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More of the Same Good Stuff

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: August 24, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Bottom Line: If you liked the first two Advanced Wars titles, you'll like this one too. (if you hated the first two, don't bother.)

Advanced Wars Dual Strike is just a further tweak on the series. More new COs, more new missions, more new units. The biggest change is you can control the entire battle on the touch screen of your Nintendo DS. While this is cool, the units are small enough that occasionally youcan miss what you're trying to hit with the stylus. For those who get annoyed by this, you can always revert back to the tried and true D-Pad.

The other big change is the top screen is constantly giving you information about the battle. In later missions, it even extends to a separate battlefield, allowing you to use two COs at once.

In any event, this is a must own for fans of the series and fans of turn-based stragety. Real-Time Strategy fans and new players may or may not like the title. People who didn't like the first two won't find anything that different in this game, so they should probably steer clear.

FUN

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 3
Date: August 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This is one of the most fun games i have ever played i can't wait to try it with my friends
if you liked the other two games this is a great new version and has new features with the classic game stil intact this is a good start into the series and this makes a very intersting story and with cool unlocks this is ingeneral a brilliant game

Best DS game as of now!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: August 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

With all due respect to the fantastic puzzler Meteos, I have to say that in my opinion, this game is the best DS game available so far. Advance Wars: Dual Strike (AWDS) is a turn-based strategy game, which let you build, take control of, and manage different types of military units in order to win battles.
There are quite a few improvements over the previous two Advance War games (also very good). There are more Commanding Officers with more and new special abilities (the characters in charge of controlling your units, aka CO's). Also, the dual screen of the DS is utilized extremely well allowing you to fight two battles in two different fronts and/or giving you more detailed information about terrain,units, etc. My favorite improvement, which is more an improvement due to the use of the DS console than the game itself, is being able to move around the units with the stylus. This really eliminates a lot of the time spent in moving around the units and lets you concentrate more on the strategy involved in winning the battles. I'm sure there are many more improvements and features considering I've played only the campaign mode for two days. Overall, I find the game to be addictively fun and really offering a lot. I highly recommend this game!

Addictive as always

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: August 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Video games, unlike movies, tend to get better as more sequals come out. However, sometimes they lose the feel as spiffy new graphics trump the roots of the game. Advance Wars:DS not only is better than the preceding AW games (and several others that came before it only in Japan) but it still has the same old rules and feel of the game with plenty of additions to warrant a new game.

Pros
-More CO's with balance. (As you would expect)
-3D rendered maps... mountains can cover cities, and the viewing angle is no longer straight downward with cities at an angle.
-Additional strategy through the use of more CO powers and the new Dual Strike ability.
-More game styles. Have friends with the game, but can't stand the Risk-length games? Now you can battle in a multiplayer game style that feels like a cross between Advance Wars and Bomber Man. It may sound stupid, but it's short, sweet fun.
-Many more units. Did you hate how AW2 only had one new tank? Now there are about 8 additional units all with tactics.
-The Touchpad is soooo awesome with this game. Just tap to command.
-2 Fronts... fight a second front, in the sky or another land to make strategic victories.
-So many shiny zooming and flying window effects.

Cons
-Still no way to get past all that boring tutorial talk.
-Changed the old downloadable multiplayer game to the bomberman style game. No choice involved.
-Most of the music remained the same, only rendered slightly better.
-Beginning campaign is extraordinarily easy.

Overall, if you have a DS and like strategy or war games, buy this. It's well worth the purchase for when you have anywhere from 5 minutes to kill to an hour.

Fun Tactics

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: August 27, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game yesterday and I love it. Of course I'd researched and all before I just went and bought a new game, and my research paid off. I was just a little nervous that I wouldn't like it and that I wasted $35 since I had never played an advance wars game, but my worries were unfounded. This game is plain great. I played it for what must have been at least three hours straight and I only stopped when the car we were using parked at A&W. This is probably the best puzzle game I've ever played (trust me, I've played quite a few, as I'm thirteen and I started playing games at about 6), and I relish the dual strike moments, with that one girl shooting down three missiles before I switch to max and use my tanks right next to my enemies to blow them up. This is really fun, challenging but not exasperating, and addictive. On a final note, be warned: This game may take over your life for a while. It's a great game and anyone with a DS should buy it, cause there aren't many people who could hate this game. That's all.

