Axis & Allies

by MicroProse

Product Features

• A Rare, Classic, WWII Simulation Product Information Decide the fate of a nation and the destinyof the world with this historical WWII strategy game. As the world powersbattle for supremacy in 1942, spearhead your country's military drive.Plan strategic bombing raids, sneak submarine attacks, hit-and-run infantryattacks, and antiaircraft barrages. Move into embattled territories andresolve c

Product Details

• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00000K4CS
• Item Weight: 4 ounces
• Media: CD-ROM
• Release Date: September 2, 1998
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (44 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,414 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

GameSpot Review

You would think that with all the excellent World War II strategy games that have come out for the PC, that Hasbro's release of the classic board game Axis & Allies would be met with lackluster praise. But the truth be told, if you're looking for a lasting, well-balanced strategic wargame of the Second World War, this game is a great choice.

Axis & Allies features a global view of the war beginning in the spring of 1942. In this situation, Germany and Japan are somewhat mediocre economically, but they are militarily strong. The Allies, on the other hand, have yet to bring the full force of their economic potential into production for wartime and as a result lack some adequate defenses. During the game, each player assumes the role of the commanding officer of one of the five major nations involved. You purchase and deploy units, give combat directives on a strategic scale, and even plan some research and development. As the game progresses, the tide of war can easily turn. In the standard game, the Allies' victory condition requires them to capture two Axis capitals: the nation of Germany and the island of Honshu. Meanwhile, the Axis powers have two options for victory. They can either establish an economic victory by achieving a certain production level or capture two of the three capitals of the main Allied powers (USA, UK, USSR).

In each turn, you decide what to purchase and research, initiate combat, move units, and deploy new units. The economic system of the game is governed by how you spend the IPCs (Industrial Production Certificates) between such units as infantry, tanks, submarines, battleships, bombers, and fighters. Each unit has a certain number of spaces it can move a turn whether before or after combat. The final outcome of battles is determined by electronic dice that are rolled for each unit to see if they score a hit against the defender. The combat values for each unit, which are usually different for attack and defense, are representative of how well the unit performs in that role. Bombers do well for offensive strikes, but against a blitz of tanks, they can hardly operate at full effectiveness. However, infantry, which do a meager job when attacking, perform much better when on defense due to their ability to entrench themselves. Overall, this formula has worked well, and Hasbro has done a tremendous job in making the PC version both true to the original and easy to learn.

Hasbro's faithfulness to the original is the most important factor in how well this game has turned out. In fact, the game is so true to the original, that this is one of those rare cases where the computer game is actually preferable to the board game. The game's standard rules are those of a newly revised third edition, allowing for some options not available when playing a board game. Although the new rules change the classic experience, the additions are actually impressively thought out. But, if you're a stickler for the traditional, you can turn those off. Surprisingly, other optional rules for the game that were mentioned in the board game rulebook are also available in the PC version. This simple detail provides a great deal more gameplay than could be asked for. Combine this with a full unit editor in which you can set the stats for each unit to your own desire, and you have the making of an endlessly replayable WWII strategic game.

However, there's one thing that Hasbro has added that changes the original to such a degree as to give the whole game experience a much-deserved breath of life. As you play the game, the "Time Machine" allows you to go backwards (or forwards if you're already in the past) to any point in the game to change your strategy and see how things would work differently. This utility not only allows you to try different strategies, but can also give you an edge if you decide to cheat and just have to get those heavy bombers from the research table. Just keep taking the time machine back to where you took a chance on research and keep going back until the dice favor you.

As for the other aspects, the results speak for themselves. Simple improvements such as the multiplayer capability, a tutorial for newcomers, and animated cutscenes for victory and defeat are graciously welcomed. The graphics, while they aren't stellar landscaped 3D renditions of the terrain, preserve the bright, accurately depicted colors from the original board. In order to conserve memory requirements, Hasbro eliminated the unique look of individual units from the different sides. Apart from the different colors, the original pieces of the board game had different model tanks and poses of infantrymen for the units. However, if you manage to get jet power from the research table, the look of your planes converts to the more aerodynamic models of the late '40s/early '50s.

