One of my favorite board games in the world is Axis and Allies. I discovered it in college as an evolution from my childhood days of spending hours playing Risk. My college buddies and I would spend entire nights playing and drinking beer and having a grand old time trying to take over the world. Sadly, those days passed and I was relegated to a lot of solo play (this was before online play was really working). Enter the PC versions of these games, and suddenly I could still play some of my favorite games, even if I was alone.

So, when Atari announced that they were going to reinvent Axis & Allies for the PC, I was excited. The old Hasbro Interactive version was okay, made better by the later Iron Blitz edition which fixed many of the numerous glitches in the original. But it wasn't perfect - the AI was sloppy even in the hardest modes, and the interface was a little weak. But it was still Axis & Allies, so those of us who picked it up loved it, despite it's failings. But we couldn't wait until someone else took a stab at making a better version, one that took advantage of advances in technology to push the envelope.

Atari began to release screenshots and details about the game, and I started to get excited. The screenshots showed very well done animations of attacks and battles, and I started thinking that you might have battle animations and even be able to apply some tactics to the types of attacks you launch. Terrain seemed to figure in, as did the units you used. All would have been welcome additions to the game. I wanted to see more.

[• first IMPRESSIONS •]
Recently Atari released a demo version of the new game due this month. Eager to see what I could expect, I downloaded it (Note» my review is completely based on this demo, which while it might include a few tweaks, should be fairly close to the final rendition of the game). The 'demo' was a huge download, almost 300MB, and once unzipped took up almost 425MB on the hard drive. Hmmm, bad sign when it only includes part of the game and it's that big. But okay.

I did what anyone would do when they first pick up a demo - I tried to figure out how to play without reading the directions. Big mistake ... and my first warning that this was possibly going to be a WTF moment. I went back and tried the tutorials. Now, I have to say that the game was very clunky on my machine, but I can't blame the game - my graphics card was seriously under-powered for what they say the game needs. But what I found in testing it out was far more troubling than how the game ran. The fact is, Atari has created an Axis and Allies game which has almost nothing to do with Axis and Allies.

[• this is AXIS & ALLIES? •]
The whole point of moving the board game to the PC was so that people like me whose friends think spending time with their kids is more important than playing games can still play some of their favorite games. It’s to take a relatively finite board game and jazz it up with moving graphics, new features and single-player playability. The old versions had this (well, mostly). The Atari version … well, it's just wrong.

What happened to simply making the game better? First of all, it IS NOT Axis and Allies. This uses the name in an ostensible manner for what becomes a Real-Time Strategy (RTS) game. I want Axis and Allies, albeit an improved version, and this is nothing of the sort. It's like taking Monopoly and making you analyze construction contracts and real estate zoning regs. They've taken Life and now you have to add auto maintenance, stock portfolio management and local crime stats to how you play the game. No longer is this about a board game made more dynamic (and single-player) on the PC - they've transformed it into something else.

The game has two modes now - campaign and World War II. In the demo, only the campaign portion is available to you - so it is possible that the World War II portion might mimic the old style of the game. However from the screenshots, it does not appear so. Instead of creating units and using strategic oversight (as a general does), now you control individual units, supply chains, ammo dumps, and the minutiae of warfare in WWII. Using what seems like the old Age of Empires engine, you micromanage units as they go and try to achieve objectives handed to you by the generals. You decide what units you want to build and then deploy them in lengthy animations. And everything is in 'real-time' instead of turn based, which in and of itself isn't necessarily bad, but kind of detracts from the originals grace. Instead of analyzing what is happening, you are constantly taking in everything at once - granted, this is a demo and my graphics card needs a serious update, but I found myself hating this.

The campaigns are specific to each nationality represented (Russia, Great Britain, the United States for the Allies, Germany and Japan for the Axis). You can pick which side you want to represent, and take on the scenarios from that perspective. My first demo campaign involved 5 objectives to accomplish, including destroying enemy bunkers and headquarters and freeing a captured town. You start off with a minimal force and have to build that force my using your cash to create units. Each unit also uses up other supplies - oil for tanks, for example, and ammo. Each of these are supplied by building supply depots. You can create any number of units such as infantry, armored and aircraft based on the types of buildings you have created. You can also create engineering units to help build and repair buildings.