Turn-Based Strategy is Good

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: August 29, 2005
Author: Amazon User

At first glance (~10 hours of play time over two days), this is about twice as much of an improvement over Advance Wars 2 as Advance Wars 2 was over Advance Wars.

To those that don't know what that means, some context: I'm a sucker for the turn-based strategy genre, and this is the only one to come out for years. So to me, this was worth buying a Nintendo DS for. If you're not sure if you'd like the game (or genre), you may want to skimp and just buy Advance Wars 2 for the Game Boy Advance first; it's a cheap purchase, and it'll serve much the same purpose.

But for some of us, "more of the same" is a good thing...

The first A+ game on the DS

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 6 / 6
Date: August 30, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Advance Wars wasn't just a great game, it was, in my opinion, the greatest game ever for the GBA so Duel Strike had a lot to live up to. It is the first game I really looked forward to on the DS. I imagined it being the perfect title for using the touch screen yet ironically I don't use the touch screen at all. The action takes place on the bottom screen while the information is displayed on the top which is exactly the opposite of what I had anticipated. The only thing this really does is eliminate the need to toggle between map and info. The graphics have been slightly upgraded including a more isometric view as well as occasional birds and clouds that float over the landscape. When a battle occurs the screen kind of swoops into the face-off using some fancy scaling.

The core game play remains the same but Duel Strike has a load of additions under the hood. First of all, CO's can gain skills through experience much like an RPG. There are ten levels of growth possible with the tenth giving a surprise. Duel Strike tracks every minutia of playing through an exhaustive charting system that includes things like wins/loses and minute details like how many troops have been joined. After meeting certain thresholds the player will be given a ribbon (up to 300) and possibly a rank upgrade. Oddly enough the designers chose to reward players for both good and bad play. You gain a ribbon after S-Ranking a certain number of battle maps but you also gain ribbons by A-Ranking, B-Ranking and so on. The point is there is a LOT to collect in the game so players will be busy for a long time. To the best of my knowledge the ranks and ribbons serve no purpose beyond bragging rights.

The beauty of Advance Wars is in its simplicity. It is a completely stripped down version of a strategy game but simplicity does not necessarily translate to easy. Rather than focusing on large scale resource management and hundreds of troops the player needs to concentrate on a precise, tight strategy. Every tank and every soldier counts. The game also sets up a wide variety of situations so players will need to be constantly coming up with new battle plans.

With Advance Wars the DS has finally matured into a full fledged system. As someone who bought the DS its first weekend on the market I can honestly say that I was quite concerned that the DS was turning into a major misfire. If you own a DS this is the first game that you REALLY need in your library.

Its fun but where are the graphical improvements

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 8
Date: August 30, 2005
Author: Amazon User

I played quite a bit of the first advance wars and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I never played the second one but I'm sure it was a great game, so when I heard that it was coming out for ds I was excited. The biggest turn off for me when it comes to handhelds is that the graphics look like crap. I find it very hard to get into games that look like a mediocre snes game. While I understood the challenges of making a game look good on the gameboy advance I really don't understand why they didn't do anything with the power of the ds. If I toss in super maro 64 on my ds it looks great and I was looking forward to many more games on the ds with the same great graphics but why is it that the two best games for the ds (meteos and advance wars) look as though they are snes games. why did they even bring out the ds if they aren't going to use its power? I'll agree with everyone that this is a good game and its cool that it takes advantage of the dual screens and the stylus but next time can that take advantage of the improved power of the ds. Is that really too much to ask.

Finally, a reason to buy a DS

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: September 02, 2005
Author: Amazon User

If you liked Advance Wars 1 and 2, and you don't own a DS and this game, you should stop reading this review RIGHT NOW and hit the order button, you have important work to do. With a credit card. Fans of the AW series, Super Conflict, and other such games, AW:DS is what you've been looking for. It's not revolutionary, but it's a worthy successor.

The stylus interface is both simple and natural. You'll give a few accidental commands on the (very forgiving) early maps of the campaign, but it's a quick learn. The developers made sure that every game mode can be played using only the stylus and the left-hand controls (though in the main game mode, you really just need the stylus).

