Twenty years after the concept was first being worked out as a board game, Axis and Allies now finds itself a new medium, the PC. Hasbro Interactive has recently released the PC port of the highly popular board game and has gotten off to a rather shaky start.

Plagued with bugs, A&A has been met with mixed reactions amongst gamers. While hard corps A&A players have found the game AI not the most challenging, newer players have found themselves frustrated with multiplayer matches. Much to HI’s credit there have already been two patches released to fix a number of issues, and gameplay has become more stable. The latest patch will bring your copy up to version 1.2 and is required for gameplay on the MSN Gaming Zone.

I can remember playing the board game about 10 years ago for the first time. It was a very engrossing game and one that easily found me devoting several hours at a time. In the ensuing 10 years I haven’t been able to play much, since few people I know are into board games. Fortunately the past year or two has been good for board game fans, as we’ve seen several of our all-time favorites brought to the PC.

No longer are we forced to trek long miles to another gamers home to set up the playing pieces, get a few hours of good gaming in and then tear down shop and leave town. While some gamers don’t have a problem finding a good gaming group, others are less likely to enjoy that travelling circus lifestyle just to play a board game. Luckily for us games like Monopoly, Battleship and now Axis and Allies have been made available for play on the PC. With multiplayer support included it’s much easier to find a good game and it’s as easy as hopping online, logging into your favorite gaming service and joining a match.

From Cardboard to Virtual Reality

The PC version is identical to the board game version minus the pieces to set up (or clean up!) and the computer does all the dice rolls for you. Set in 1942 as the world is at war, you must choose from any of the five major powers of WWII to command, both militarily as well as economically.

While the economics are kept rather simple, the decisions you make are not always easy. As leader you must decide what to buy, how much to buy and when if at all to attempt investing in new weapons development. New weapon development costs money and will fail you more often than not, but it could also help you turn the tide of the war, so the choice is yours as supreme commander.

You are not limited to just choosing one country, but can play as the entire Axis or Allied side. The Axis consists of Germany and Japan, and the Allies consist of the US, UK and Russia. I found it easiest to start by just taking command of one country, until you’ve become familiar with the game mechanics and basic strategies. From there you can control the entire Axis or Allied side and fight the war from that point forward.

The game map is an exact replica of the board game map: the entire globe is broken into different territories and under the control of the power that held it at that time in history. Each country has its own distinct color and the territories are shaded in the color of the country who retains control, making for easy clarification. As your countries are won and lost the colors change to reflect those wins and losses and give you an instant status as to how you are doing. The game pieces are also very similar to their board game counterparts and are easily recognizable as well.

You have a choice of two zoom modes: close in for your basic movement and fighting, or an entire global view from which you can see an overall snapshot of the world at large. The only problem I saw with this was in multiplayer games as while you’re sitting back awaiting your turn your map view is basically controlled by the player whose turn it is. As he moves his pieces your map view scrolls to follow him, making it a bit of a distraction while trying to study the map yourself to plan your future moves. It would have been nice to have a separate window that you could open to see the entire map screen and not be bothered by another players moves.

This would have served two purposes: to allow you to study and plan for your moves, as well as to speedup gameplay by each gamer not needing to take extra time during his turn to observe the map and plan movement. Perhaps this could be fixed in a future revision, it’s annoying but not a game killer. There is too much substance here for this issue to kill gameplay. Also bear in mind this is a PC version of a board game, so there are concessions that have to be made.

Gameplay is very true to the board game and follows the same rules as well as allowing a new 3rd Edition rules specifically for the PC. These new rules include submerging submarines which allows a sub to submerge and evade from combat instead of retreating to a sea zone. Planes are able to retreat from an amphibious assault now, so that they don’t get wasted away defending a battle that looks to be lost.

You can now place multiple AA guns in a territory, but still only one of them may fire in a given turn. You can also tweak and adjust the rules to your liking and follow any personal rule variants you might have enjoyed in the past as well as use the included edit unit feature which allows you to change unit attributes to your liking. This game does give fans of A&A some freedom and latitude in creating a gaming environment of their own design, allowing you to throw in your own take on ‘what if’ scenarios.

Winning the game is done much along the historical lines of World War II. As the Allied powers you must attain the unconditional surrender of the Axis. The Axis powers can win by either of two means: simply taking control of two of your opponents capitals, or by winning enough territories to give you an economic victory. Both sides have their work cut out for them and in playing this game you will get a pretty good feel for the decisions each sides Commander must have faced.

A&A is a turn based game and each players turn is done in order. Russia leads off, Germany next, followed by the UK, Japan and finally the US. All turns are broken down into phases of which there are 6.

Your first phase is to choose to develop weapons and purchase units for later placement at the end of your turn. Weapons development is a risky venture, much as it is in the real world, and is done at the cost of IPC’s or Industrial Production Certificates: a fancy and simple way of saying "money."

