Advance Wars Dual Strike

So, here we go with Xtreme-Gamer's first ever Nintendo review! And what a game - Advance Wars Dual Strike might not be as "hard-core" as many of the wargames we cover, but it's both fun and challenging to play and it fits in your pocket - and you can't say that about a lot of the games out there.

Advance Wars Dual Strike is the third iteration of the successful Advance Wars series and the first for the Nintendo DS. The original Advance Wars was designed for the Nintendo GameBoy Advance and became an instant hit. Following its release in 2001 it was eventually followed by Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising in 2003. Whilst both games are capable of being played on the DS machine, I must confess that I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to having the latest version of something, so I've been looking forward to the DS version ever since the console was released.

Fans of the series will need no introduction, but for any newcomers out there, the premise of the game is simple and it follows on directly from the stories in the previous titles. In a nutshell, a belligerent force known as "Black Hole", natives of a fictional continent on an equally made-up planet, has invaded and almost conquered a neighbouring continent of allied lands. Players must take command of various Commanding Officers in the field to lead their troops to victory over the course of several story-driven campaign missions which will see them recover stolen lands from the enemy.

The turn-based battles are fought on maps which are divided up into squares which contain varying types of terrain - plains, seas, rivers, mountains, trees, woods or roads. Oh, and let's not forget the buildings like cities and military bases. Not surprisingly, each type of terrain has advantages or disadvantages when it comes to attack, defence, movement and visibility. There's even a Fog of War option if players like a challenge and that's when those forests and mountains really come into their own, ambushes suddenly become a real option, for both sides.

Each side has a point allocation which is determined by the number of cities under its control. Using military bases such as factories, ports and airbases (the availability and number of which varies depending on the mission), each side is able to spend its points on purchasing new units to throw into battle, ranging from cheap Infantry to more expensive Tanks and Helicopter Gunships or even mega-expensive Battleships or Bombers. Points are awarded on a turn-by-turn basis, so capturing more cities will increase that side's point allocation and allow them to purchase even more units next time. Or, save up those points and buy something even bigger and shinier next time. Conversely, losing cities can cause an entire strategy to come undone as the points dwindle and purchases become less frequent or of a lower quality.

Each unit has a movement range, a vision range, a firepower value, a defence value and an ammunition count. Some units also have secondary weapons (Tanks have both main guns for attacking vehicles and machine guns for anti-personnel actions) which are deployed automatically depending on what is being attacked or defended against, and those weapons also have an ammunition count. Vehicles also have a fuel count, which gradually decreases during movement, or, if it's a plane, all the time it's circling around in the sky.

Each unit also has a strength value assigned to it - this can never be higher than ten or lower than one. Newly bought units have the value of ten until they are successfully attacked in which case the number is reduced according to the value of the attack. Once a unit reaches zero, it is destroyed. But the strength value does not just define how healthy a unit is, it also determines how powerful an attack it can itself mount. Thus, a one-point Infantry unit has effectively lost 90% of its strength and can only ever inflict a maximum of one point of damage on anything it attacks, assuming that the attack was successful at all. But never fear - two similarly damaged units can be joined together to create a more powerful unit (any excess points are placed back into the war fund), although it's often more beneficial to leave fatally damaged units in the field to block the enemy advance - they have to waste time destroying them to move on.

Of course, units increase in their power the more expensive they become, however each and every unit has its own abilities, and it's impossible to win any battle with just one type of unit alone. By way of a few examples, Infantry and the more expensive and powerful Mechanised Infantry are the only units capable of capturing cities. Capturing an enemy HQ is often the only, or the quickest, way of winning a battle, so do not neglect your humble Infantryman. They can also traverse mountain ranges, something that wheeled and tracked vehicles are unable to do, but as one would expect, they find it hard to defend against an armoured assault or aerial bombardment. Tanks, whilst still vulnerable (not least to Mechanised Infantry with their pesky Bazookas, grrrr) are the great all-rounder and come in several sizes, from the basic model to the more powerful MD Tank and the uber-powerful Neo-Tank (it's got wheels on legs - no, really, it has). And, joy of joys, Advance Wars DS also adds a new Tank into the fray - the enormous (but slow and heavy on fuel) multi-turreted Mega-Tank. It's almost invincible, it kills everything it sees, and then it kills them again for good measure. At the ultra-expensive end of the scale, players can buy Fighters for knocking out enemy air units, or Bombers for pulverizing those difficult to kill enemy units. For players with points to burn, Advance Wars DS now has long-range Stealth Planes complete with "Omni Missiles" that can attack any enemy unit, be it ground-based or airborne. Losing one is painful though.

