Battalion Wars on the Gamecube was one of the last enjoyable games before the purple box breathed its last 3rd place breath and admitted defeat. Nintendo (the lovely scamps that they are) have now given us the 2nd iteration of Advance Wars big brother franchise, Battalion Wars 2.

BW2 is unlike most games on the Wii; it tries to combine two different genre’s together, those being Real Time Strategy and Third Person Shooter to bring a quite unique flavor of gameplay. Although you control an army (or battalion I should say), you do it from the point of view of a grunt. Taking control of any solider, tank, boat or plane, you then issue orders to your squad being it by type, single unit issues or an overall command.

Those who have played and enjoyed the original will find much of the same here, as what the original started, BW2 tries to follow. It does this quite admirably and you won’t hear too many complaints from me…but there are few problems.

But first, let’s talk about the game a bit. When you first boot up the game, fans of the series may notice the opening music sounds very similar to the original, in fact I think it could be identical. The rest of you will notice the simple menu- Single Player, Multiplayer, Options and Extras are the only choices you have, that’s it. The game is at its core, very basic and it isn’t trying to be anything else.

The single player is quite well put together, you start in a flashback fight, detailing the previous world war and its effects on the current war. You play (to start with at least) as a Solar Empire solider behind enemy lines trying to get to the base camp of the enemy. This is basically a tutorial of the standard grunt unit. All ground solider troops handle and control pretty much the same, it isn’t anything amazing but I like what they’ve done with the Wiimote controls. I will say no Wiimote control is over used in this game.

Aside from the bog-standard solider unit, several other types of solider exist including flame vet, rocket troops and grenadier troops, but far more interesting are the vehicles you can use. The previous game used ground vehicles like Tanks, Anti-Air Cannons and Artillery and now BW2 introduces Boats and Planes also. Planes use the Nun-Chuck tilt mechanic to control the angle of the vehicle which works quite well, while Boats use the normal controls all other units adopt. This mixes the game play up quite nicely and gives you a much bigger army to mess about with. Ordering the multitude of units around in the game around is very easy, simply scroll across using the d-pad and issue the order with the A button, it really feels quite natural in game and in the thick of action players wont easily be confused.

The 25 campaign missions suffer a little however as its not straight out fights, its more of a objective based campaign usually involving saving some troops, taking out some kind of weapon to gain more troops and then stealing back a base. Bases add additional elements of every mission as they respawn your lost troops, I’ll let you decide if that’s a good idea, or cheap.

Graphics are nice enough in-game, don’t expect it to push the little white box like Mario Galaxy, No More Heroes or Metroid Prime 3. They fit quite nicely and are quite stylized in each country you visit. For instance in the Anglo Isles (that’ll be England) there are small cottages and many large trees trying to push a very rural feeling. Textures of the tanks and soldiers look very unrealistic but in the OK kind of way that many Nintendo games try and approach, this isn’t the gritty real world soldiers in Call of Duty 4 or anything like that, they are good enough but like the scenery they aren’t going to win awards.

Sound is a little hit and miss. While the sound effects of shells, guns and explosions work well and seem quite fitting, voice acting is worse than some anime dubs I’ve heard in the past. Everyone who is voiced in the game was not done by that specific nation. The Chinese do not sound Chinese, the Americans do not sound American and the Russians do not sound Russian. I think the developer Kuju could of spent a little more money on the voice cast as they all sound like they are from Leeds (no offence to people in Leeds, you all have lovely voices). I would comment on the in-game music, but there isn’t enough of it for me to say anything unfortunately, it’s a bit of a shame but doesn’t change the real experience.

Online seems to actually be a good portion of the game. With the single player campaign consisting of around 25 missions which could be completed within a few days, the online gives players a chance to test their skills. online comes in varying modes including Co-op, Assault and Skirmish, each of which require more than a few play throughs to unlock more levels for each mode. This is a nice idea and I think one that works pretty well, matches can last from 10 seconds to a good hour depending on how good your opponent is.

Closing Comments

A 9 hour single player, a excellent online component, great controls and a laugh out loud storyline, with those things in mind its easy to see that Battalion Wars 2 is a good game. Kuju have obviously tried very hard to make a fun and appealing game, but the game suffers from being too linear to draw in the truly hardcore gamer. There is a lot this game got spot on, shame it misses some as well

Score 80%

+ Long single player
+ Good, lag free, online play
+ Several unit types to control, all tweaked perfectly

- Repetitive single player
- Linear path to follow
- No freedom to make units