LogFAQs > #949928271

#74 Advance Wars: Dual Strike (DS, 2005)


There's something about a colorful game about war where a group of nonchalant, low-key sociopaths don't take things seriously as they sacrifice countless lives and shrug if things don't work out in their favor that just makes me grin. I'm not a sociopath, but the whole situation is played off as so goofy and ridiculous that I can't help it.

The Advance Wars series is a pretty standard TBS. You have a home base, factories to build units, neutral and enemy bases that you can capture, and multiple victory scenarios. Units have their own strengths and weaknesses that are more/less effective and more/less susceptible to other types of units. Terrain differences affect combat in predictable ways, and you get the picture. Intelligent systems does a good job at map design and scenario creation to keep things interesting. As much as I like the previous two Advance Wars, they weren't in consideration for my list. Dual Strike though goes bigger and bolder and just adds a ton to the series.

Each Commanding officer has a few unique moves at their disposal once a meter you fill through normal play is full. In Dual Strike, you command multiple COs at once and can use a combination power specific to that pairing. Some of these can be downright filthy, and sure that means the game has balance issues, but I don't play AW for fair fights. The game also utilized the dual screen by having some missions fight on multiple fronts that can easily be switched at any time. They also added plenty of new ground, air, and naval units, new modes including an incredible real-time one simply called Combat, and made an already robust multiplayer experience even better.

The amount of content in the game is obscene. Not everything may be to your liking, but there's just so much there that it can be overwhelming in a good way.

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KCF can't actually be a real person but he is - greengravy
If you smell what the rock is cooking he's cooking crap - ertyu