During my search for WWII historical material I gave Ron Harsun at a call and he suggested this package as a 'get three for the price of one', one historical perspective reference, one strategy game, and one strategy/tactics game. World War II is the reference portion offering actual sound recordings, film footage, maps and of course text covering events from 1936 through to 1947. This is a Windows based application and has a very user friendly interface. With over 2,100 events covered it is quite an impressive piece of software.

The Big 3 (Axis, Allied and Soviet) is a strategic level hex based game where you take the role of a supreme commander. Do not expect any fantastic graphics, high level sound effects and the like, they are not in here. This is a hex boardgame on a computer but if you accept this fact it still has a lot to offer, if you like operating at a purely strategic level. It covers all of the major European and African battles of WWII and had an RRP of 29.99 pounds when Warner Interactive first released it. Finally there is Operation COMBAT II which operates at strategic and tactical level and even comes with a modem play capability. I must admit that I have not played this, other than a brief look, so I do not feel able to comment. The first two items operate from within Windows but the last one is a DOS program. You get all this for around 20.00 pounds which is about 7.00 pounds each.

If you are just getting into WWII this could well be worth considering since you get to try out strategic and tactical style computer games without making too big a dent in your pocket. You will need a 20386 CPU with at least VGA graphics, a sound card, CD-ROM, MS Windows 3.1 and 4 megabytes of memory which is not too high powered really in these days of Pentiums.

Other Computer Game Reviews:

• Battleground Ardennes
• Battleground Ardennes and Battleground Gettysburg
• Caesar II
• Operation Crusader
• The Last Blitzkrieg
• Great Battles of Alexander
• Blood and Iron
• Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat
• Command & Conquer: The Covert Operations
• Harpoon Classic

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