Avalon Hill

Recently swallowed by Hasbro, after losing a wonderful lawsuit against MicroProse over the Civilization trademark. Now gamers wonder what will happen with all the Avalon Hill board games. Hasbro won't say.

The company started in 1958 founded by Charles Roberts. Since then Avalon Hill has consistently published/produced some of the finest board games ever. Roberts was moderately successful until 1962 when he was forced, due to debts, to sell the company to his printer Monarch Services, owned by the Dott family, who placed Tom Shaw in charge.

After 1970 Avalon Hill broke with traditional methods of war game publishing by accepting and publishing games created from outside of the company. In 1976 Avalon Hill published a line of game acquired from 3M that had decided to go out of the game business. This break in tradition led to ridicule from some of there competitors in particular SPI.

After SPI folded a couple of years later Avalon Hill acquired many of their game titles and published them under the title “Victory Games”. Many of these games dealt with themes that had previously not been touched. By 1997-98 the company was in trouble and was sold to Hasbro Games Company for $6 million.

After a long delay Hasbro re-launched the brand in 1999 with the release of 4 games: Diplomacy, Acquire and two new games Stratego Legends and Axis and Allies: Europe.

(the above information was researched from www.grognard.com and www.avalonhill.com)

The following is a list of some of the best games (IMHO) published by Avalon Hill/Victory Games. A complete list, which includes publishing dates, author and other info can be found at www.grognard.com :

• Civilization
• Dune
• Britannia
• Diplomacy
• Republic of Rome
• Kremlin
• Vietnam, 1965-75(VG)
• Third Reich
• Machiavelli
• Merchant of Venus
• Kingmaker (Flawed but fun)
• Up Front
• James Bond 007 (VG) (The only RPG from the company that I still play)

Avalon Hill didn't just make board games. At one point they had a software division, and they produced several different titles for the Atari 2600 video game console. They only made a few games, but the innovation and quality of their board games was also apparent in their Atari games. All of their Atari 2600 games are rare and valuable today, (due to limited distribution).

They would probably be a major name in gaming software today, if it wasn't for the video game crash that completely killed the gaming industry until it was revived by the 1986 release of the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Avalon Hill Atari Games

• Death Trap - Death Trap was Avalon Hill's first foray into the console game world. This is their only "bad" title. This game is a rather uninspired space shooter. This game is also known for only working correctly on real Atari's, as it apparently relied on some faults and peculiarities of the original Atari and does not work correctly on most clone systems.

• London Blitz - London Blitz used a first person pseudo-3D perspective, and put the player in the position of searching for bombs in World War II London. It had a map you could reference by pressing the red button on the joystick. The game went into defusing mode, after finding a bomb, where you had to move switches around on the bomb case in an attempt to deactivate it.

• Out of Control - Out of Control was a great racing game with a spaceship theme. You had to control a ship in a slalom course in this extremely challenging title. Regular Asteroids players might find this game a little easier, as the ship in that game had exactly the same feel as the one in this one.

• Shuttle Orbiter - Shuttle Orbiter was one of the most complex and rewarding simulators available for the Atari 2600. You take control of the Space Shuttle Challenger on a mission to deliver parts to a space station, watch your fuel level, and don't miss your window. This title was obviously produced before the Challenger disaster ever happened.

• Wall Ball - Wall Ball was a 3-D version of Breakout that was widely distibuted in connection with Sports Illustrated magazine. It is a pretty decent game, although it couldn't match the perfect feel of the original Breakout and Super Breakout.