I like strategy games, and the thought of conducting a realistic war on my computer has always been interesting to me.  The problem is, every time I play a hardcore historical war game I run into the same problem; either the manufacturers require that I have memorized the strategies and tactics of Patton, Chruchill, Hitler, and Hannibal, or they assume I have extensive past experience with similar games and don't bother to include instructions a novice can sort through.

	Battle Isle 2 is midway between hardcore war games and less complicated strategy games like Warlords 2, Civilization, and Dune 2.  It offers the tactical level of modern day warfare, but its SF premise allows the designers to gradually increase the game's complexity by adding new units and tasks with each scenario of the campaign.

	Only the most cursory of plots sets up the game.  You are a resident of some distant planet, awakened from hypersleep by members of the Drullian government.  It seems they have deemed you to be a master strategist, the best chance they have of defeating the robotic hordes of the evil Titan-Net.  (You'd think someone from their culture would have a better knowledge of their defenses, but never mind.)  The intro is laughable, with dialogue so wooden I expected to see Al Gore's name listed in the credits.  For some reason, this CD game's dialogue is delivered in text rather than speech, but it was so awful I didn't feel like I was missing anything.

	Once you're finished laughing at the intro (I like to read the dialogue in my best Sylvester Stallone voice) the game plops you into the first scenario of the campaign.  Hey guys, is there something missing here?  How about a menu?  You know, that thing where you set the difficulty level, change the game parameters, load and save games?!  One exists, but you have to let the first scenario load to get to it, even if you have a game saved further in the campaign. My response to that was:  Who thought that up?  And why aren't they working at McDonald's?

	I eventually got the game configured to my liking and started playing, with little thanks to the manual.  Maybe it's some genre thing, but all war games seem to have awful manuals.  Battle Isle 2 is no exception.  The one difference between this manual and other war game manuals I've struggled with is that all the information you need to play is included here. It's just hard to find and decipher, thanks to poor organization and text that sounds like it was written by Iraqi Pete.  The author also seems to have abandoned computer gaming before the advent of the mouse.  When describing the interface, the manual repeatedly talks about selecting units by using the arrow keys.  I was smart enough to try the mouse, and found it worked just fine for this.  The manual then stated to hold down the space bar to activate the icon bar, and scroll through the icons by use of (yep, you guessed it,) the arrow keys, which of course means taking your hand off the mouse.  After attempting this procedure a few times (and intoning the appropriate expletives) I decided to hold down the mouse button and see where that got me.  To my astonishment the icon bar popped up and I was able to select my action without ever touching that other input device.  The mouse is a wonderful thing; I have a feeling that it will one day become a standard of the computer world.

	After the painful session with the manual, I found to my surprise that Battle Isle 2 is a very fun game and quite easy to learn, for the most part.  Once the interface is explored moving and attacking is very easy, but that's not all you get to do.  As the game progresses you will find yourself in control of land, air, and sea forces.  You get to build networks of trenches, erect fortifications, build and destroy roads and bridges, refuel and repair your units, horde resources for production, and, of course, bomb the hell out of the badguys.  The tactical level of the game is closer to the V for Victory games than Warlords 2, and the gradual increase in complexity makes this a good choice for someone who wants to start playing realistic war games but finds the learning curve a little on the steep side.

	Still, this is not the easiest game to understand at times.  Many of the info screens, such as the city production and unit strength windows, are cluttered with lots of information that is poorly marked.  I was annoyed when I pulled up an information screen only to be confronted by a bunch of numbers with no text defining them.  Of course, I went scrambling back to the manual and eventually found the explanation I needed.  Not an unsurpassable problem, but I still would have appreciated a friendlier design to the game.

	One "feature" that really pissed me off -- probably more than it should have -- was the way the game deals with mission objectives and, more to the point, your inability to achieve them.  One of the scenarios I played required me to capture a certain city to win.  The only troop type available to me that could do this was the Demon, a robotic heavy infantry.  All of my Demon squads got wiped out fairly early in the scenario.  I rallied and managed to utterly destroy the enemy's forces, but couldn't take the city.  I surrounded it on all sides with tanks, but I could not win.  In other games of this type the program notified me when victory was unattainable, and restarted the scenario.  The fact that Battle Isle 2 failed to do this got on my nerves.  Then I decided to just keep advancing to the next turn until I got to the ceiling of the scenario.  After doing this for a while I checked the mission parameters screen to see how much longer it would take.  I found that out of a possible 21 turns I had played 26.  Excuse me?  Is there a problem here?  This by no means made the game unplayable, but it did give me the feeling that I was playing a cheap game that had been banged out quickly instead of a polished piece of software.

	There was a lot I liked about Battle Isle 2, but in the end the lack of clarity found in many of the vital information screens made me decide that the game was more work than it was worth.  Still, if you don't mind dealing with a poor manual you'll have to refer back to on a regular basis it's an engrossing tactical challenge.  War game veterans may be put off by its SF premise, but it so closely mirrors the tactics of modern-day warfare that they should find it interesting if they give it a chance.  If you're a novice, Battle Isle 2 is definitely a good place to start.  You'll have to work a little to really get familiar with all its operations, but if you put forth the effort you will be rewarded.