Battalion Wars 2

"A worthy battle for your gaming dollars"

Battalion Wars, released in 2005 for the GameCube, was one of the system's biggest sleeper titles. And frankly, it's easy to see why. A spin-off of the Advance Wars games, the title combined intense, real-time shooting action with some surprisingly fun (and tough) strategy. Yes, there were some flaws, but it was overall a surprisingly good game and one that felt it didn't get all the attention it deserved. Well, gamers who missed out on the first now have a chance to redeem themselves, with the release of Battalion Wars II on the Nintendo Wii.

From the beginning, the story of Battalion Wars II takes a decidedly different path from its predecessor. Rather than employing a very Cold-War-gone-wrong-esque plot, Battalion Wars II's story is sci-fi-ish and futuristic. The game starts out with a nice little mini-tutorial level that occurs long before the events of the actual game. You'll play as the Staff-wielding grunt attempting to bring about the end of a ruthless, merciless foe. Afterwards, you're quickly transported to the present day -- in fact, about 30 years after the events of the original Battalion Wars. The Tundrans are up to their old tricks again, and this time their goal seems to be to obtain the legendary staff, capable of much destruction. Naturally, it's up to you to take care of the threat.

However, despite the somewhat guessable plot, the storytelling is surprisingly well-done. How? Well, rather than focusing on just one side of the story, as was done in the first Battalion Wars, the sequel is divided up into five different campaigns -- three modern ones and two flashbacks. Each campaign features a different aspect of the story, be that via different eras (hence, the flashbacks) or just from the point of view of different nations and different armies. While the story isn't going to win any awards for creativity, at least it's better done than the plot arc of the first game.

So, off you go, taking control of different armies and fighting your way through a bunch stages. To begin with, I'd like to comment that the mission variety is excellent -- it's not like your same old strategy game where the objective for each map is essentially the same from level to level. Naturally, the end goal is always the same, for every level -- defeat the enemy by capturing their headquarters -- the way in which you accomplish said goal varies drastically. For example, maybe you'll have to free some POWs, meet up with an allied army, or capture some facilities and reinforce your units before marching on the HQ. Anyway, it's a lot of fun and the stages are all very well imagined.

As mentioned already, Battalion Wars II is an expert mix of intense third-person combat and some tough-as-nails strategy aspects. However, don't take that at all to mean it's divided up into some action portions and some strategy portions; instead, the real fun of this game is to balance taking command of an individual soldier and fighting on the field while simultaneously directing the rest of the army. The shooting aspect of the game is rather straightforward and isn't really any different from other third person-shooters. Lock on with the Nunchuk's Z button, and fire with the B button. Unfortunately, there's some motion control implemented, which isn't as reliable as I'd like. Whip the Wii Remote up to jump, and strafing is achieved by holding a direction on the control stick while simultaneously twisting the Nunchuk in the same direction. It's too bad, but it really can't be avoided -- all the buttons on the remote are pretty much used up.

One slight problem I had with the controls of the shooting aspect of the game is that your cursor is moved entirely with the Wii remote pointer. It's pretty jumpy and often doesn't work well -- plus, it's pretty unnecessary because you're going to be locking on for all of your shots anyway -- anything that can be shot is also be locked on upon. This problem is emphasized even more during certain aspects in which you've got to perform specific actions with the Wii remote. For example, to capture a flag by yourself, just lock on, head toward it, and shake the Remote. All of a sudden, the camera will sometimes start spinning around -- why? Because when you shook the remote, you sent the cursor flying up off the top of the screen. These seem like little problems, but as you play more and more of the game, they become more and more pronounced.

The strategy aspect, however, is what really differentiates Battalion Wars II from the vast majority of other similar games on the market. The A button is the squad action button -- you use it to issue commands to the entire army, or just portions of it. If your army is in sentry mode, hit A to get them to follow you -- conversely, if they're following and you want them to stay behind, hit A and they'll do so. Additionally, the A button is used to direct soldiers at a particular enemy or object. Just lock on and hit the A button, and they'll go off to do your bidding. Additionally, you can micromanage between your many troops based on their type (more on that in just one second) by using the D-pad up at the top of the Wii remote. At the bottom of the screen is a line of icons, each representing a different unit type in your army. Move over with the D-pad to shuffle through the different types -- now, when you hit the A button, the order is issued only to the highlighted group. And for times when you need to micromanage your army down to the last individual soldier, you can hit up or down on the D-pad once a unit types is highlighted to select individual soldiers of that unit type and issue commands to them.

