courtesy of ign
We've been writing about games for so long that we have a process. It might not be a fair practice, but it is nevertheless the way we work. We can usually sum up whether a new title is going to be good or bad after we've played it for only a few minutes. Sometimes, all we need to do is look at it. We're not always right. Occasionally, a game starts off slow and gets better. Or sometimes an unpolished title is cleaned up the next time we see it. But for the most part, having invested hours upon hours into the end product and thoroughly tested our initial analyses, we find that our little system is pretty accurate.
Battalion Wars from developer Kuju Entertainment, which created the little-known action title Reign of Fire, made a poor first impression. Maybe it was the relentless barrage of noise and lights that is the Electronics Entertainment Expo. Or maybe it was just that we had Zelda on the brain. But the strategic action-shooter, whose basic design is obviously influenced by Nintendo's Advance Wars series, seemed both shallow and clunky when we first laid eyes on it. There were signs of promise. The game's controls were workable and there seemed to be some flexibility to the way players could approach each battlefield. But who were these Kuju guys anyway, and why wasn't Nintendo developing the game internally?
Well, having played through the majority of the finalized game, we can safely answer both questions: Kuju is an extremely competent development studio and Nintendo did right in letting the studio run with it. Battalion Wars, what we're now calling the sleeper GameCube title of the season, has come together and all of our preformed analyses and all of our so-called process mean absolutely nothing. Not only is the game not broken. It's surprisingly well made and addictively entertaining.
It's War Out There
There's a big oversight with Battalion Wars: it's not Advance Wars. It formerly fell under the Advance Wars brand, but Nintendo decided to remove the moniker for fear that gamers would see it and conceive ill-formed expectations of what the game really is and isn't. For the record, it looks like an Advance Wars break-off. Like with Nintendo's handheld games, players take control of military units and command them through battlefields, devising strategic plans to take down the enemy and advance. The title employs a cartoony style that is also similar to the Advance Wars games right down to the cheerful female mission briefer. But there is one key difference and this is likely the area that Nintendo got itself hung up on: Battalion Wars is not -- and we repeat again, not -- a turn-based strategy game. In that regard, it is completely different from any Advance Wars title. Instead, players move their units around a 3D battlefield in real-time and can even take control of individual infantry, tanks and aircraft for some good old-fashioned shooting.
The game uses both stylized rendered sequences and real-time cut-scenes to tell a story that revolves around inevitable war. Players control the armies of the Western Frontier, led by the short and stocky, buzz-cutted General Herman. The Western Frontier, which is more or less America, is in a stalemate with the Tundran Territories, lead by Tzar Gorgi and Marshal Nova, but of whom just happen to speak with thick and comical Russian accents. When the Tundrans break the peace and decide to attack, gamers must take control of the Frontier Forces and go to war. Battalion Wars features a number of fun story twists as gamers advance through the title's 20 main missions. Later, the Xylvanians, a quasi-German vampire race of military fanatics, wage an attack against both armies and players must devise a way to deal with that, too.
Battalion Wars successfully marries the complicated gameplay mechanics of popular real-time strategy games with a simplified interface and controls. In that main way, the game is not dissimilar from the Pikmin franchise. Players are able to take control of military units and simultaneously give commands to AI squads, intuitively and effectively. The game does not use a dual-analog setup for movement, as readers might suspect. Rather, once players have assumed control of a gunman or vehicle, pressing forward/backward or left/right on the analog stick moves them in the respective directions. The camera stick is utilized for other purposes that we'll detail momentarily.
Gamers manually aim Metroid Prime style by holding down the R button and then tapping or holding A button to fire. Gunfire is handled differently depending upon the weapon or vehicle used, or the situation. For example, holding A button will cause bazooka units to charge their blasts so that they shoot farther, but gamers may not always want to do that. If an enemy is engaged nearby, it is better to tap the button to shoot off quick, short range projectiles. Meanwhile, the L button is used to lock-on to the nearest target and gamers can cycle through multiple enemies simply by repeatedly clicking it. Finally, the B button causes infantry to jump into the air. If the L button is held down and the B button pressed, soldiers will duck and roll. This is especially useful when locked onto a target as gamers can shoot an endless supply of bullets at foes and then simply roll out of the way when enemies return fire.
Gamers use the camera stick for full control over their units and there is a lot of flexibility to the system despite its minimalist design. Pressing the camera stick in any direction activates at the bottom of the play screen a line of icons for each unit. The icons are different during each mission as players do not retain their squads from level to level. Rather, regardless of what happened in the previous stage, when gamers begin a new mission they will start with different units and vehicles that directly relate to the challenges ahead. The icon display shows what type of units are available and how many of each are still functioning. So, if there are six riflemen, the number "6" will be displayed below the riflemen icon. If one of a gamer's two tanks is blown up, the number will drop from "2" to "1." Players scroll between the icons by tapping left or right on the camera stick and then give individual commands to units. Or, they issue commands to the entire squad by scrolling to a star icon located next to the others.
