Perfect General II, originally released in 1994, featured air power, tank encounters, infantry battles, in-depth planning requirements, and multiple victory conditions spread across world combat zones in both historical and "what if" battles to offer players a global battlefield for waging world war. Major campaigns and 20 scenarios feature the Battle of the Bulge, Desert Fox, Tobruk, Eclipse of the Rising Sun, and The Kursk Campaign. Each scenario offers an assortment of game options for customization of the turn-based action. Three types of basic games (balanced, attacker, or defender), varied lengths, full or partial kill requirements, sighting style, random hits, visible or hidden mines, environmental effects (variable or pre-set) and friendly city unit repairs are just some of the adjustable parameters. Victory conditions vary, running the gamut from point acquisition to defensive holding actions. Twenty-one types of terrain, varied weather conditions, and multiple units expand the level of detail. When you start the scenario, you have to already plan how to spend your resources wisely, how to equip for the battle ahead, how often do you get reinforcements and where do your enemy place their reinforcements are all questions you have to strategize for.

This was an amazing war game for me – moving from playing Risk to Axis & Allies (a much more realistic and sophisticated board game) to this! Being turn-based also gave the arm-chair general in me plenty of time to plan my moves and think strategically. Remembering that it’s not about what has happened before but rather anticipate and make your own strategic and tactical moves to defeat the AI. Some of the real-world scenarios were very difficult to win, which gave me strong appreciation to the challenges a real world general have to face. An evergreen classic!