Battalion Wars [GC]

We've been writing about games for so long that we have a process. It might not be a fair practice, but it is nevertheless the way we work. We can usually sum up whether a new title is going to be good or bad after we've played it for only a few minutes. Sometimes, all we need to do is look at it. We're not always right. Occasionally, a game starts off slow and gets better. Or sometimes an unpolished title is cleaned up the next time we see it. But for the most part, having invested hours upon hours into the end product and thoroughly tested our initial analyses, we find that our little system is pretty accurate.

Battalion Wars from developer Kuju Entertainment, which created the little-known action title Reign of Fire, made a poor first impression. Maybe it was the relentless barrage of noise and lights that is the Electronics Entertainment Expo. Or maybe it was just that we had Zelda on the brain. But the strategic action-shooter, whose basic design is obviously influenced by Nintendo's Advance Wars series, seemed both shallow and clunky when we first laid eyes on it. There were signs of promise. The game's controls were workable and there seemed to be some flexibility to the way players could approach each battlefield. But who were these Kuju guys anyway, and why wasn't Nintendo developing the game internally?

Well, having played through the majority of the finalized game, we can safely answer both questions: Kuju is an extremely competent development studio and Nintendo did right in letting the studio run with it. Battalion Wars, what we're now calling the sleeper GameCube title of the season, has come together and all of our preformed analyses and all of our so-called process mean absolutely nothing. Not only is the game not broken. It's surprisingly well made and addictively entertaining.

It's War Out There
There's a big oversight with Battalion Wars: it's not Advance Wars. It formerly fell under the Advance Wars brand, but Nintendo decided to remove the moniker for fear that gamers would see it and conceive ill-formed expectations of what the game really is and isn't. For the record, it looks like an Advance Wars break-off. Like with Nintendo's handheld games, players take control of military units and command them through battlefields, devising strategic plans to take down the enemy and advance. The title employs a cartoony style that is also similar to the Advance Wars games right down to the cheerful female mission briefer. But there is one key difference and this is likely the area that Nintendo got itself hung up on: Battalion Wars is not -- and we repeat again, not -- a turn-based strategy game. In that regard, it is completely different from any Advance Wars title. Instead, players move their units around a 3D battlefield in real-time and can even take control of individual infantry, tanks and aircraft for some good old-fashioned shooting.

The game uses both stylized rendered sequences and real-time cut-scenes to tell a story that revolves around inevitable war. Players control the armies of the Western Frontier, led by the short and stocky, buzz-cutted General Herman. The Western Frontier, which is more or less America, is in a stalemate with the Tundran Territories, lead by Tzar Gorgi and Marshal Nova, but of whom just happen to speak with thick and comical Russian accents. When the Tundrans break the peace and decide to attack, gamers must take control of the Frontier Forces and go to war. Battalion Wars features a number of fun story twists as gamers advance through the title's 20 main missions. Later, the Xylvanians, a quasi-German vampire race of military fanatics, wage an attack against both armies and players must devise a way to deal with that, too.

Battalion Wars successfully marries the complicated gameplay mechanics of popular real-time strategy games with a simplified interface and controls. In that main way, the game is not dissimilar from the Pikmin franchise. Players are able to take control of military units and simultaneously give commands to AI squads, intuitively and effectively. The game does not use a dual-analog setup for movement, as readers might suspect. Rather, once players have assumed control of a gunman or vehicle, pressing forward/backward or left/right on the analog stick moves them in the respective directions. The camera stick is utilized for other purposes that we'll detail momentarily.

Gamers manually aim Metroid Prime style by holding down the R button and then tapping or holding A button to fire. Gunfire is handled differently depending upon the weapon or vehicle used, or the situation. For example, holding A button will cause bazooka units to charge their blasts so that they shoot farther, but gamers may not always want to do that. If an enemy is engaged nearby, it is better to tap the button to shoot off quick, short range projectiles. Meanwhile, the L button is used to lock-on to the nearest target and gamers can cycle through multiple enemies simply by repeatedly clicking it. Finally, the B button causes infantry to jump into the air. If the L button is held down and the B button pressed, soldiers will duck and roll. This is especially useful when locked onto a target as gamers can shoot an endless supply of bullets at foes and then simply roll out of the way when enemies return fire.