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The term "Armchair General" was coined for this kind of game. Being a serious wargame effort, rather than an action title, Allied General is played in turns. The turn scheme means that each action must be carefully considered - Allied forces make the moves they can, attack viable targets, collect replacement forces, or perform other special functions. The process is then repeated with the Axis forces. Certain objectives, such as the capture of a city, or the destruction of a certain portion of the enemy, must sometimes be completed within a fixed number of turns - changing what might otherwise be tactically simple circumstances into deliberate, squinty-eyed races against time, deployment, terrain or - more likely - all of them combined.
Once each unit's attacks have been designated, the player is presented with generalized, close-up animations showing the results of combat in terms of actual losses - groups of infantry suddenly reduced by half, surface cruisers taking hits or dishing them out, and so on. Allied General can be played as a human-vs.-computer game (be prepared not to leave the house for days), or as a two-player contest. But the proposed two players should be reasonably patient and very determined - and not mind the inevitable, nasty bouts of waiting while the enemy player carefully plans and re-plans his moves.
Unfortunately, the combat animations are essentially worthless, a glaring flaw in an otherwise serious game. True wargames are known for their seriousness and depth (not their bells and whistles), and Allied General's minimal, choppy, fire-exchange-and-casualty affairs are worthy of an 8-bit system. Players will undoubtedly turn this feature off and quickly forget about it.
For the average gamer, the proposition of a wargame of this depth being translated to the consoles may be a little daunting. They may be better served with the upcoming Command & Conquer. However, those war-weary, hex-war veterans, who found some of MicroProse's PC titles just a tad slick or even thin, should find Allied General to be the right speed and weight. --Chris Hudak
--Copyright ©1999 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited. GameSpot and the GameSpot logo are trademarks of GameSpot Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Strategy Game,
By A Customer
= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars = Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars
This review is from: Allied General (Video Game)
I love Allied General and I have had the game for over 2 years and still have not played all the different battles. I must disagree with the previous review. If you want better graphics, I would get Panzer General. I have both and enjoy the fact that both games make you think about your next move. When you make a rash move or have not thought about your next move the game will punish you for bad startegy. For example, I have played the battle of Sicily 15 times and still have not even won a minor victory. Allied General takes a long time to play I would reccomend you buying a storage card and playing the game over time. I have some major problems with some of the battles. For example, the battle of El Almein was a battle of combined arms with heavy emphasis on infantry, artilley and anti-tank weapons. The game programers have program most of the battle as a battle of armor first. I won the battle by follow the British Strategy during the battle. I attack the Italian infantry and wore down the German armor. Sometimes it is very hard for a player to win the various battles. It may take a player four of five times to win. It took me three games to win the battle of Tunis and that is my major problem with Allied General even with the EASY option, the programers sometimes makes it hard or impossible to win the different battles. I do not mind taking 3 to 5 times to win, but after the 6th or 7th time even with programer's own advice and my knowledge of WW2 history, weapons, and strategy. Overall, I feel both are the best military strategy games avaialble.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
thankful for the crumbs thrown my way,
By "pvmiii" (Grafton, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Allied General (Video Game)
I like games that allow me time to think, rather than games that become exercises in button pushing for Ritalin-deficient, Mountain Dew-hyped 13-year olds. I like historical simulations. AG is a good game, but not great. The manual does not reveal what thevictory objectives are, execpt in very vague terms. Help is available on variuous web sites, but the objectives I found on the web appear to be for the PC, as they do not seem to jive with the objectives for PSX, or indeed in reality. One example, the battle of Pskov is the second in the east front series. There are seven cities on the 'board', of which the Russians own three and the Germans four. As this is July, 1941, one would not expect the Russians to be attacking -- at any point in the battle -- yet that is what they must do to achieve even a minor victory. I have found -- through extensive and frequent saving (or 'cheating', if you will) that the only way for the Russian to achieve any victory is to possess all seven cities. Acccording to the web help I found, the Russians need only hold their three original cities to achieve a minor victory (which would be realistic in historical terms), and capture two of the four German cities to achieve a major victory (which would have been a *HUGE* historical victory). The other scenarios also experience similar problems vis-a-vis what is achieveable, what is historical, and what it is in the game. But it is an okay. And it is all we have. At least on PSX ...Tactically, don't even mess with infantry. Buy loads of tanks and artillery. If you are on the defensive, buy air defense and sprinkle them liberally around your artillery, because that is where the Germans unrealistically large quantity of aircraft will be heading. Once your AD has taken out his planes, then build your own planes (fighter-bombers like the Mosquito or B-26). Don't try to achieve air superiority with your fighters -- they will get hammered. I concur with the prior reveiew that the game must be played on the lowest difficulty due to the objectives issue.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The wargamer's game,
By A Customer
= Durability:5.0 out of 5 stars = Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars = Educational:5.0 out of 5 stars
This review is from: Allied General (Video Game)
Straight out, this really is only for those real war-gamers who spent their childhood (and may in fact still do so in adulthood!) setting their lounge up as a huge battlefield, with little plastic soldiers and tanks, .................With this in mind, Allied General is a engrossing, addictive game. It is not fast moving by any stretch of the imagination (even when turning off the annoying battle animations), and the graphics are workable at best - the AI, however, especially the further into the game you get, is very good, and the basics of strategy such as level of entrenchment, the territory being fought over, and the wide variety of weapons and soldiers available, makes Allied General a very good substitute for the sofa in the lounge.
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