Pong and Beyond

963rd played so far

Genre: Action/Strategy
Platform: Gamecube
Year of Release: 2005
Developer: Kuju Entertainment
Publisher: Nintendo

For some reason I thought Battalion Wars was a prequel to Advance Wars: the big game version of it before it was adapted for the handheld. I was wrong – not only did this come later, it changed the format quite a bit to be a more 3D, on the ground series.

It’s something different, even if I haven’t always loved this type of strategy as much, as I recently discussed with Herzog Zwei. It’s hard to keep track of everything you need to do and the interface needs to be perfect to work. It wasn’t with Herzog Zwei, but Pikmin pulled it off, and I wonder how it works here.

Our Thoughts

Battalion Wars takes place in the same world as Advance Wars, but with quite a different feel: As I said, you’re a battlefield commander ordering your troops around. This includes you acting as your own strongest unit, but has you getting units in different positions and running around as you need to get them to the right place. Except for those places where I just want to get through an area and attack en masse while my opponents come in with different troops. The controls are just that bit too awkward in these situations.

That broke down further when I had to deal with the driving controls of the game. The fourth mission has a long driving section in it where you’re racing down while avoiding enemies as you’re up against a time limit. The time limit isn’t generous, but when you’re bouncing around the area it becomes really difficult to finish it. It was genuinely frustrating and I was close to giving up after a few tries. I know it’s possible, but it wasn’t fun to do so.

The story itself, despite using fictional countries, feels a lot like an aggressive Americans vs treacherous Russians story that felt a bit too over the top. It’s a bit unfortunate, but on the whole it suits the tone of the game – I guess it’s what it is.

Final Thoughts

I think that story defines how I feel about the game though. It’s solid enough, doing what it needs to do, but the gameplay isn’t entirely my thing, it doesn’t quite fit together, and I may try again, but want to try some different games like it.