A game of greatness that will meet your every expectation. Even beyond the age barrier it takes in a good calling.
When you first think Axis & Allies you think World War II and then you think…. first person shooter, but you will find out that this game surpasses many of the World War II shooters with flying colors.
Axis & Allies takes place during World War II and is fought through five grand nations. The Axis is made up of German and Japan. The other side of the war known as the Allies is made up of Russia, Great Britain, and the United States. You can play as any of these five nations and your goal is to defeat either the Axis or Allies (matters who you choose to be) and win the war.
When you start playing Axis & Allies you may choose out of those five nations and you can customize the game to your satisfaction. You may either choose no newspaper at the end of rounds or two hit battleships or maybe even no paratroopers. Along with the minor changes you can make to the game you can choose your enemies and allies difficulties and how to win the game as in an IPC race (most money wins), Domination (defeat all enemies), or even take two capitols (only effects Axis unless you do IPC race). Then you engage in a full out WAR! As you enter the battlefield you will notice there is no story that is somewhat of a disappointment, but the rest of the game makes up for it. Then it reaches your turn and you can choose spend 5 IPCs to get an upgraded development or skip it and just buy your troops. Then you move your troops for combat you can either move by land with tanks or infantry to capture territories and gain IPCs from them. If you don’t trust your ground units them you can either move by sky or sea. You can command bombers and small fighters in the sky or turn and move your battleships, carriers, submarines, or transport ships through naval combat.
Now the battle begins once you move all troops into place. Since Axis & Allies runs as a board game (with movement and combat) you roll dice and each unit has a figure from 1-6 to hit an enemy with its own dice. The combat is turn-based as isn’t extremely intense, but if you get bored of the monotonous dice rolling you can change it to fast roll in the options so you will just see units die instead of the dice rolling. Of course you get to choose which unit dies once your enemy gets a dice to hit which will also form a new type of strategy. After the battle if all over and done you can move non-combat units (really just move any unit that can just you can’t move them into enemy territory). If you do gain a territory and you have airplanes on it you MUST move them to a previously owned territory and hope they don’t run out of gas or they are gone. Now you get to place the units you bought and collect your IPCs. After this you have to wait for your turn again which can get a little boring since you get to see EVERY unit move. To pass the time I would say draw out your next move and hope the enemy doesn’t mess up your plan.
You will find a bit of customization in Axis & Allies. From customizing the difficulty of enemies to small effects in the game to how to win or even change your own army. The customization of your own army isn’t the best and is really a major cheat. You can’t choose new clothes; you can only make their damage, defense, and movement better or worse. Oh yes and don’t forget out making them cost one IPC so you can buy 50 of them. With the almost worthless units editor you may think this is were Axis & Allies just keeps going downhill or just stops, but you are mistaken.
Axis & Allies jumps from playing single-player to multiplayer via Internet or just from one PC. This difference makes you create new strategies and usually evens out the playing field. You can have 1-5 people in game and you all can control separate nations. You may never finish a game (start watching TV when your round is over and stop playing eventually), but you can formulate strategies against your opponents and swarm their capitol with friends.
For the sound in Axis & Allies it may not be considered the greatest out there, yet you will still be pleased with it. For every nation there is a different theme that plays (repeats if your turn lasts long enough) and there is a theme to the game. Now those are the ONLY songs in the whole game, but there is still more sounds. When you engage in battle your infantry will shoot guns and you will hear the same gun noise over and over again, but it doesn’t get bothersome. Every unit has their own combat noises and there are also videos in the game that have actual recorded sounds and music that took place during the video.
To get away from the lameness of the sound we move to the graphics. The graphics are nothing to be memorized by but remember the game was made in 1998, and back then they looked good. They still look decent and they go with the flow of being a board game port, and it will make you feel like your playing a board game just without breaking or losing the pieces. Besides the decent overall graphics there are absolutely no animations besides the flags and the actual video footage.
All in all this game upholds a lot to do in such a small capacity. Now even to people who don’t like turn-based games you will find something to like in this World War II game. Plus now that is older you can get it for about $10 dollars so it is a must buy and everyone should give this game a chance.