The main drawback to the game is a lack of good multiplayer support. There's no option for e-mail games, and the gameplay on some of the online services isn't always up to par. This is a very sad fact when a game like this almost demands human opponents. The AI is adequate in providing a challenge, but the early game can tend to repeat if you don't try new moves of your own.

The result of all of Hasbro's diligent faithfulness to the source is a great version of a classic board game. Often, the intricacies of multimedia games leave out some of the tactile feel of the cardboard and plastic. Here, the resulting product goes to show that an electronic game of Axis & Allies is just as much fun as sitting around the gaming table on a rainy Saturday afternoon. --Tahsin Shamma
--Copyright ©1998 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited.

Product Description

A Rare Classic WWII SimulationProduct InformationDecide the fate of a nation and the destinyof the world with this historical WWII strategy game. As the world powersbattle for supremacy in 1942 spearhead your country's military drive.Plan strategic bombing raids sneak submarine attacks hit-and-run infantryattacks and antiaircraft barrages. Move into embattled territories andresolve conflicts. At the same time protect the economic status of yournation. Earn income from natural resources and successful territorial expansion.Use these funds to buy armaments and develop secret weapons from your stockpile.Change the course of history with Axis & Allies CD-ROM!Product FeaturesExpands on classic WWII strategy game playRealistic graphics and sound effectsActual World War II stock footageSolo or multi-player gaming up to 5 playersPlay over LAN modem-to-modem or the Internetvia the MSN Gaming ZoneSystem RequirementsPentium® 133 MHz CPUWindows® 95/98/Me/XP16 MB RAM4X CD-ROM drive1 MB Graphics Card40 MB free hard drive spaceWindows® compatible soundcard28.8 baud modem or higher (forinternet play)mouse  

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A good game, but buy the Iron Blitz Edition!, November 16, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Axis & Allies (CD-ROM)

This is the original Axis and Allies computer game. It is a fun game to play and plays exactly like the board game: units, technologies, game play, are all just like the board game the only thing missing are the pieces. The biggest problem is that the computer players are extremely weak, which means you will not have a good time playing this game alone. A related problem is that during multi-player games some rather strange things can happen, you will definitely need the patch offered at in order to play over the net or via direct connect successfully. So you cannot play it solo for very long and have fun and you may experience problems playing real live opponents, why should you buy this game? Well the game is very, very good at allowing you to practice, using the 'standard' opening moves or perhaps coming up with some new stategies in a quick manner. The game also supports the ability to use a 'time machine' to go back and replay a phase or whole turn over again, allowing you to try various things within a turn. This is extremely nice and no die-hard Axis and Allies board game player should be without a copy of the computer version. Just do not buy this edition of the game...read on...

The game has a new version: Axis and Allis: Iron Blitz Edition. This is NOT an expansion of the regular computer game, it is a complete version that tends to work better and has an expanded editor: Buy the Iron Blitz version of Axis and Allies, not this one!

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Despite compromises, A&A is a great WWII strategy game!, January 22, 2004

By 

Alex Diaz-Granados "fardreaming writer" (Miami, FL United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Axis & Allies (CD-ROM)

One of the best map board-based war games of all time, Milton Bradley's Axis & Allies is an interesting and very exciting World War II strategy game. In college days of yore, a friend of mine and I bought our first game, with its hundreds of game pieces, dice, rulebook and colorful world map depicting a (very stylized) view of the war situation in the spring of 1942.

Axis & Allies is -- if you can still find a copy, that is -- a beautiful board game to see and play, but its main drawback is that it's time consuming to set up. You can't place your forces at random; each of the five major powers (USSR, Germany, United Kingdom, Japan and the U.S.) has a card telling players where they have to place their initial forces...on color coded regions all over the world. This process alone can take up at least 15 minutes, perhaps more.