The icon system works hand-in-hand with the command process. Gamers hit the X button to tell a unit or entire squad to follow. They hit it again to tell them to go into sentry mode, which means that they'll stay where they are, but will defend their position from any attackers. Meanwhile, players can order their battalion to attack specific threats by locking onto targets with the L button and then pressing the Y button. The process is extremely intuitive and even more satisfying. If an enemy bomber flies overhead, players can simply look up, lock-on to it, hit Y, and their entire squad will shoot at the thing, blowing it up. It's especially entertaining if gamers have anti-aircraft soldiers in their squad because they'll level a bevy of missiles at the planes.
The icon system offers further flexibility still. Using the camera stick, gamers can assign individual men to tackle specific tasks. Players merely scroll over to the unit type and press up on the camera stick, where they can micromanage single soldiers. This command is useful when gamers want to arm several nearby sentry guns with different grunts.
Players can manually take control of any unit by highlighting it and pressing the Z button. Or by locking onto it and pressing the Z button.
Units and Strategy
Each of Battalion Wars 20 missions features different objectives. In one, players may have to defend a post from the enemy. In another, they might have to disable a series of anti-aircraft units and then fly bombers over the terrain, knocking out tanks. While the first couple of levels in the game can be tackled largely without much strategizing, later missions require that players use their heads and their resources. Those resources include foot soldiers armed with rifles, bazookas, flamethrowers, machine guns, mortars, rocket launchers and anti-aircraft missiles launchers. They also include vehicles such as pilot jeeps, tanks, helicopters, airborne gunships, fighter jets and yes, even battle stations.
There is a balance to the system and players will need to acquaint themselves with it if they are to have any chance of surviving. A gunship is a powerful ally that can take down entire battle stations, but it's as good as useless against anti-aircraft soldiers. A squad armed with flamethrowers, meanwhile, will easily burn alive any ack-acks. A bomber can quickly explode tanks, but it's a sitting duck against gunships. There's a lot of fun to be had in devising battle plans and figuring out ways to advance.
Kuju has done an amazing job of bringing different characteristics and physics to each vehicle in the game. Driving a jeep through a battlefield feels much more responsive, speedy and bouncy than piloting a slow-treading tank. Gamers can use some vehicles to catch air, jumping bridges and bumps in the road. The physics oftentimes feel reminiscent of the Warthog in Halo -- smooth, reactive, and believable, if exaggerated. Merely driving around is therefore entertaining. Oppositely, bombers feel and move like the giant beasts they are, taking forever to turn sluggishly turn around in the air.
Style
The game dishes out huge, epic battlefields filled with dozens of characters on-screen, a truckload of particle explosions and smoke, lighting effects and more. There's even grass and other vegetation in most of the hilly, rounded levels. Characters are stylistically exaggerated to look almost cartoony despite the fact that they are engaging in ruthless war, and somehow the presentation works -- it's actually a refreshing change from the non-stop supply of gritty war games on the market. There are three main world types, including forest levels, desert stages and eventually, Xylvania, a mixture of industrial German design, gothic architecture and toxic wastelands. The game runs for the most part at 30 frames per second and supports both progressive scan and 16x9 widescreen modes.
Multiplayer? Nope
Certainly the biggest disappointment with Battalion Wars is that it doesn't have any multiplayer mode whatsoever, which is almost inconceivable given that it was originally designed as an Advance Wars spin-off. There's no getting around that oversight and as a result fans expecting an Advance Wars for the consoles will undoubtedly be in for a rude awakening. We can only hope that future sequels for Revolution will enable online competitions.
Outlook
Battalion Wars is at its very best when everything comes together, and thankfully it often does. Running through the huge worlds, shooting at enemies and simultaneously issuing commands to soldiers and vehicle units feels great and is unexpectedly addictive. This is partly true because the controls are intuitive -- merely moving infantry units around is fun. But there's a lot more to it. The units and vehicles are so varied. Each gunman has his purpose just as each tank and gunship has theirs. The vehicle physics in the game are well done, if exaggerated. And there is a strong strategic element to the experience: gamers who don't think, plan attacks and manage their units will not win. For all the reasons above and more, Battalion Wars is shaping up to be one hell of a surprise and a worthy branch-out from its Advance Wars beginnings.