The sheer number of different unit types that you'll accrue throughout the course of the game is impressive. You'll start out small, with only a few basic infantry troops. However, with each mission, you'll obtain new types of units. In addition to infantry, there are also tanks, long-distance weapons, aircraft, and sea units, which were conspicuously absent from the original game. Each of them control uniquely and surprisingly responsively, and each of them have their own uses. Another huge strategy element that Kuju, the game's developer, decided to keep in Battalion Wars II is the idea that certain units would, obviously, have advantages and weaknesses against others. For example, tanks are excellent at taking out most infantry units, but they'll have to watch out for Bazooka Vets, who can easily take out tanks. It may not seem like much at first, but as you get more and more units, you've really got to keep track of strengths and weaknesses if you want to come out on top in a battle.

While fun, this gameplay mechanic is not without flaw. I've already detailed the slight issues with the shooting aspect of the game, but the strategy also suffers from a few problems. Easily the most noticeable one, and the only one that will really affect your experience with this game, is that it can sometimes be very difficult to get your soldiers to do exactly what you want them to do. The game doesn't stop or even slow down as you navigate the unit bar, and it can be tough to select the right unit type when you've got a huge army on your hands -- naturally, the problem gets even worse when you're trying to get a hold on an individual soldier. It would have been great for the game to stop when you're navigating units so that you could select them without worry that your entire army is going to momentarily have the crap bombed out of it by a fleet of enemy aircraft flying overhead.

A significant addition to the game is the inclusion of facilities (factories, ports, and airports) that are a staple of the handheld Advanced Wars games. These are captured just like a HQ would be, and once in your control will spew out reinforcements. It's a neat addition, but nothing that really affects game play for the better. However, one real problem that comes from this is that you're not given enough notice about which units are just reinforcements, and which are actually in your army. Let me explain: When all of a unit type die, their unit icon is taken down from the icon bar at the bottom of the screen. When they're being reinforced, they appear in the bar, just as if they were in your army. However, they could still be back at the reinforcement position, miles off, heading towards your army. It's infuriating when your army is wiped out because you directed some Anti-Air Vets at attacking aircraft -- and the anti-air soldiers are still on their way. It would have been great to just have a little symbol on the unit type if they're on their way to your army, so that problems like this don't happen unless they're genuinely your fault.

Also, it's worth it to mention that Battalion Wars II is neither a very tough nor a very long game. That's not to say that you're going to breeze through it without difficulty, but even newcomers to the series won't have much problem getting into the swing of things. The game does a fantastic job of easing you into the game mechanic and slowly presenting you with new units. Still, once the game has taught you about a unit, it assumes you've got it down and expects you to use your newfound knowledge. Each of the game's five campaigns are fairly short, but there's plenty of reason to spend time with the game. There's a ranking system for each level, which assigns you a letter grade based on your speed, technique, and power. If you achieve certain ranks on each of the game's levels, you'll unlock some nice little bonuses, including some awesome concept art and unit dossiers. So while you can play through the game in a weekend, there's plenty of reason to keep coming back.

In terms of both graphics and sound, Battalion Wars II does not fail to impress. The game looks significantly better than the GameCube prequel, which is really nice considering all the Wii games out there that sport GameCube graphics. Environments look incredible, lighting is awesome, and the game retains that weird sort of cheery feel that the first game had that is so uncharacteristic of any war game. The music is also quite well-done, and some of the random stuff that your soldiers spurt out is quite amusing. There's also plenty of voice acting in the game, which is pretty good.

Another fantastic aspect of the game is the well fleshed-out online multiplayer option. There are three different modes of play -- you can cooperate with somebody online on the same team, face off against an online competitor in an effort to get points by destroying units, or battle in a race to capture the most facilities. The games are pretty quick and the multiplayer is quite fun to just pick up and play, although Battalion Wars II is certainly not a title that you'd purchase solely for the online. Still, it's a great addition to the game and I'm quite happy that the developers took the extra time to really make the online multiplayer a lot of fun.

All in all, Battalion Wars II is a very solid Wii package. The improvements that it makes upon the original are significant, and the best are the addition of online multiplayer and the new units. However, there's still no ignoring the fact that this is a very similar game to the first Battalion Wars, so if you played that game, you've already got a very good idea of what Battalion Wars II has in store for you. Still, if you loved the original or if you let it pass you by, then Battalion Wars II would be a great game to pick up.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/14/08, Updated 01/15/08

Game Release: Battalion Wars 2 (US, 10/29/07)