Another problem was the duration of game play. Depending on one's grasp of the basic rules and analytical skills -- and my analytical skills were, back then, pretty rudimentary -- a single turn could take up more than 15 minutes, since each turn is divided into various steps (Weapons Development, Unit Purchase, Combat Moves, Non Combat Moves, and Fund Collection). Depending on your strategy and tactical realities at any given point, you can skip most of these if you have no viable options -- just don't forget to collect your funds, but in most cases the player who neglects a step can find him- or herself in deep trouble. That's one reason turns take so long. (The other is, of course, that you have to physically move the pieces, consult the game card and/or the rule book and roll the dice. As a result, if your circle of friends doesn't include a very patient war game enthusiast, your board game version of Axis & Allies will end up sitting in a closet gathering dust.

Fortunately, Axis & Allies was popular enough that the now-vanished MicroProse Software (original publishers of Sid Meier's Civilization series, as well as Silent Service II and the F-15 Strike Eagle series) adapted it to the more versatile and easier to manage CD-ROM format in the late 1990s.

While the board game's highly stylized (and simplified) map and its bright color coded spaces remain the same in the computer version, memory constrains forced the MicroProse/Hasbro Interactive/Infogrames programmers to make some compromises. For instance, infantry units in the board game were made to resemble soldiers of their particular nation-state; British soldiers wore their distinctive WWI-style helmets, while German soldiers wore their coal scuttle "Fritz" head gear. In the PC game the soldiers are generic but color-coded. However, to make up for this, players' planes change their appearance when Weapons Development attempts result in long-range or jet-powered aircraft.

Otherwise, the basics of the game remain the same. Players can still build up their forces and launch multiple campaigns. Combat is still resolved by rolls of the dice, and the results are still determined by each unit's attack/defense points. (Example, an Infantry unit attacks at a paltry roll of one, but defends at two, reflecting the advantages of being dug in and fortified.)

The beauty of the PC version is that you can play it solo against the PC or in multi-player mode over the Internet or even as a "hot seat" game. Setup is no longer a tedious chore; just place the disc in the drive and you are good to go. You can save the game at any point during a turn, something not easy to do in the board game (unless, of course, you have a dedicated game room and took notes on what transpired during the last turn!)

Axis & Allies' artificial intelligence player(s) can be adjusted from Easy to Difficult by choosing a particular general and rank (Eisenhower and four stars being the best for the Americans, just to give you an example), so this version is good for novice players as well as veterans of the original board game. Furthermore, the cinematics used in "cutscenes" -- showing, say, a submarine making an attack or a squadron of bombers carrying out a raid -- are, even for a 1996-98 vintage game, impressive.

Because Axis & Allies is an old game by PC game standards, even though I ordered it here on Amland I had to buy it used from a Marketplace seller, so I did not get a handy manual that explains the rules (although the board game rules can be a helpful substitute, the PC version's rules have resolved some nagging issues that plagued board game players) or the various FAQ's about mouse controls and the like. Not that it's hard to figure out...I am no tech wizard and I have figured most of those issues on my own. Infogrames (which owns what once was MicroProse/Hasbro Interactive) also has a download section on its website (www.infogrames.com) that has patches to fix a few bugs that affect both the game's appearance and playability.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Axis and Allies...An entertaining computer game!, May 16, 2000

By 

Joseph Payne - See all my reviews

This review is from: Axis & Allies (CD-ROM)

Axis and Allies is deffinately one of my favorite computer games. Although their have been many complaints of bugs on this game, it is well worth the money (you can download a patch for the bugs) This game offers good historical features of World War II, and anybody who likes World War II gaming will love this game! Even though a good game, I still enjoy the board game better. This game features excellent unit pictures and map, and will teach you a lot when it comes to stragety. (This game is all about stragety!) Although I would recommend the new "Axis and Allies Iron Blitz" Addition. It comes with many more features, including much better unit pictures historically accurate to the country's nationallity. It also comes with a much better computer intellegence. Overall, this game is a blast, and anybody who loves stragety games will not regret this game. Get it!