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courtesy of 1up
http://gamecube.1up.com/do/download?cId=3140678
Nintendo knows a thing or two about war, and now the publisher of the critically-acclaimed Advance Wars series is adding a page to the real-time tactical genre with the upcoming Battalion Wars for GameCube. But while war may be hell, that doesn't mean war games have to be. A distinct change of pace from the usual grease-painted camo-jockey combat sims that flood the market, Battalion Wars brings the excitement of team-based combat, squad-leader dynamics and vehicular carnage in one tidy package on the GameCube. To gain some insights into how Nintendo gets their war on, we talked to Brett Gow, executive producer and development manager at Nintendo of America, about life, love and the pursuit of Battalion Wars. Here's what he had to say.
1UP: This game originally started out as Advance Wars: Under Fire. It shares the same logo font as Advance Wars, and retains some elements of the "Wars" branding, so why change the title? Was this to distance the game from the "Advance" brand, or was it for an altogether different reason? And is the game at this point related at all to Advance Wars anymore?
BG: I guess in the sense of the type of game it is, but in terms of it being a part of that family, it's more of an offshoot; it's a separate franchise. There's no real crossover in terms of any of the characters or a real sense of continuity in the storyline or anything like that.
1UP: Was this an internal decision out of the U.S. in how you wanted to create your own brand, or was this Japan saying they wanted to keep it separate?
BG: I think it was more mutual; it wasn't anything from the U.S. saying 'we wanted to do this and keep it separate.' The thing we didn't want to do was we didn't want to confuse the two brands, and we didn't want to really mislead the fans of Advance Wars into believing this is the same type of game. Although it has a strategy element to it, it's not the same exact kind of game -- we just wanted to make sure people understood that.
1UP: So how did the game concept come about? Did Kuju (the developer) come to you with the idea? Or did you approach them about making this type of game?
BG: They actually had a demo that they had worked on that had a similar type of gameplay, and we thought it was actually pretty compelling.
1UP: How different was the original from where it is now? Where does the Nintendo touch come in?
BG: Well, we really work closely with these guys. And one of Nintendo's strengths is to really try work with people from a creative standpoint, and not dictate a lot. So it's a real creative process; you don't really want to shove something down somebody's throat. Their demo had a lot of similarities, and over the course of time and the course of development, going through focus testing and play balancing and going through feedback from all sides, there were a lot of refinements and a lot of improvements in making the control system probably a little more user-friendly.
1UP: Was the aesthetic designed to be as audience-friendly as possible from the get-go? It's a very cute game, versus Kuju's recent games, like Reign of Fire.
BG: The original vision in terms of style and trying to go for a real sense and purpose of character -- a lot of that came from them originally. So it wasn't like we asked them to make major changes, to make this something that people would deem as more suited to a Nintendo audience. A lot of that style and vision initially came from them. And where that style really adds a sense of character and individuality, when you get into the game, the gameplay's not cute.
1UP: Right. Yeah, you're shooting people. [laughs]
BG: Well you're shooting people, but you get a true sense of power. You get a lot of different weapon types and a lot of vehicles. I mean it's not cute.
1UP: It's fun when you lock on to a single target, and send an entire squad of bazooka guys to go blow 'em up.
BG: Or you get your flamethrower guys to go cook 'em. You know, I really hate to use the word 'cute.' We really tried to go for something unique and stylized in terms of how it's going to stand out in the marketplace.
1UP: It definitely takes the edge off, and separates it from overly serious games like Ghost Recon or hardcore combat sims.
BG: From a style standpoint, we tried to remain true throughout the entire course of the game, from how the story supports that stylized kind of feel, to just the graphic presentation, to the level of detail that you see. Like the troops that run around with the packs -- you can see their canteens and stuff bobble around back and forth in the back. So we just tried to remain consistent and maintain that sense of style and continuity throughout.
1UP: Yeah, the soldiers are definitely jiggly.
BG: [laughs]
1UP: As far as the vehicles are concerned, it seems as if you guys picked a Warthog/Halo type of feel to the driving mechanic. Was there any conscious decision behind that as opposed to making this handle like a racing game?
BG: You don't want it to handle like a racing game, because that's not really our focus. We're not trying to take anything from another game, and there [are] multiple vehicles in the game. The initial light recon vehicle that you first see in Mission 4 differs from the heavier vehicles that you get later on, that have a lot more weight. They have different purposes as well. The light recon is probably something that's a little more tactical in how you get around, where some of the other vehicles [are used] for military combat.
1UP: The game has changed a lot since we played it at E3. What's been the hardest thing to get right since you started development of it?
BG: I think that first and foremost, Nintendo has focused on the pick up and play value. That can be tricky in that not only do you have the ability to jump in and out and play every single one of those characters you're controlling, including those vehicles, but you have to have the ability to control and command groups of troops at the same time. [It's about] really trying to come up with the control bar scheme where it's a little more simplified, and at the same time working with the level design and the gameflow breakdown, so it constantly reinforces to the player what they're supposed to do and teaches them that control as needed.
