Monday, November 10, 2008

Advance Wars: Days of Ruin

After sixteen days of bloody combat, Captain Brenner at last had the enemy base within his sights. It might take another thirty days of calculated attrition, but victory would be his. Alas, in the time that had already passed, public opinion back home, ever short-sighted, had turned against him. Bowing to the bleeding heart civvies' demand for immediate results or withdrawal, the weak-willed politicians, knowing nothing of war as they slept comfortably on their money, finally made the call to bring home the troops. With victory in his grasp, Brenner, the consummate soldier, obeying his orders, turned back and sent his men home with nothing to show for the losses they had already endured.

Prior to trying out the versus mode in Days of Ruin, I had never spent more than five minutes with the Advance Wars series. I had played and beaten Fire Emblem on the GBA, and, while I could respect its direction to an extent, its inflexible and unforgiving nature was really not my style. Even so, I considered myself to be pretty adept at turn-based strategy, and I was eager to see how my game might fare against another human.

Going into my match against a player of comparable skill and experience, I was looking forward to a heated contest of wits and strategy. Two hours of fruitless attrition later, it was clear that the end was still a long way off, so we decided to call it a draw and call it a day. While the experience was not without merit, a save feature was badly needed, as this is the sort of game where a single match lasts hours. Without the luxury of having such time set aside, the only realistic option would have been to have the CPU declare the victor after a certain number of turns, which I don't think would have satisfied anyone.

2 comments:

Sam Kahn said...

Try Advance Wars By Web. http://awbw.amarriner.com/

Czardoz said...

Maybe we'll try Dual Strike next time, eh? And we'll have to institute a rule like no more unit creation after 7 days. Or only capture-capable units after 10 days, or something. Or 5 days for making units, then 5 days off, then you can make units again.