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Advance Wars Dual Strike

War, huh! Yeah, what is it good for? Turn based strategy apparently. The award winning series returns for its third incarnation...

Story-wise the plot is reasonably straightforward “A few months after the war on Macro land (Cosmo land before that) Orange Star along with assistance from other nations managed to successfully drive back and defeat Sturms forces. War from the evil Black Hole army has now arisen in a new land. (Omega land) The combined forces of Orange Star, Green Earth, Yellow Comet and Blue Moon have formed the “Allied Nations” and have vowed to defeat the opposing evil in its new more sinister form.”

However initially simplistic the plot may seem, it doesn't merely set the scene and then rest on its laurels taking a back seat for the rest of the game, on the contrary it deepens with each mission, filling in blanks while creating more in the process only to be explained later on. CO’s (Counter-Operatives) grow with experience and their story lines intertwine all the while keeping you hooked and drawing you in.

It's the gameplay where the game brings out the big guns; this dual screened incarnation thankfully remains faithful to the flawless formula created by its predecessors. In fact, it's this faithfulness to the roots of the series which makes AW: DS more of a spiritual successor sequel rather than merely a carbon copy clone. Although the underlining principles have remained unchanged however, there have been a few subtle but noteworthy changes including some tweaks to the gameplay.

The main noticeable addition (as denoted by the prefix) is the “Dual Strike” feature. This new feature allows you to choose from a plethora of CO's (including some long serving commanders as well as some raw recruits) and swap between two different CO's mid battle in order to build up two meters simultaneously leading to a dual strike. For example; Use Grit's mastery of long range units to rain death from a distance, before switching to Max and taking an army of tanks in to finish the job next turn.

In the way of new units AW: DS doesn't disappoint, far from it in fact. New additions to the ever expanding armory include Pipe Runners which although being rather limited in movement makes up for it in firepower and range. Other units include Stealth Bombers which unlike regular bombers have the option of hiding like a Submarine; Last but by no means least by any stretch of the imagination is the formidable Mega tank, the name speaks for itself really, it's a tank and it's mega... oh and it can destroy virtually any existing ground based unit; but you knew that already.