![]() Yes it is and yes it is, but nobody's saying anything we haven't heard before, and they're not saying it over and over again across far too many dialogue screens. They're not particularly likable, but worst of all they have finally decided that killing is rotten and war is horrible. Unlike past games, however, this particular crew is rather achingly sincere, and more than a little bit like the ones found in Intelligent Systems' other turn-based strategy series, Fire Emblem. There's also a girl with amnesia, a virus that kills you with shrubbery, and lots of sinister, self-involved or pantomime bad-guys plotting against you. ![]() Our tie-wearing fancy-haired hero begins the game by surviving a world-ending meteor strike, and then quickly joins up with the noble Captain Brenner. Between (and sometimes during) these, your characters chat to one another and so the story progresses. It's all gone Mad Max, and Mel Gibson seems to have been rubbish at menus.Īs with previous instalments, Dark Conflict features a story-driven single-player Campaign mode with main missions that unlock one by one. It's very easy to grasp, and the satisfaction of being good at it is considerable. Subs are great for sinking battleships, but cruisers can smash them to bits in a jiffy. Tanks are good against recon units, but poor against aerial bombardment, but then choppers and planes are toast if there's an anti-aircraft unit on the prowl. It appeals because defeating your enemy is about carefully weighing each unit's strengths, weaknesses and potential exposure once it's performed an attack against the strengths, weaknesses and exposure of your enemy's units. ![]() Advance Wars - terrific in two instalments on the GBA, mostly terrific on the DS and rather popular for rather longer if you trace it back to the original Japanese versions on old-days consoles - is a simple turn-based strategy game where you move a collection of units (which still bob up and down, happily) around a playing grid square by square, trying to dispatch an opposing force comprised of a similar assortment. There's also an indirect-fire anti-tank unit that can - gasp - counter-attack when fired upon, and the battleship can now move and then fire from a distance in the same turn.īut before we get bogged down in the detail, let's give our friends the newcomers (hi there!) the benefit of a pleasant refresher. Gone are the tag-team CO (Commanding Officer) powers, multiple-front battles, black bombs, pipe-runners and stealth fighters, for instance, but in come things like a motorbike gang that can move vast distances and play the city-capture role previously reserved for infantry and mech units, which speeds up that side of the game considerably. Intelligent Systems has rolled back a few of the features that made the first DS game, Dual Strike, a bit too complicated, and then rolled forward again with some sensible new units and a few of the things Advance Wars fans have been aching for, like online play. So, Nintendo spends years making bright and bouncy games, and as soon as the bright and bouncy approach starts to rule the world again, Advance Wars - among the most inexplicably bright and bouncy, given that it's about nasty old war - decides to toss out the catchy music, surfer dude dialogue and cuddly accoutrements in favour of crunchy guitar and meditations on the futility of war in the aftermath of an apocalyptic meteor strike. ![]()
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