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Needs polishing, but who cares?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 23 / 24
Date: May 17, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Despite the problems of this game (dim AI, some bugs), it is still the best strategy game I've ever played, next to chess. I've spent countless hours over-the-board, but now I can play with friends in about half the time with out all the mess. We used to constantly run out of chips, or scatter the pieces with the dice, or we'd argue about the rules.

The game has many new choices, including marines, destroyers, paratroopers, kamakazis, etc, and also the option to edit the pieces' or territories' statistics. Don't bother playing the computer, unless you're new to the game, because the only challenge is to see how quickly you can win. You can play multi-player from one computer, with a network card, or over the internet (MSN Zone). There are a few bugs, but save often and you won't have too many worries about it.

The game is out-of-print and Hasbro Interactive sold the rights to Infogrames, so your best bet is put in an "auction alert" on amazon and wait until you receive an email telling you that someone is selling it.

Bugs...what else?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 15 / 16
Date: March 10, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This is the ultimate Axis & Allies, but boy is it bug ridden. I love playing, esp. with friends online, and I keep trying the added scenarios, but have never finished one of these due to some glitch or crash. There is no patch for Iron Blitz yet that I have seen, so if you're the type who loves A&A but hates bugs, wait for the patch!

Too easy and too many bugs

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 13 / 15
Date: August 18, 2000
Author: Amazon User

First of all we'll start with the bad news. The game has entirely too many bugs, for example. On the board game when a player uses a battleship to bombard land units and scores a hit the selected unit is not suppose to defend, not in the case of the computer version. Another is when performing an invasion of an unocupied enemy territory it is not necessary to use air units to assist land units in doing so. For some reason the computer feels it is necessary to clog up ocean territories with defensless transports to prevent an amphibous invasion, rather than concentrate on building a defense and then an offense. This allows the human player to spend some cash on a shot at long range aircraft and heavy bombers which will wipe out transports in no time at all. Finally, the battles (against a computer) are too predictable, I won't go into detail because I could write a novel on this area. You'll just have to see for yourself. There are many other bugs in the system, too many to list. If Hasbro could compile a list of everything wrong and start from scratch you would have the ultimate WW2 game. The positive side to the computer version is you can research different strageties to use against human player on the board game. I have checked out other players strageties on A&A websites, and there are some good ones too, and have discovered ways around just about all of them. Some say the Allies have an advantage over the Axis and vice versa, but it all depends on the player and the dice rolls. You also have to keep in mind the computer controls all dice rolls and can do whatever it wants to balance out the game. Where as on the board game you control the dice and the fate of the battle. Overall the game is very entertaining and I can't play it enough. The games creator states that if you are an average A&A player it will steam roll you right out of there, well if you are an average axis and allies player it will build your confidence and intelligence of the game because even on the hardest setting a novice will hammer the computer on any given day. I give the game four stars only because for the [money] I spent on it, it is an excellent research tool, and expierement tool for the boardgammer, and will turn an average player into a force to be reckoned with, and it is loads of fun if you can tolerate the bugs.

Sponsor Needed!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 13 / 15
Date: November 17, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game has the premise and potential for one of the greatest PC games. It was abandoned by, well, let's call them, less-than-motivated programmers at Hasbro Interactive and then MicroProse. The bugs have NEVER been addressed: Ships pass through the Suez when they shouldn't, aircraft suddenly go AWOL from a carrier sometimes landing on a nearby continent, and the lock-ups that won't go away.... but enough with these known and apparantly insurmountable bugs.

What absolutely ANNOYS me the most is the way the game takes control of what is supposed to be a 100% random number generator (16.666% chance of throwing a one, on a six-sided die) and yielding PREDICTABLE results in certain conditions that the game engineers must have felt were conducive to enhancing the "give and take" of the global war. The game will, at predictable points, take a look around and "enhance" the number generator for the person/team currently getting hammered. Certain key situations are almost SURE to fail, though the odds might be heavily in your favor. For example, how many times has THIS happened?: You systematically deliver blow after blow, when suddenly, a single transport shoots down three of your bombers! There's a ton of strategy that can be levied in this game, but inevitably, there will be several points were STATISTICS and pure randomness can be tested. So you put yourself in that condition 50 or 100 times, and do the math to see that a favorable outcome should result 78% of the time, for example. Record the results. Plot the results.... Sadly, time and time again, it is clear that conditions that should go one way 80% of the time are going 60% the other way, over 50 to 100 tries! Now, my "A" in statistics was a few years ago, but I think I still remember enough to know this is a tad OFF! Certainly with that kind of sample size, it is clear that the games randomness was "tampered with" on purpose.

