MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Pentium® 133 MHz CPU Windows 95/98; 16 MB RAM 4X CD-ROM drive 1 MB Graphics Card 40 MB free hard drive space Windows® compatible sound card 28.8 baud modem or higher (for internet play) mouse When I first got a chance to review Axis and Allies,I thought to myself, "at last, now I can play one of my favorite board games on the computer!" And that's pretty much exactly what happened. With the exceptions of some fancy graphics at the beginning and a few interspersed throughout the game, this game really copies the board game in terms of appearance and feel. This game is a turn based war strategy game based on the developments of World War 2. You have a choice of commanding either one of the three Allied nations, England, Russia, and the United States, or you can take command of either of the Axis powers, Germany and Japan. Often the game is played in teams, with three players playing the Allies vs two players playing the Axis. In the computer game, as with the board game, you can choose to play as many players as you want, which makes it easier if you have an odd number of players Now, the first thing you have to know is, you've got to know the game. Granted there are instructions that come with the game, but you really have to "know" the game to start. New users will note that there is a tutorial that comes with the game, being a semi-veteran I was hesitant to use it, but when I did take a look at it, it showed me all sorts of things I did not know about. I realized the computer was going to be one very tough opponent. When I did finally start playing the game, I modified the computer's intelligence factor to a three star general, instead of five, to give myself a chance. It was nice to be able to adjust the computer's AI and not get destroyed the first time I played. Now, the interesting part to this game is they have got all sorts of rules available to use, 2nd edition and 3rd edition rules and variations on the 3rd edition rules. For those of you who have never played the game before you'll have to explore what the various options mean. For us veteran players, we can enable features like: two hit battle ships, submerging submarines etc. I tried various options, and thought they handled well. This game is ideal for people who have played the board game for sure, but I suspect people who have never played before may not find this game easy to warm up to. Aesthetically speaking it lacked some finesse when the computer took its turn, it moved so fast that you couldn't keep track of where it was going and what it was doing. Other points of contention include, menu selection, when you click on something, it doesn't highlight and you might think you didn't click something right. There is no UNDO option (that I could easily find) once I made a move (good or bad) I was stuck with it. The graphics were not spectacular, I was surprised that it wanted to install direct x 5 drivers even though I had windows 98, and it didn't have any spectacular graphics that I was aware of that would need direct x 5. All in all it was an "OK" kind of game, it was almost an exact replica of the original board game with not much else to make it too special. I'd give it one joystick up for accurate reproduction of a board game. Tech Notes: For effective game play over the MSN Gaming Zone you need to download their patch v1.2 (available at: www.axisandallies.com) and get the direct X 6 drivers from Microsoft.. Axis & Allies was reviewed by GameBoyz reader: Michael