Every war machine moves on money and will suffer or do well based on your cash flow. IPC’s are alloted to each territory you have and will continue to be a source of income each turn that you have it in your control. Lose a territory and you lose cash which will hinder your military production. Likewise as you gain the territories of your foes you take away money from their pockets and into your own, increasing your military production.

To pursue weapons development you must buy dice at a cost of 5 IPC’s each, a roll of 6 will give you a military breakthrough. If you roll any other number you have been unsuccessful, if you have IPC’s left over you may then purchase units if you choose.

Each unit has its own cost, and based on what your plans are for future moves you make your purchases. The cheapest unit is infantry: a very good unit to buy when beefing up defense of your production capitals when faced with a coming attack. Other units available to you are tanks, fighters, bombers, battleships, troop transports, submarines, aircraft carriers, AA guns and extra production facilities. Units you purchase do not get placed on the board until the end of your turn and must be placed in a territory that has a production facility for land units or in a sea zone adjacent to a production facility for ships.

The second and third phases are combat movement and actual combat itself. Combat movement is done based on movement capabilities of your units and is represented on the map through arrows, similar to those we’ve all seen in WWII tactical maps. While playing this I was reminded of those old WWII movies of the field marshals in their command posts standing over huge table top maps as their aids pushed pieces around with their placement sticks. This game gives you that same grand tactical feel and it’s done quite convincingly.

The last 3 phases of your turn are non-combat moves, placing newly purchased units and collection of income. In non-combat movement you move units to staging points for future attacks, defensive positions, or in the case of aircraft back to a base or an aircraft carrier. You can place new units on your territories that have production facilities and you collect your income from the territories you have under your control. The next player in lines does the same phases until everyone has completed their turns: that is the span of one turn.

At the end of each turn HI has included a neat little newspaper feature which will highlight the gains and losses of each side for that turn as well as throughout the entire game in a graph format similar to ones used for stocks. Couple that with some in game stock WWII footage and you have yourself a nice little multimedia experience.

Single player gaming with this one is very fun and allows you to learn the ropes as well as try new strategies you’d like to use in multiplayer games. Multiplayer has been the hardest hit facet of this game from the get-go, suffering from multiple crashes; a lot of gamers have lost some hope in this one.

With the patch to 1.02 multiplayer is much more stable and you can now finish a game much easier than it was before the patch. Gamers were complaining they couldn’t get past turn 3 without a hard lock on everyones computer, forcing a reboot. That kind of performance doesn’t bode well for any title and it appears that HI has gotten it fixed, although it should never have been released with such multiplay problems. (Click HERE for the patch. 1.7 meg)

The two biggest pet peeves I have with this game in multiplayer are the map movement problem mentioned earlier, and the chat setup. As I said having the ability to open a separate window to observe the global map without interruption would be a nice way to plan your strategy while other players move. The second problem is actually much more annoying and a gross oversight by Hasbro in my opinion. The chat feature is perhaps one of the worst I’ve seen in a multiplayer game to date and slow as molasses.

In a team oriented game like A&A communication is paramount to formulating a winning strategy to win, the chat feature here just doesn’t cut the mustard. You’re limited to 25 characters, which is not a big deal but it’s in a window that can’t be moved and is VERY lagged. Even worse still is the fact that there is only one chat mode, public. You cannot chat to your teammates as you can when playing the boardgame.

I cannot fathom how HI let this one slip through beta testing and QA but it is a serious faux pas! This is the one serious problem that truly does affect gameplay, one that there is no excuse for and one that should and could be fixed with a patch ASAP!

Thankfully, there is a way around it for the time being. Try using one of the third party communication packages out there such as Battlefield Communicator or Roger Wilco. If this is addressed and fixed as quickly as the initial 2 patches were released HI has an instant classic here and one any strategy gamer should have in their library. Otherwise HI could lose a potentially huge fan base for the PC version of this already hugely popular board game.

Bottom line, I truly enjoyed this game even with the problems I covered. The game plays very well and is easily picked up in a couple of hours, but like chess, will take many, many hours of play to master.

Having the same depth of gameplay as the board game as well as online tutorials to teach you the basics, this is a great game for both the hard corps and casual strat gamer alike. If you've ever wondered how you would have fared as a commander up against the likes of Hitler, or alongside Monty and Ike, this one can challenge you quite well. Axis and Allies is an excellent rendition of one of the most popular board games of our time, one that shouldn’t be missed.

COMBATSIM.COM RATING : 82

Core Rating : 70
Gameplay : 85
Graphics : 80
Sound : 80
Intelligence/AI : 75
User Interface/Mission Planner: 85
Fun Factor : 85
Learning Curve (in hours) : 2-3
Overall Rating : 82