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Gearbox: The Wii U Will Get The Best-Looking Version Of Aliens: Colonial Marines Good news and bad news from the retail front. The recently released and uncharacteristically edgy Advance Wars: Days of Ruin is sold out at at least one Target store, which is a good thing for sales. The bad news? Target is suggesting to unsuspecting gamers—or God forbid, their parents, friends and loved ones—that an acceptable substitution for the game is the Game Boy Advance version of High School Musical. Proof that Target is run by sadists.
Reader William was there to capture the tragedy, for this we thank him.
In my impressions of the campaign mode of Advance Wars Days of Ruin I mention that there are a few new units that pop up in the game. Fortunately, Nintendo sent along these little reference cards for the units when they sent me the game. Take a gander. So far I find the bike the most useful, thought that’s probably because I tend to lean more on my infantry and artillery than planes and tanks. Hit the jump for a look at the anti-tank and duster units.
I spent way too much time playing Advance Wars: Day of Ruins over the weekend. The latest in the franchise, remains just as addictive as its predecessors. I was disappointed to find that the more detailed, grittier look found in the game’s cut scenes vanish when you drop into play.
Once you’re in the game, duking it out with a new slate of bad guys across a post apocalyptic wasteland, the game looks an awful lot like Advance Wars Double Strike. Fortunately you don’t have a whole lot of time to sit around marvelling at how the vehicles still look like Tonka trucks, because the game’s artificial intelligence ramps up quickly.
By level 14, in fact, I had hit the sort of wall that required me to play the conflict over, and over, and over again, getting so annoyed at my imaginary adversary at one point that me wife asked me who I was playing. (She walked off in disgust when she realised I’d been yelling at the DS and not a real person.)
In fact, some of the single player campaign battles almost feel like tactical brainteasers. These levels are constructed so tightly that I suspect there are actually only a few ways to win.
Nintendo have sent word that this Sunday (Jan 20), they’ll be holding a launch party for Advance Wars: Days of Ruin at the Nintendo World Store in NYC. It kicks off at 1pm and runs til 3pm. Worst case, you line up for a bit, you get a new Advance Wars. Best case, you’re one of the first 25 people in line and you get it for free! You know, for all the big AAA games that hit last year, I wasn’t half as excited about them as I am this. Above is my DS. At top, you can see it’s scarred, for life, by Advance Wars and it’s grids. At bottom, you can see why.
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There’s no hiding the fact that McWhetor loves the art style of Advance Wars: Days of Ruin. In fact just the other day I believe I overheard the two discussing plans to elope. Love of a game is a beautiful thing, even when narrated by the gravel-voiced pitchman in a television commercial. Sorry Mike, your secret is out. Better still it’s out in a sneak peek of a commercial that hasn’t even aired yet.
It’s official: I’m now 100% behind the new art direction. I’m not hating on the old style, I’ve just…grown to accept and love the new designs for what they are. So when you consider I was already 100% behind any and all further Advance Wars DS games, you can see I’m in a mathematically-impossible position of support for this game.
Advance Wars: Days Of Ruin? Maybe not. Just got a presser from Nintendo, and on its release schedule it’s got the title of the upcoming Advance Wars DS title listed instead as Advance Wars: Dark Conflict. Not that there was anything wrong with Days of Ruin, but Dark Conflict is a little snappier.
The visual design, I’m definitely coming around to. The little tanks are still cute, they’re just not as reliant on primary colours. I can live with that. But that music? Ill-advised! We’re hoping it’s just for the trailer, and is the work of some over-zealous marketing type at NoA, and not the work of Intelligent Systems.
Intelligent Systems has reinvented Advance Wars. They’re stripped it to the bone, giving it a mature bent that borders now on dark, brooding and violent. Gone are long-standing Commanding Officers Andy, Sami, Max, and Eagle. Gone are Orange Star and Blue Moon. Gone are a series of precocious teens and sassy officers in capri pants ordering thousands of units to their doom, ultimately ending in a root beer party commemorating the dead. Advance Wars: Days of Ruin is a post-apocalyptic war game that is expected to get a T-rating, so leave your soda at the door.
