Advance Wars: Days of Ruin

THE BAD:
Some of the characters still have a childish feel, campaign difficulty seems a little unbalanced, no way to adjust the difficulty level of enemy AI in skirmish matches, WIFI mode has problems

SUMMARY:
Though each of the games in the Advances Wars series has been high in quality and full of replay value, Advance Wars: Days of Ruin is quite possibly the best in the series yet. There are, of course, several reasons for this so first I'll start with the character design.

One of the things that always kept me a little distant from the previous Advance Wars games is the cartoon-like style of the characters. Needless to say, while I enjoyed the games, I always wished that they would "darken" the characters, and now they have - for the most part. In general, the characters have a more serious and realistic style to them, but there are still a few of the characters that seem a bit too childish to be in a war game (one, for example, is a little girl with a teddy bear). Also, one should note that the game's graphics in general are better than those of it's predecessors.

But enough about the graphics. Like it's predecessors, Days of Ruin has a substantial single player campaign, though this game takes place in an entirely different world than the other games (which is a good thing, as the whole "Everyone vs. the Black Hole Army"� scenario was getting a little old). The campaign follows a battalion of the Rubinelle forces as they attempt to restore order to a world devastated by a meteor shower. They first fight simple raiders who prey on the survivors, then an officer with a Napoleon complex bent on world domination, and eventually a Mengele-esque scientist with an army of clones at his disposal. As a whole, the plot, while needing improvement in a few small places, is superior to those of the game"s predecessors (especially that of Advance Wars: Dual Strike). One reason for such is that characters actually die. But don't expect anything too original from this game plotwise; just a standard good vs. evil plot.

Where the game really scores is in its gameplay, which is discussed now. The main change in the gameplay is a reduction in the influence that the selected CO has over gameplay. The game now has the player attach their CO to individual units, which creates an area of effect that applies the CO's special abilities to the unit and those units surrounding it. Gone are the dual CO powers and two unit moves per turn that came with Dual Strike. Now officers and powers have a much subtler effect on gameplay than they did in previous games. My opinion is that this is for the better, as I think that victory should be based more on clever strategy than pushing some magic "CO power"� button.

Other changes in gameplay include the removal of some old units, the addition of new units and the revamping of some of the old units, as well as other aspects of gameplay, such as terrain types . While I can't go into all the detail here, as a whole these aspects make the game, particularly naval combat, much more enjoyable than it's predecessors.

Now for the game's few downsides. I found the campaign's difficulty to be a little unbalanced. Up to mission 14 for example was easy, then came mission 14 itself which was quite challenging. The game also offers no way to adjust the level of computer controlled opponents' difficulty in skirmish matches. You can choose the "style"� of your opponents (e.g. whether they attack aggressively, defend, etc.), but not the overall difficulty. It's also worth pointing out that you can't set the battle style for individual AI opponents in matches with more than two players; you pick one style which applies to all AI opponents.

As for the WIFI mode, it's great that you can play WIFI battles and trade maps with just a copy of the game and a wireless router, but they certainly could have polished it up more. You can only play random maps under randomly assigned circumstances. This makes choosing a CO who's good for the current battle a matter of luck, as you don't get to see what the map is until you've chosen a CO. For example, I might choose a CO who's good with air units only to find that the map doesn't contain air units. Other things such as fog of war and preset weather conditions are also randomly assigned, which can lead to frustration. Being able to upload and download maps is also nice, but you can only upload maps of a particular size. On the whole the WIFI mode is a nice bonus, but offers limited satisfaction.

But these few flaws aside, Advance Wars: Days of Ruin is one of the better DS games out there and certainly the best in the series.

THE BAD:
Ehh...besides the new graphics, they can sometimes look cheesy. The close ups on the artillery's look pixelated and when the missiles hit the target, the picture looks too real and the pixel attacks kinda suck. Not too much though, overall great.
Whats wrong with Wi-Fi? You have to keep track of your own record? No automatic win/loose feature you can just look at?
Sometimes there are some non-needed battles after a cut scene.

SUMMARY:
One of the best games that you can get, honestly. The other Advance wars games don't come close to this one, don't mind me wrong though... those were great. Although it may seem that I'm giving it much praise, there are a flaws in the game that are quite noticeable.

Graphics
Score: 8/10
Reason: The much needed update into today's graphics have arrived. Although sometimes they look too real and they seem to be pixely, that is a minor setback from this game. The whole zoom-in mode is an awesome feature. The zoom in mode makes the graphics look totally bad-ass. There is also a zoom out if you tap on the R button you can get back to the old days.

Story
Score: 9/10
Reason: Unbelievably good story line here, It turns a whole new side in Advance Wars. The deathish type scenes and the dark story makes it a whole new ride for AW. It may be a surprise to you who only played 1 or 2 of the games but the game is worth it. Some of the battles are challenging, which most of us wanted. The others were just too easy until the last missions of all of them, there are some new things to do and harder missions that make for more playing time.


Music
Score: 7/10
Reason: Eh, the beginning of the main screen always plays the same music over and over again. Although the selection is much wider now, it gets repetitive but nonetheless, much better then before. The CO themes fit nicely and they come in at the right time.
The only set back is-the music is all unlocked at the end therefor, you don't listen to it all while you are playing.

Total: 24/30
This game is absolutely worth it. This game has what it didn't have, twice as good. Facial expressions, enhanced graphics, long story mode, and more units.
And the best part is Wi-Fi, go on and beat the crap out of all the others all around the world.