Battle of the Atlantic

Thumbnail Analysis Game Review

by Don Lowry


For the last several issues of this magazine ads have appeared for games by Taurus Ltd. and letters in the "Mail Call" column have discussed this company. At last we can confirm that this and the following two games in this column do exist at least. B. of the A. comes in a 12 1/2" x 18" x 1/2" box, which has a label on the top printed in red and black on white but otherwise is an uncovered, soft, tan, pasteboard box, which contains: two identical 21" x24" cardboard maps of North and South America, the Atlantic, Europe and Africa, with land in dark blue and oceans in white and four hexes colored red by hand; two 8 1/2 x 11" sheets of yellow 5/8" square unit counters that are scored but not cut; an 8 1/2"x 11" 64-page (plus heavy paper covers) rules book; an 8 1/2" x 11" sheet of pictures and descriptions of a few of the ships and planes used in the Battle of the Atlantic - which looks a great deal like pages from a popular series of periodicals and books covering WWII; and two 8 1/2"xll" and three 11"x17" sheets of charts, etc.

I am not going to describe how the game plays, for the simple reason that the rules are presented without one single headline, paragraph number, heading, chapter title or anything to break up those 64 pages into readable chunks. There are no diagrams, pictures, charts etc. Just page after page of wandering text which meanders from one damn thing to another without giving the slightest indication of the direction headed. I did not, nor will I ever, bother to expend the time and effort necessary to read such an inanity. I might also mention, incidentally, that the graphics work on the maps and charts is extremely amateurish. This game sells for $10.95 but I certainly cannot say that it is worth anything like that.

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© Copyright 1976 by Donald S. Lowry
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