The unfortunate wresting of control of the pure statistical aspect of a strategy game by software engineers (or was it management?) who felt this was a substitute for legitimate random number generating belies the professionalism of the program authors, the engineers, and the parent company. Hey, if one side is winning, the odds of three tanks against one infantry should be the same as if that team was losing!

I have had people tell me I am imagining this, but until they have played both board game and PC game several thousand times, there opinions do not stand up to my testing. If you arrange a key situation and play it over and over, for example, you will agree with me.

So I am calling for a daring company or programmer with some guts to buy the rights and market a FIXED game.... I refuse to believe it can be THAT hard....Why did people turn away from this game? The BUGS? I think not. I think most are like me and got absolutely frustrated with the excuse for randomizing and destroying the continuity of a well-planned campaign that has a properly documented success rate on the board game (with real dice), and absolutely no chance on the PC.

Any takers? Anyone with enough stones from Hasbro Interactive or Microprose wanna give up the rights to programmers who would purify the math and let the players have more fun?

Excellent game and expansion of an original classic.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 9
Date: November 16, 1999
Author: Amazon User

First things first: This is NOT just an upgrade or expansion for the original Axis and Allies computer game, this is the entire first edition computer game (with some fixes/patches) plus a second CD containing the expansion units and scenarios.

Okay now onto the meat of the program. The original game plays much the same as, well, the original game. There is no apparent upgrade to the AI, it is fairly easy to beat the computer even when it is set to the highest level. Probably you are not here to read about the original, but that fact is worth knowing. The expansion of Iron Blitz adds two new units that all countries can purchase: Marines and Destroyers. Marines cost 5 and have the special ability to attack at 3 or less during Amphibious Invasions only, and act as infantry during non-amphibious assaults. This is pretty nice really, especially for the United States, as carrying two marines in one transport can really effect the odds in an amphibious invasion. Destroyers cost 8, attack and defend at 2 and have the ability to ignore the submarines attack special attack ability, if you choose them as a casualty from a sub attack they still get a chance to defend, normally units struck by a sub are removed without defending.

The new units alone would be enough reason to buy the game. However the editor that comes with the Iron Blitz addition is a welcome addition. Mind you it is not everything I was hoping for, but I have pretty high hopes sometimes. Here is what the expansion does:

- Allows edits to all unit 'attack', 'defend', 'movement' and 'cost' values, as the original game

- Allows you to edit the set up of the game units before you play, i.e.: you can give Germany more tanks, add units to the Russian far east, give the US a battleship in Hawaii, whatever you want to do.

- You can edit the IPC value of ANY territory on the board and set it to be part of any country and controlled by any other country at the beginning of the game. You can also set the allegiance to neutral. It must be said though that making a territory 'neutral' by default moves the IPC value to 0, this cannot be changed, so forget making Saudi Arabia worth 5 points unless you are going to give it to the UK right off.

- Edit the starting currency of each country.

- Change the allegiance of any country to Axis, Allies or Neutral. While it sounds cool, setting a country to 'Neutral' essentially removes it from the game: all of its territories are set to 0 IPCs and it costs the usual 3 to invade each space. The country is not on it own 'side', has no units and takes no turns.

- Each countries units have been customized, Russian Tanks no longer look like German Tanks, their graphics in addition to their colors are different. You can import your own graphics to use as the units for each country. (this takes four pictures for each graphic in bmp or tif format)

Here is what the Expansion does not do:

- No new units can be added to the game, you can only modify existing units.

- You cannot add or move Country Capitals.

- No Neutral un-owned territories with IPC values can exist.

- All players must be assigned to the Axis or Allies side, assigning the country as a 'Neutral' essentially removes it from play altogether reducing its territories to 0 value, though you can re-assign these territories to another country that is in play, and then up their IPC values too.

- No support has been added to make playing via email any easier. It is possible to play by email by sending the saved games and their history files back and forth (zipping them is necessary unless you can download files over 1MB for those later game turns without a problem) and placing them in the saved games folder. I was hoping for a little more friendly way to play email games, a la Panzer General.

Why you should buy this game: It offers a great interface for playing traditional 'Axis and Allies' along with endless possibilities for new games thanks to its improved editor. The ability to move units around, change their values, and raise or lower the IPC values of the territories ensures hard core A&A fans will not be disappointed. The game comes with several 'scenarios' that have the game start from 1939 or cover various 'what if' type games with modified setups. It plays really smoothly, several of the positions for the units have been changed to make them far more visible on the main playing map, and the game turns versus the computer seem to move along much faster in 'Quick AI' mode as well. There is also an excellent place to meet and play games on the web (at the zone) or you can use a simple direct connection to get together with your opponents. This game also has some solo potential, it allows you to try all those silly game strategies you ever dreamed of quickly and more importantly: privately.

