Axis & Allies is the most-played war game today. Its elegant design has taught many board gamers the joys of strategic bombing and the dangers of invading Russia. Despite its history as an introductory war game, it’s never been properly ported to PCs. The last attempt was bug riddled, and the A.I. made Hitler’s decision to attack Stalingrad look bright. With any luck, Atari’s upcoming A&A port will fix that.

TimeGate Studios, the team behind the Kohan series, is giving this updated version of A&A a modern face-lift, marrying the board game’s classic turn-based design with modern RTS elements. Playing as any of the major WWII powers, you build armies, research technologies, and invade enemy soil. However, your actions—rather than a fistful of dice—determine a battle’s outcome. The turn-based map has been transformed into an RTS environment, with all the army-building, resource-gathering gameplay you’d expect from the genre. Like TimeGate’s other games, A&A’s battles will focus on tactics and combined arms instead of peasant micromanagement.

Though the departure from the board game may incite skepticism among A&A fans, TimeGate has a successful pedigree and may actually give A&A the PC gaming treatment it has been denied for so long.

The Word: DICELESS

WPUBLISHER: Atari DEVELOPER: TimeGate Studios GENRE: RTS RELEASE DATE: November 2004

Copyright © 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Computer Gaming World.