In a flurry of releases today I get stuck with The Operational Art of War Volume 1. Am I bitter? No, because I can take it out on this review. For those of you who happen to like playing Risk and Stratego with your families on Friday night this is the game for you. Avid war gamers (the four of you out there) go ahead and grab this. However if you have a computer more powerful than a 486SX and enjoy games with real excitement and replay value.. one word: SKIP.

The Good:

Didn't require patches or fixes -- made deleting faster.
The feeling you get when deleting this game.

The Bad:

No graphics, game play or replay value.
There is a market for games like this.
The threat of addons and expansion campaigns.

Graphics: 5 / 20

Let me quote something from the nfo, "Stunning 16-bit High Color graphics!" Well, they are in color, I will give it that. I was not stunned, they were borderline 8-bit and for you to believe that BS you would have to be high. This game offers one window, one resolution, no hardware acceleration, and no use of Direct 3d. Lots of greenish brown bitmaps and lots of greenish brown hexagons. However, in comparison to the rest of the war strategy genre which could be rendered on a Lite-Brite, The Operational Art of War is a small step up.

Sound: 7 / 15

Boom.. kaboom.. boom. Those uninteresting, repetitive and annoying the booms of cannons and machine gun fire are about the only excitement you will get from this game. There is no motivational war music to keep your interest. No generals barking orders or privates yelling 'YES SIR'. It's very quiet, and dull, until you press the attack button. Then a 10-second flurry of fire, then more of the dull silence.

Gameplay: 5 / 25

Being one of the 98% of gamers, I like the games with excitement and plot. I appreciate the balance of action and intrigue. I do not enjoy reading four pages of statistics about an armored assault division's attempt to repel a jeep patrol unit. The game is basically just a grid of buttons you press to do in the game (attack, skip turn, quit), and a grid that is the playing field that shows where your troops are. The computer AI is hard, even on easy difficulty levels. Unless you have plenty of experience with the strategies used in war, it's most likely you will find it overly difficult and frustrating as well. Basically to sum up gameplay, think of it as reading a map, then pushing around little icons and pressing tiny buttons.

Fun Factor: 5 / 20

Think of it as reading a map, then pushing around little icons and then pressing tiny buttons.

Multiplayer Play: 5 / 5

There is some form of multiplay using a turn-based email system. With a game this small and pathetic I am willing to give it full score for effort.

Packaging: 4 / 5

One .dll file was missing, and I could not use the installer. Also the nfo did not indicate the need to edit and run the .reg file. Both of these are very small nit picky things, hence I shave only a point off.

Overall Impression: 3/ 10

This is the last time I let Phire choose a review for me. I hope I offended all you war-strat gamers with this butcher. I hope that I don't get nightmares from this game. I hope you take my words to heart and maybe we can kill off the war strategy genre once and for all.

Overall Rating: 34 / 100