Every now and then a game comes along that depicts World War II in all its objective gory details. What most fail to do is start with the early years that led up to the state of affairs that caused it. Developer Muzzy Lane has done this with its game Making History II: The World at War.

What we have is a grand strategy game that is turn-based and offers three scenarios. The German Question, which begins in 1933, Building for War starting in 1936 and Last Days of Peace beginning in 1939. We have a general fog of war and the usual major contender countries. What makes this different is that the minor countries are included as well, so you can pick a country, such as Chile or Argentina, and maybe take over South America during the time allotted in each scenario.

Making History II incorporates different menus, such as weather, trade routes and the political aspects, just to name a few of what’s offered. You can select a region and set production goals for each city listed. The region can even be set to exploit mining, create farms, oil production or a number of other objectives. We also have report icons that will show your progress in those areas. There are also other informational maps showing the geopolitical nature of all the countries, such as military, alliances, trade and more extensive lists.

There also are the standard production points for various military builds or buildings necessary to improve your economy. Monetary funds are needed as well, which are represented by trade goods produced by the cities. Balance is needed, though, because to produce too much of other items and not have enough money will cause unrest in your population. There is city research with a wide base of items to pick from. Cities also produce your military needs, such as troops, tanks, artillery, planes and other advancements.

Capturing a country brings into play decisions, such as do you want to make it an ally, a puppet state or just absorb it. Any one of these actions affects the consequences of your play, and the goals you have set on your way to being a military powerhouse. Making a country an ally causes you to lose control by letting the computer make the decisions. Absorbing it gives you complete control, but you’ll need to maintain some troops there to keep control over that region.

I like all the aspects of what Making History II can do with military, production and research. However, there are a few problems that cropped up. A couple of them were on the research end. For you to research, you need to have either a university or research lab. The university creates two points of research, while a lab creates one point. The more points a country has, the faster it can research. A university requires 100 turns to produce, while a lab requires half the turns necessary for completion. Since the scenarios have limited turns till the end, in most cases you can only get one or two made, which limits the time you have to research. The majority of the minor countries have no research points available, and I never could figure out if the turns were a day or week. Second, the research tree has limitations when viewing them. You need to drag and click in a small viewing window as you never see the whole tree. This personally made decisions a bit difficult.

The graphics are a bit dated compared to some games but do well enough for the game as a whole. The music is appropriate for the game. I liked how Making History II is nonlinear so that you can play any country you want and not be restricted to just the major parties. I would hope that there will be more scenarios, though, as playability may suffer down the road. If you are a WWII fan and looking for something just a little different, you may want to try your hand at becoming a military master of the early years.