"War has never been so fun"

Chalk up another one for the Game Boy Advance. It might seem kinda kidish to the casual gamer, but once you give it a shoot, it may just turn out to be a fun, highly addictive game.

Gameplay - 9
Being that this is a strategy game, during game play, your troops, the enemies, everything is presented in a grid. Your looking down at the battlefield, commanding your troops as if they were in a giant chess game. Not much strategy involved though, you’re only objective is to win. Think of it like Command and Conquer mixed with Ogre Tactics. You got your troops, a goal to accomplish, and various weapons to help you achieve that goal. Despite what you may think, it’s fun and addicting. I guess the one thing I would’ve done differently is put more strategy into this game. Like maybe choosing troops, selecting weapons, preparing them, that sort of thing.

The controls on this game are perfect. Rest assured that if you play this game, you’ll get the knack of the control scheme right away. As you probably well know, the Game Boy Advance only has four buttons to contend with. The A button is to advance in the menu of options, and the B button is to go back. The left shoulder button is to shuffle through your available troops (the ones that are still awaiting orders) and the right shoulder button is to display status on the highlighted troop or terrain.

The heart and soul of this game is a mode called “field training”. Field training starts out with you having to rather certain goals. Goals like you having to defeat you adversary throughout a couple of stages. At the end of each stage, you will be graded in a letter grade fashion depending on how you’ve done. And once you’ve completed all your field training objectives is where this game really becomes fun. After field training, you get to look forward to campaign, war room, stat and design maps modes. Campaign mode is pretty much like field training except that you have allies during battles helping you. War room mode is where you can sharpen your battle skills by playing solo missions. Stats mode is just that. Here you’ll be able to see your battle statistics such as how many battles you’ve won, how many you lost. And finally, map design mode is a real treat. Here you’ll be able to design your own maps, place troops, and just have fun.

And, what would any game be without a multiplayer mode. This game supports up to 4 players whether they have the Advance Wars gamepak or not. When setting up a multiplayer game, there are certain options you can customize such as whether or not to have teams, the weather, amount of starting funds (to buy troops, weapons and so on), game length (in turns), Winning conditions and so on. There are two different styles here, there is the link mode in which you get up to 4 GBA units and hook them all together. And there is the plain VS mode where you set it up for how ever many players (up to 4) will be participating and you simply pass the GBA when it comes to the next players turn.

I also love that fact that you can save anywhere, such as in the middle of a long, drawn-out battle or during a multiplayer game. It’s such a little feature that goes a long way.

Graphics - 9
These are very good graphics for a portable. During battles, your guys are represented by the usual sprites. But commence fire on the enemy and the screen goes to a scene with your solders and the enemy troops battling it out. This game also has excellent animation whether it be the in-battle feuding or the menu transitions. Ever little aspect of this game is well-done.

Sound - 8
The background track is great and really emphasizes the fact that this is a war game. The sound effects are equally as fitting and sound authentic enough. The machine gun fire, the sound of bazookas and missiles really enhance this games main theme of war. Keep in mind that Advance wars and any other game for a portable isn’t designed for a Dolby Digital 5.1 Sound System, so don’t get your standards up too high.

Replay - 10
This is one of those games that will hook you for at least a month. Them one day you feel like a change, decide to plug in this game then get hooked for another month (or two). Come on, we’ve all been there. One thing that really adds to the replay of this game is the versus modes. There are two kinds, you versus the computer and you versus up to fours players (through the link cables or GBA passing).

Overall – 9
We've all heard of the ''sleeper'' hits, and for the GBA, this is one of them. If you love strategy games or just the occasional war game, pick this one up for the Game Boy Advance.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/01/01, Updated 07/31/02