Wii Review
By
Iun Hockley - 22nd November 2007 17:06
“War has never been so much fun!” Or in the case of BWii, “War has never been such a convoluted mess of good and bad ideas that gel together to make an above-average game that is a lot fun, but really not that brilliant.” And if you think that’s a mouthful, try saying it while playing the game at the same time.
Advance Wars has entered into near-legendary status in the minds of gamers who have played the series (and if you haven’t played it, track the games down now). Bringing chess-like strategy to handhelds with a twist of Command & Conquer was a feat that not many believed could be pulled off. Thanks to some skilled development and clever ideas, the series was a hit. Logically the games should come to the home consoles, and so they have.
However, instead of the turn-based battles of the handheld versions, developer Kuju decided to take the game into an action/strategy route, which was as bold as it was ill-advised. While the games maintain some of the more intelligent ideas of the handheld games, they lose most of the strategy in the process. In fact, the strategy never really gets much more complicated than a game of “Paper, Scissors, Stone”.
Placing you in a multitude of different nations and sovereign powers, the game is played from a third person perspective. At any time you can take control of any of your units individually to explore the battlefield or take on enemies in a lone-warrior style showdown. This aspect is quite good, with switching between units a short click of the A Button away. The ability to be directly involved in the battles in this fashion gives you a good feel of what is going on with your troops and how the battle is really progressing. Using the Wii mote as your cursor lets you aim, the B Button fires and the Z Trigger locks onto targets.
The third-person view can be adjusted to 3 different camera heights to allow for a better field of view, the highest point being an overhead view similar to the handheld series. Individual units react well to your commands, or at least how they are expected to: tanks are slow and cumbersome, recon vehicles are fast but easily knocked down, infantry are slow moving but offer quick turns and manoeuvrability. Gunships and planes are less successful, with the latter being particularly difficult to control. Most of these units respawn slowly provided you have access to the right site that produces them.
The biggest criticism of BWii is the limited strategy options at your disposal. You have five basic commands: wait, follow, guard, capture and attack. It is the manner in which your units follow these orders that is most frustrating. For example, switching to a rifle veteran puts you immediately in the shoes of an infantryman, so off you trot to deal with a troublesome bazooka emplacement. Suddenly you realise you forgot to tell your men to follow you, so you give them the follow command and along they come. You begin pounding the enemy with your rifle… but your men don’t. Or sometimes they do. Without a specific attack command your fellow troopers, ships, tanks and planes will not necessarily attack as well. Good if you don’t want to draw attention to yourself, but even then they may attack without orders, or hold fire when you clearly need support.
Each unit type has specific strengths and weaknesses: tanks are good for taking out other tanks and large groups of enemies. They are weak against bazooka veterans, so you had better back them up with assault troops or your tank will die fast. And if you do not take almost complete control over all your troops and armour, then you will quickly find your army overwhelmed. Riflemen will happily stand and get gunned down by a tank when given the order to attack a specific enemy, completely oblivious to the threat right behind them. Planes will try to fly through an avenue of anti-air veterans just to get to an intended target, and be downed before they even make it halfway.
While making the units vulnerable to certain attacks is laudable, the end result is contradictory to the more action-oriented style of play. Unless you have overwhelming numbers, careful unit management is critical to achieving a mission goal. And though it is simple to switch between units, to rely on them to make intelligent decisions is impossible.
Another big criticism is the ineffectiveness of certain weapons when attacking some types of enemies. While it makes sense that a flame unit cannot do much damage to tank, it does not make sense that a salvo from a gunship would totally miss a target directly in front of it. Many units can fire weapons at targets, but will frequently miss. Though it be unlikely that a machine gunner could down a warship, to have it not even be able to hit it most of the time is nothing short of astonishing. Explosives also deal splash damage inconsistently to their targets, with some infantry taking a direct hit from an artillery round but only shaving a fraction from their health.
Visually the game is a treat, but again an inconsistent treat, rather like a bag of sweets bought by grandma -for every delicious piece of eye-candy, there is a slice of visual carrot cake to spoil things. Explosions look good, the cut scenes are capably goofy and units have a lot of detail. Scenery often has jagged edges and the ground textures are ugly though, and the buildings are reasonably generic.
The voice-overs really make the game fun though, with some outrageously tongue-in-cheek performance from the army commanders. A-Qira of the Solar Empire (Japan) is hilarious with his over-pronunciation of “bazOOka!” and pronounces “R” as “L”. The Anglo Isles (Britain) are typically British in their mannerisms and body language, it’s this sort of wonderfully unabashed semi-racism that makes you smile, even though you know it’s wrong. Troops can sometimes be heard to utter little phrases in the heat of battle, and these are all quite giggle-worthy in their own way.
The story is well-defined, with a constant narrative throughout your battles and in the in-game movies bringing the whole thing to life. The story is nothing new, but it is a tale well-told by the main characters in their hilarious racial send-ups. The variety of nations available keeps the game fresh as the story rotates between each sovereign power, each telling a small but integral part of the narrative.
Multiplayer is great fun over the internet and is probably what will keep you coming back for as the main story is reasonably short. Lag-free and fun, the game becomes a lot more interesting when you are facing an opponent who knows to keep flame troopers well away from tanks instead of ending wave after wave in an ineffectual assault.
All things considered, the game could be a lot worse. There are many niggles and some large irritations, but all of these will not stop you enjoying the game. Overall, this series is rising on the home console rather than falling, but it’s still not a patch on the intelligence of its older and cleverer handheld brethren.
© Copyright by N-Europe
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