Rating: Three out of five starsDeveloper: Intelligent SystemsPublisher: NintendoPlatform: Nintendo DSGenre: StrategyRelease Date: Jan. 21
One thing I have always loathed about RPGs and strategy games is turn-based gameplay.
As a fan of blatantly unrealistic action movies and fast-paced first-person shooters, I always felt removed from the scene if I have as much time as I want to ponder my next move.
But there are certain circumstances where I can overlook that.
Sometimes, like in the case of games like Earthbound, it’s because the game is just so utterly fantastic that the gameplay style isn’t going to throw me off. Other times it’s because the choices you have to make are so incredibly complicated that you’ll find valuable every second you spend to make your move.
The latter is the case with Advance Wars: Days of Ruin for the Nintendo DS.
Set in a futuristic world devastated by meteors, players take control of a battalion of the Rubinelle army, which is desperately attempting to bring some semblance of order to a society struggling to survive. In addition to warring with a few rival factions, players must also lead their units against raiders and maniacs bent on keeping humanity in a state of chaos.
The gameplay takes some getting used to, especially for those players who, like me, aren’t familiar with previous installments of the Advance Wars series.
Using the touch screen, players guide their units across a varied terrain — complete with everything from marshes to mountains — in an effort to destroy the enemy army. The understanding of this terrain is an important part of the game itself, as it can affect the movement and defensive capabilities of the units in play.
Each type of unit players control also has different abilities, movements and weaknesses, and players have to pit their tactical skills against the computer, or in the case of the Wi-Fi Connection a friend, to conquer the mission. The strategy gets more and more complicated as the campaign progresses, as players learn how to capture factories and bases, manipulate the battlefield-obscuring “Fog of War” and transport troops.
The turn-based gameplay puts players’ tactical abilities to the test, and the resulting experience grants an elegant system of control over the units on the front line. The use of the dual screens to display battle information on units and terrain also provides another layer of sophistication, since it prevents players from having to switch between an annoying multitude of screens.
The artwork is dark and foreboding and provides an appropriate setting for this war-torn landscape. These graphics are most often prominent as units attack each other, at which point the opposing forces involved in the firefight pop up on the screens, showing both attack and damage. These brief, but frequent combat sequences did a lot to satisfy my appetite for the immediate action that draws me to most games.
But for all of its intelligence in the art of warfare, what Days of Ruin lacks is any intelligence at all in the dialogue and storyline. I had trouble figuring out which I hated more: the young Will, whose can-do attitude I’m sure is quite rare in a post-apocalyptic society where the sun is blotted out by dust and everyone’s starving to death, or the bastion of moral character who is Captain Brenner. I couldn’t skip through their sequences fast enough, and I found myself occasionally sympathizing with my anarchy-loving enemies in their desire to bury the pair underground.
But poorly translated dialogue aside, Advance Wars: Days of Ruin is a great title and a good addition to any DS owner’s collection. It’s fun to play, fun to look at and it will definitely put the tactical skills of any military strategy fan to the test.