And let's not forget the non-combat units, because the Advance Wars designers have always had an eye on logistics and transportation. There are three types of transport, the APC, the Transport Helicopter and the Landing Craft. All are capable of transporting Infantry into battle, Landing Craft can even load Tanks for transportation across water. The APC has the secondary ability of being able to refuel and reload supply up to four friendly units in adjacent squares at the end of its move. This can be handy for moving those Mega-Tanks into the font lines, because they go through fuel and ammunition faster than anything else out there. The only problem is that all of these transport units are unarmed and totally unable to defend themselves against attack, but they are all essential to winning battles.

As you'll have gathered from the above, there are a lot of potential strategies open to players, and depending on which CO is chosen, advantages might be maximised even further but this is usually at a cost, for each CO available to you has different strengths and weaknesses. For example, Max (my favourite) is best at controlling direct combat units such as Infantry or Tanks which can only attack adjacent squares on the map. As a result, troops of that nature are more powerful in battle and can inflict greater damage than regular units. Unfortunately, Max's weakness comes with indirect combat units, such as artillery or rocket divisions which fire from a distance - frankly, he's rubbish at using them and their range suffers drastically as a result. Players much therefore choose their COs to fit their own strategies and preferences - if a player's up for a bit of air superiority, then choosing the relevant CO will provide air units with even more range and even greater firepower, but ground units may be slightly handicapped as a result.

COs also have special abilities which can be unlocked. The more damage they inflict, the more their special ability is charged up. Once it's ready to go, players can choose when to unleash the power of this ability, the results of which can mean changing the weather in their favour, repairing damaged units, or making certain units even more powerful for that all important final attack - but only for that one turn. Advance Wars 2 added a second even more powerful tier to the CO special abilities, thus providing players with a choice - do they go for a quick hit now or forego any temporary advantage and charge the power a bit more to get an even bigger effect in a few turns' time? Well, guess what, Advance Wars DS has expanded this ability further still - if players embark on a Tag battle, they can deploy two COs, charge both special abilities simultaneously, and at the crucial moment, unleash hell. I eliminated one heavily entrenched enemy in a single turn by using first one CO's special ability, then tagging the second CO whereupon I got an entire second move to finish the enemy forces. Result. Except when it happens to you.

So what's different between this and the original titles? Well, to be honest, not a lot. But that's actually GOOD, because the original Advance Wars was pretty much perfect, and its sequel only really tweaked an already proven formula. Advance Wars DS tweaks the game that little bit further and throws in a few extra COs, and some additional units, but gameplay remains pretty much the same. They have even provided the same War Room maps that were playable in both previous titles - so not only is this a new game, it's got all the old stuff in there as well. Of course, the fundamental differences between the GBA and DS versions of the game are obvious - the DS has two screens to the GBA's single display, plus that nifty touch-sensitive screen at the bottom, and this is where we get to the nitty-gritty.

In earlier Advance Wars games, unit and terrain statistics were available via a separate menu, in Advance Wars DS, it's now possible to display those important figures on the top screen whilst battle continues uninterrupted on the touch-sensitive screen below. It saves a lot of time. And, of course, movement of troops is all done via the stylus (although the buttons work as well - it's a matter of preference). But, there's more, an additional game mode simply called "DS" allows players to fight two simultaneous battles which switch from screen to screen, the secondary battle of the moment taking place on the upper screen. Gaining an advantage in one battle can help in the other, which is a nice touch, as is the ability to siphon troops from one area of battle to the other. Destroy your enemy utterly in one zone first? Or fight on a broad front across them both?

What's more, an entirely new feature is the real-time battle mode, which puts players through their paces in what's essentially a massively accelerated version of the main game - it's going to take me a while to get to grips with that one.

AND let us not forget the ability to create your own maps and to exchange them with friends and enemies. I created a version of Operation Overlord on my DS, with massive defences in "France" and a huge invasion fleet in "England".

The graphics are not exactly cutting edge, especially given the 64-bit processing power of the Nintendo DS. Indeed, apart from some neat new zooming on the lower screen as your units appear to do battle, and a slight tilt of the maps, there's hardly any difference at all between this and the previous titles. But that's not the point, it's the gameplay that matters here, not eye candy, and the game remains just as addictive as it ever was. Yes, it's cartoony, but it's also fun and colourful and everything is very well drawn.

There's not much to be said about the sound, combat sounds just like the earlier games and the same tunes crop up for each of the COs during a game, so it's not going to win any awards. But all that means is that you can play the game at work with the sound turned down and know that you aren't going to miss anything important.

The beauty of this game lies in the fact that you can not only play the devious AI (trust me, it can be very calculating at times) but also any friends who might want to be destroyed at your hands using the wireless capabilities of the DS system. The DS allows several methods of multiplay, not least of which is the ability for 8 players to play from just one cartridge by downloading data to their own machines. Other modes (there are four in all, plus the option to trade maps) require each player to own a cartridge, but there is a huge potential for gaming with the options provided.