Why you should not buy this game: This game is based on a board game, it is a turn based game, not real time strategy, you could sit for awhile if you are playing thoughtful opponents, sometimes a long while in a 5 person game, the easiest way to avoid a long period of inactivity is to simply have a 2 player game with each person taking control of all the Axis or Allies powers. The computer opponents are very weak. If you have played the board game to any extent you should be beating the AI on the hardest settings from the very start. I can imagine the difficulties of creating a challenging computer opponent, but this game is now from MicroProse of Civilization fame: I expected to be beat soundly by an advanced computer opponent, at least the first few games. Bottom line: You have to have friends to have a challenging game.

Disappointing artificial inttelligence

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: June 07, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Should I start with the good or the bad news...

The bad news: For anyone who has played the board game, saying that the software has artificial intelligence is a compliment. Ok that's harsh, but my 9 year old son has no difficulty beating the computer. And I have not sweated once even when my allies are at the weakest setting and my opponents at the highest. Also, the code is bug ridden. The user interface is good but could use some polishing. I have not yet tried to play over the net, but I have found intimidating instructions on how to get around the various difficulties one may encounter in doing so.

The good news: My 6 and 9 year old kids absolutely love it. They learned the rules of the game very fast. To teach kids with the board game requires a lot of time and patience, something that my computer has in larger quantities than myself. Using the game, my kids learn geography without effort and I pitch in some history by answering their hundreds of questions.

I also like the new scenarios in the Iron Blitz edition. The various options allow one to fine tune the rules to one's taste, like getting rid of the technologies.

In conclusion: Until Hasbro Interactive puts some more intelligence in the game, it is a game to be played by kids or against other human players.

The game brought to the computer.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 13
Date: August 20, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This game is wonderfull if for no reason then the fact that it doesn't try to reinvent the game it just smiply brings the board game to the computer. The fact that you can set up the map in any way you want is wonderfull. The only drawback to the game is the fact that a human to destroy makes for a much more enjoyable game as the A.I. is easly fooled.

OK, but you can get it much cheaper

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: June 26, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Game is fun, if older. LOL, you can buy a surplus CD online for $4.95 and use the electronic manual.

Nice interface, poor AI

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 4 / 6
Date: December 30, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I've owned this game for several years, and the previous installment from Hasbro. The interface in the game is intuitive and vivid. It's a blast watching territories change colors as you march across your enemy's nation. Whoever designed this part of the game deserves kudos, and I'm sure they've gone on to bigger and better things.

It's a shame, then, that this brilliant interface goes to waste on such a poorly designed game. If you have cats or small children, you'll find this game useful for when you have friends over to play and do not want to set up the pieces. This game will help you speed through the game. And, since you all know the rules, you won't have to worry about anyone placing or moving units in ways that violate the rules.

If only the same could be said of the AI. Bugs plague this game, and the AI constantly does things it should not be able to do, such as land planes in territories it just captured. The sad part is, the AI cannot even take advantage of it's cheating ways. If you've played this game at least once against a decent human opponent, you'll crush the AI. If you're an advanced player, challenge yourself by removing all the units of one of your countries from the board, or adjusting the price of all the AI's units to 1 I.P.C. - not that it matters, the poor AI still purchases units as if the normal I.P.C. values applied, buying tons of infantry instead of deeply discounted power units. The only difference between Iron Blitz and Hasbro's first release of A&A is that I.B. includes the last patch Hasbro ever put out for this game, a few scenarios which are relatively un-fun (especially since the A.I. still plays the scenarios like it was playing standard A&A), and a pretty extensive mod tools, if you like playing around with the map, yourself.

I've not been able to get the online multiplayer connection to work consistently, so I can't report on the quality of this part of the game.

Hasbro stopped supporting this game as soon as they released it, as best I can tell. So don't expect any improvements.

OOOO Boy

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: June 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game really pissed me off. While its true that A&A is the best strategy board game since chess, this game still managed to aggravate me. Whenever I would try to play, the game would slow down after a while. It would run great for a while, but after about 10 minutes there was a 1 or 2 second delay on every click that I made. And after 45 minutes it would just crash. If anyone has any suggestions on how to stop the slowing, then e-mail me at StubbsMcGriff@yahoo.com

Until I get this fixed, I won't be playing much Axis and Allies on PC.

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