BWii: Battalion Wars 2

Written by Chris Reiter  on October 12, 2006

First Impressions: You know what they say about first impressions, don't you? Proceed to a second if you blow the first one.

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For Nintendo's handheld strategy series Advance Wars, it's proven itself to rank amongst the top titles on the Game Boy Advance and, just last year, the DS. 2005 also met with the release of the first semi-related console-based entry in the Advance Wars formula on the GameCube, going by the name Battalion Wars. Receiving mixed reviews, Nintendo still thinks there's room left for another shot in the franchise with next year's sequel, Battalion Wars 2, coming to the Wii.

War is brewing, and someone from the outside is doing it purposefully to make someone on the inside pose as the head chef. Commander Pierce and Colonel Windsor of the Anglo Isles are tricked into thinking that the Solar Empire is constructing a super weapon. If they listened to their wives, they'd tell them to mow the lawn. But there ain't no wives here, just lives to be squashed, and crushed they will be as a preemptive attack is launched on Coral Atolls. Either you'll fight and win, or fight and die.

Keeping with the real-time strategy element of the original, Battalion Wars 2 is as you'd expect: a game about commanding ground, air, and naval units. Orchestrating the defeat of enemy soldiers with standard army men or inside the likes of tanks, fighter helicopters, and battleships is just part of what's waiting ahead. Battalion Wars 2 will improve over its predecessor through establishing multiplayer options for a first. Out of three main multiplayer modes, players can pick from Assault (one player defends a base and the other attacks), Skirmish (both players strategically plot out their offensive and defensive positions), and Co-op (two players team up to take on an enemy). An approach to Capture the Flag will also be taken, though it's unknown which shape any of these configurations will be playable whether online or off.

Rolling your ground units around and drilling bullets in others, Battalion Wars 2 is most surprisingly one of the few Wii games coming along you'll find some appreciation for in its artistic style. Its makers, Kuju Entertainment, are driving forward from their GameCube title and slapping the second with larger characters and overall more polished environments. Battalion Wars 2 still kind of looks like a GameCube game, but with its futuristic units based in jungle and mountain terrain, the game looks to separate itself as something you might enjoy watching.