[continued] Now we try to spoon-feed those types of experiences and examples throughout so that at the end of the game, when you really need to be a professional at those, you've spent time learning that and it becomes second nature. So in the sense of how it's changed, just really trying to focus on the gameplay, and the control sense in trying to simplify that but also make it useful. And the other sense is overall play balancing. It's the perfect blend of a strategy and an action game. And it's trying to come up with the balance of where those two kind of meet in the middle, and not try to become something that isn't more action or the other. So it's trying to come up with the perfect blend.
1UP: Now, the game is single-player only, and I'm sure the lack of multiplayer has raised some questions. What were the discussions like regarding whether to include some form of mutliplayer?
BG: Unfortunately it didn't happen in this one. So there's been a ton of questions about that, and there are certain trains of thought that we have about that. So we'll just kinda leave it at that.
1UP: Now you said "this one." So do you see a future for this series on the Revolution, or even on the Nintendo DS?
BG: Um, obviously we're talking about it. This is a new franchise, and with any new franchise you always want to see what the future holds for that. So right now there are discussions about a number of different options, but nothing's been finalized.
1UP: Is it one of those things that pretty much comes down to how it sells and how people react to it?
BG: I don't think it's going to come down to a sales perspective. I don't think Nintendo looks at the quality of a game based off of sales. Again, there's a number of things that we're thinking about, but nothing I can comment on right now.
1UP: Kuju's based in the U.K., so where did the majority of the plot, script and localization take place? Because the script doesn't sound very British; it sounds pretty gung-ho Americanized.
BG: You know, initial drafts of the script came from them, [and] there was probably a little bit of tweaking from our side and going back and forth, but most of that came from them. And the recording was done out of the U.K. as well.
1UP: Was it really? American actors living in England?
BG: I didn't meet any of the actors, but I'm fairly positive that they actually live over there.
1UP: It seems like it's easier to imitate an American accent rather than the other way around. Like you'd never know Nicole Kidman is Australian listening to her speak in her movies.
BG: Yeah, or you got Charlize Theron, who's from South Africa, but I was going to say the same thing. I think it's easier to imitate the American accent rather than an English accent.
1UP: Please explain what's going to keep people coming back and playing the game after they've finished it.
BG: You get a grading at the end of each level, and there are bonus missions that are opened up. There are four bonus missions that open up based on the gradings you get. So it's a lot of opening that stuff up, and it's also going through and trying to perfect your score. Your score in terms of trying not to lose troops and try to get through it.
1UP: Yeah, we've run into a couple of missions where all of our dudes have gotten blown away.
BG: And the other side of that from a replay standpoint is, although the game is linear in level one, level two, each one of the missions itself -- the objectives are completely different. We try to keep that variety in there, but we left the level of freedom in terms of how you can approach the mission. There's no one way to do it. There are times when you're going to want to Rambo your way through it, and use a lot of force, and that might not work. So it's totally open ended in terms of gameplay approach and how the user wants to play it, and they can fit it to their liking.
1UP: Later in the game, the missions get really challenging. Expert troop management is required amidst the chaos and multi-tiered mission objectives. While the aesthetic is geared to all audiences, it can take a pretty hardcore gamer to solve the endgame. Would you say advance players need only apply?
BG: I don't know if it's going to take an advanced player, but it's definitely going to take someone who's going to use tactics and use some of the strategy in how you can man your troops to how you dictate your approach in terms of some of those missions. It's a challenging game. You could say 20 levels is fairly short, but we tried to make a game that had a lot of variety but wasn't something that you're gonna sit down and beat in five hours.
1UP: Do you play through purely as the allied side through the whole game, or do you ever switch sides to see the game through different perspectives?
BG: Um, let's just say there may be some things like that in there, and I don't want to give away too much. Some of the bonus missions and that sort of thing.
1UP: Who would you say is your favorite character in the game and why?
BG: Well, I like General Herman, because he's the short little fireplug of a guy with a real attitude...
1UP: And a big neck.
BG: ...and the big neck. [laughs] He's like four feet...he's four-by-four basically. He's just got that real military, roughneck kind of attitude.
1UP: Yeah, he's a classic military hardass.
BG: I like Kaiser Vlad too. He's the main bad guy.
1UP: Anything important we might have missed?
BG: Nah, you know, you've played the game. I think the strength of the game is the variety in terms of the mission structures, but also as you're going through this experience you're constantly spoon-fed new experiences and abilities in the different weapons and different characters and different vehicles. Throughout the course of the game, by the time you get towards the end you've been through war itself. It's a unique kind of gameplay experience; it allows the player to take on each one of those and jump in and have fun.
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I'm already getting hyped.
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