If I were to critique one thing, it would be the campy interactions between the COs before and during battles. That being said, Advance Wars without campy dialogue would be sort of like Max Payne without overdramatic metaphors.

In short, if you like tactical simulations, this is your game.

If you liked the previous Advance Wars games, you'll like this one

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 33 / 39
Date: September 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Advance Wars: Dual Strike (2005.) The third game in the Advance Wars series.

INTRODUCTION:
When the Game Boy Advance was launched in 2001, a number of games were launched with the system, or released not long after the launch. Although most people did the rather obvious move and went with the Mario title, some gamers were fortunate enough to discover a sleeper hit called Advance Wars. The game was a strategy-style game all its own - easy to learn, but tough to master. Even I, a person who isn't too crazy about the real-time strategy genre, ended up loving this game. A sequel followed it, but sadly, even it didn't get this small series any needed recognition. And in 2005, a new game in this series was released for Nintendo's up-and-coming two-screen marvel, the DS. Read on for my review of Advance Wars: Dual Strike.

OVERVIEW:
Advance Wars: Dual Strike was released for the Nintendo DS in August of 2005. The game features strategy-style action, and can be played with one player, as well as in several multiplayer modes. The game has single-card and multi-card multiplayer options.

REVIEW:
I loved the first two Advance Wars games, and this game is very similar to the first two. That said, I love this one as well. For those of you not familiar with the series, essentially you control an army on an overhead map. Your army faces off against an enemy army. The objective of the game is to achieve victory by either destroying all of their units, or by capturing their home base. As battles progress, you can capture sub-bases, which add to your funding, which you can use to create more units. Units are created at factories and airports, which you can capture more of on the map. There are a ton of different units, land air and sea alike, and every unit has its strengths and weaknesses. For instance, a standard infantry unit won't stand a chance against tanks or other heavy vehicles, but it is one of the only types of units that can capture bases. Likewise, fighter planes can move very great distances and have good firepower, but they can only attack other air units. And leading your assault is your commanding officer (CO.) Every CO has a special ability no other has, so you can pick one that is catered to your preferred playing style. Players who have played the previous two Advance Wars games should pick this one up right away. The game also takes advantage of the DS hardware. All the action takes place on the bottom screen, which means you can touch the screen to set things up and make selections. I myself don't like getting fingerprints on the screen, so fortunately for me, the game gives the choice of using the D-Pad as well. But for those who can't get enough of the touch screen, the new features will be handy. Needless to say, another aspect of the DS hardware this game takes advantage of is the wireless multiplayer. You can do single-card and multi-card games, which will make the experience all the more appealing to DS owners. There is a storyline to the game itself, but it's nothing special, and besides, it's gameplay that counts. I have some complaints about the game, but nothing too serious. First of all is the concept of the dual-screen battles. For these fights, you must send units from your main battlefield to a second battlefield on the top screen. Units you send there can't come back, and you don't have control over the battle there - the computer does your fighting for you. These battles are more a nuisance than an innovation, but fortunately, they are few in number. My second and complaint is much more minor - the graphics look just like the Game Boy Advance games. The DS is a SIXTY-FOUR BIT SYSTEM. Why do game programmers never push system hardware to its limits, and instead opt for inferior styles? One problem this series has always had is its misleadingly-cute art style. Correcting that might have won more fans over to the series. The final complaint I have is that the game is essentially more of the same. If you didn't like the first two games, you're not going to like this one either. But if you DID like them, you'll LOVE this game. The DS doesn't have a whole lot of good games out yet, but what few it does are nothing short of excellent. Advance Wars: Dual Strike is solid proof of that claim's truth.

EDITION NOTES:
This game, at the time I write this review, was released not long ago. That said, it is still easy to find in stores. And that isn't likely to change anytime soon, either.

OVERALL:
Overall, I would have to say the Advance Wars series has impressed me once again. Any fans of this series will be doing themselves a real favor picking up this title. I give it my highest recommendation - five stars. Why can't every DS game be as good as this one?

SIDE NOTE:
Ignore all comments posted for this review. I don't approve of any of them.

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