Once you have created your units, you can then attach them to your headquarters and move them out to recon or attack enemy units. The selection process was a little difficult, but most of that was due to my own system problems. You can save multiple regiments into one attacking force by using the control key and a number (similar to Age of Empires and Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds) to help them move and attack together. However, there are a lot of commands to use to control your fighting force, particularly if you have multiple types of units together. You then direct your fighting force to attack certain buildings or enemy units to attempt to overwhelm them while minimizing your own losses. Part of this is choosing one of 3 troop formations - aggressive moves quickly but loses attack strength, for example. There are air units, too, which can do recon passes, as well as bombing runs or attack enemy units. Naval battles can also occur, although I never got to try out one, and got little instruction from the demo other than how to use landing craft and bombardment. After each part of the campaign, you get to see how you did on the mission in a debriefing. And as you play, you are gathering experience which can be turned into get special powers for your units, akin to the technologies the boardgame had.

[• if it weren't AXIS & ALLIES •]
The game itself doesn't seem too bad, although it was difficult to tell exactly when your system is struggling to animate the numerous things going on all the time. But even with a good card, the amount of animation in a large battle is going to tax all but the best cards. Atari recommends a minimum 64MB Video Memory - I would suggest at least 128MB. If I had wanted to buy an RTS, I would take a look at this game - and for that one specification alone, this probably isn't a bad game. The units make sense and the animations seems pretty good. I think that the unit control is a little weak, but that might be fixed by the time the game is fully released. I only had a few campaigns to choose from and they were decent, if hard to play with my machine.

As a whole, this is probably not as bad as I have made it seem - except that it IS NOT Axis and Allies. This would be like having a Myst-like storyline to play Yahtzee. The folks at Atari decided to make this an RTS game, which seems to be a bad choice for Axis and Allies. If I wanted a RTS, I'd pick up Battlefield: 1942, which is better than this game and is what I would have expected when I saw the game. It was a complete disappointment that the folks who have made such a fantastic board game have killed themselves with this PC version, which barely holds any faith to the board game - I'm not sure why they even associated the name except to draw in those many who bought the original PC versions. As much as this might be a good game for what it is, it isn't Axis and Allies, and THAT is what I was looking for.

[• a game that will live IN INFAMY •]
If you were excited about seeing a new Axis and Allies game, you will probably be disappointed. This newest incarnation of the name has little to do with the franchise which has created a gaming empire with its board versions. While I had expected to see new functionality and a harder AI, this game took the game and completely transformed it into something new - something that has very little to do with the original. Sure, there are the five powers, and there are units that are similar to what we are used to, but the global scope of the conflict, and the fact that you needed to manage for a world-wide war is gone. Now, you focus on battles and smaller areas and micromanage the affairs at that level.

I'm extremely disappointed with what I have found with this game. I had high hopes based on the screenshots that we would be able to perhaps have a little more tactical input into how battles were determined above the chance die roll, perhaps a method similar to Risk II in which you choose a formation, and based on how your formation choice and the enemy's matched up, your chances of winning increased or decreased. I thought that perhaps I would get to see the battle animations come in and show me the battle in a realistic fashion. But I never expected to see my game hijacked and turned into another RTS, particularly with at least two other strong contenders already out there with the Battlefield and Call of Duty series.

After seeing what I saw, I am disappointed and probably won't be picking up this version. Now I might be wrong, and the "World War" option might offer classic play style, in which case I'll come back and review this game again and update it with the new information. But at this point, I have to say that Atari went completely the wrong direction with this game, and will undoubtedly disappoint the many fans who were hoping to have a more playable version this Christmas.

[• related WAR GAMES •]
Axis & Allies Board Game
The original classic board game - still a great game (if you can find friends to play it)

Axis & Allies PC
The older version of the PC game - decent if not great adaptation.

Risk for Windows
Risk for the PC - barely adequate adaptation of the classic board game.

Recommended: No