After years of jungle fighting and island hopping the battle for Manila was the first urban fighting experienced by American forces during the war in the Pacific. The campaign by the American XIV Corps to defeat Iwabuchi’s forces and capture the city has been depicted in a handful of two-player designs in the past but is presented here in a new and exciting SOLITAIRE format, the second in a series of single-player area movement games by publisher Take Aim Designs.

Manila: The Savage Streets, 1945 puts the player in charge of the attacking and far more mobile American side while the game system handles the defending and largely static Japanese side. No two games will ever be the same. Each turn presents new and unique challenges for the player in the form of random events, uncertain supply deliveries, and unknown Japanese area strengths and defensive strategies.

The primary game is a nine-turn campaign covering the American assault on the city during February and March 1945. The deeper American forces advance, from the city’s less developed periphery to its urban business district and fortress-like government buildings, the greater Japanese resistance becomes. The number of American units fought to exhaustion, effectively out of action, mounts. American determination to secure a rapid victory for Supreme Allied Commander General Douglas MacArthur, represented as “morale” in the game, gradually decreases. The player wins by equaling or exceeding historical American gains and loses if they fail to do so, or if morale falls too low.

With a setup time of less than 15 minutes, low counter density, endless variability, and quick playing time, Manila: The Savage Streets, 1945 will appeal to every level of player, from the novice to the grognard.

Few battles at the end of the Second World War exceeded the destruction and brutality of the fighting in the city of Manila. MacArthur had hoped to spare the multicultural city and its roughly 800,000 inhabitants from the horrors of war, but failed. The fate of the city of Manila, the "Pearl of the Orient,” now rests with you.

—description from the publisher

Games