warspite1
Posts: 41353
Joined: 2/2/2008 From: England Status: offline
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Without any doubt it has to be World In Flames. Don't get me wrong, it is not perfect, but boy does it do a fine job. The game is a strategic level game that covers the entirety of World War II. Why do I say it's done it best? Well the game is designed for either side to win, it's designed so that players can make decisions that were not made in WWII, because of the need to play balance, there are liberties taken with counter values...... and yet... and yet. Despite the above there are five outstanding aspects to the game: - The designers purposely have tried to harmonise the rules and not have a million different individual rules for each side or situation. There is a solid framework in place that, on its own, ensures that every game has a WWII feel. Even if one side heads off to Sweden, or Spain or Turkey, the rules that govern the major powers keep the overall feel on a WWII footing. Very cleverly done. - Whichever Major Power one plays, the game provides the owner with a proper feeling for the strengths, the weaknesses, the opportunities and the threats faced by the leaders of those powers in WWII. The challenges are immense - especially if playing with oil. - I could not believe it when first Planes in Flames and then Ships in Flames came out. This is a strategic game but here I am playing with every aircraft from WWII (and 'what ifs' beside) and every individual ship from light cruiser up. That is mad! It is also fantastic. - The game counters are wonderfully full coloured, bright, easy to read, and sit there just gagging to be played. As someone who prefers understatement this colouring shouldn't be a positive but it is here - it just works, without dumbing down the game. The one area ADG (the board game makers) got wrong was the maps. The CE has improved things quite a bit from the hideous version that went before - but Matrix World In Flames makes no such mistakes and simply provides the war gamer with pure, unadulterated World Map porn. It's just filth. - Last and by no means least the replayability/fun factor. The way the various combat, weather, search, initiative, turn length, turn end and US entry rules are formulated means that replayability is infinite. There are so few guaranteed successes. The game needs to be played a very, very long time before sterility sets in. In some ways linked to this is the game's fun factor. This is a complex game, but what ADG seem to have realised is that you don't have to break a wargamers balls in the interests of realism on every little point. Make a complex game yes sure - but make even the complex aspects of the game FUN! Yes, World In Flames has done it best.
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England expects that every man will do his duty. Horatio Nelson October 1805 
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