same goes to figuring out how much money you make by occupying a particular territory.

- You cannot play more than one country at once.

- No differences (or at least no noticeable differences) among three generals, who represent each country. Perhaps there are differences in RTS, but I don't know.

- No game options (like changing the winning conditions to capture all capitals when playing Axis)



Next time, I hope the game maker will make a good bug-free software that represents the board game (rather than something else) and focus more on making better AI. Better graphic is nice, but that's really not why I'm buying a game.
1 stars (Stalemate after stalemate) - This game does a terrible injustice to the original Axis and Allies board game. At first, I thought this game would be wonderful and, I too, eagerly shelled out the $50 dollars to buy it. I think that this game can be put into a simple formula: Low Unit Limit (20) + Large Map + Low Building Limit (20) = Stalemate. Granted, I got through most of the missions, but by the time I was in the Pacific Theater on Iwa Jima, I just had to quit. I was so bored with this game. There's very little strategy and it can quickly turn into a World War I trench warfare type of game, where you slowly but surely watch 20 units battle each other and quickly be replaced.



The Axis and Allies "board game" part of this game is a little interesting, but the random battles are so boring that it's more fun to let the computer compute the outcome and fight on a much larger scale. This game was a waste of money, and it's such a disappointment. I thought that this would be a great addition to the "Axis and Allies" family, but I was wrong.
2 stars (Imagine my surprise...) - When I learned that after purchasing this game for the perceived nice price of only $29.99 U.S., this game is only visibly like the original board version. I haven't even gotten past the final tutorial and I'm not that impressed. The RTS portion has an interesting spin on it, with the use of supply zones, replacements, no resource gathering (not in the traditional sense), and some historical accuracy in campaign / unit Order of Battle.



Outside of this, I am pretty upset at the lack of naval units, the newly discovered ability of infantry to "walk on water" and conquer places they would never be able to reach in real life. Also, the idea that you can defeat an entire country's military resources with only a few units is totally absurd. In my mind, this latest implementation of an old favorite was rushed, poorly done, and horribly executed. I'm not sure if this game would be even worth it in the $1 bargain bin. Well, maybe the bargain bin, if only for a slight entertainment value. Sometimes, you shouldn't mess with a good formula. The old adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," comes to mind.



A simple upgrade of the graphics, with a few more bells and whistles probably would have saved this title, rather than the attempt at "innovative" gameplay the developers tried to fashion here. If anything, they could have simply taken the original PC version and beefed / revamped the AI to make it a more worthy opponent, since this seems to be lacking in many of the games out there.



All in all, save your money, at least until this game drops below the $10 mark. Maybe then, this game's flashy box and graphics will be worth the money. Even then, I doubt it.