Battalion 1.5 with internet!

So what do you get with bad voice acting, online play, bland graphics, simple military strategy, and intuitive gameplay? How about a mediocre game experience due to the fact it seems like I have been here and done that.

Facts

North American Release – October 29, 2007
Single and Online Multi player with and without friend codes
Published by Nintendo
ESRB rating of T (why? There is no blood and it looks like Tom and Jerry graphics)
3rd Person strategy shooter. (emphasis on shooter than strategy)

With today’s high cost to produce new gaming titles, sequels have become more common. Nintendo is not new to producing sequels that don’t push graphics but only tweak the mechanics. Generally, most single player games get the face lift by getting multi player and throwing in a couple extras. Battalion Wars 2 falls into this cycle and will leave most gamers wanting more.

Now what exactly makes a good gaming experience? Video games come in many varieties like ice cream. Not all flavors will appeal to the general audience but when a company sees that a certain title sells they will continue to re-introduce an older game with additions to it. Most are graphical additions but in the Nintendo Wii’s case this is not so. Nintendo Wii doesn’t stress graphics to sell its products but rests heavily on franchises. Battalion Wars had a decent following as it combined several genres so it would be matter of time before Nintendo brought it back from the Gamecube to the Wii. Some of the downfalls of having a Wii are that companies tend to only tweak the game engine and this is apparent in this sequel. The graphics look better only because it’s now in 480p. The general look and feel looks identical to the first Battalion Wars. Fans looking for a major upgrade in the visual department will be disappointed.

Having only limited action with the first Battalion Wars, the introduction of the Wii remote was intriguing. The Wii also has a shortage of online compatible games and Battalion Wars 2 actually has a full online component and not just leader boards.

Controls

The general point and click Wii style of gameplay still applies. The full setup using the remote and nunchuk are required to play. The remote does the majority of controls with aiming, firing, controlling different units, and issuing commands. The nunchuk is used to move, barrel roll, jump, change camera depth, and lock on to targets. The combination of the two controllers comes very naturally and all the motions are easily captured. It’s basically as easy as pointing at an object and pressing the trigger to fire. What sets this apart from other shooters is the ability to lock in and strafe relative to the target. Other games similar to this are Zelda. This helps in a way but also detracts from it being a strict shooter. If you’re locked on a target and strafing; the bullets will not hit its mark as it doesn’t know to aim ahead of the target. For instances, when the target is moving it might be best to not use the auto target and lead your bullets in front of the target.

Vehicles on this version control with ease. Sometimes the camera will get stuck at a certain angle but that doesn’t happen very much. This is more of a problem when you are flying a bomber and need to look below yet can’t see where the fighter jets are around you. Driving the vehicles like the tanks, scouts, and artillery are all the same. Sure some drive faster and other’s fire longer but generally all you need to know is which vehicle should be used in each situation. It is very close to how advanced wars plays out in that you want a tank to roll up on some infantry but you don’t want to rush a tank into a group of bazooka troops. The key is being able to separate your group in that tanks and infantry stay in the middle with scouts leading the way. Artillery units are easily destroyed so having them in the rear firing long range is best. This type of strategy can be applied to air and water battles just like in advanced wars. You will have long range battleships that can destroy guard towers with ease. The frigate can destroy airplanes and helicopters and such. Same type of strategy goes of the air as bombers need to be protected at all time by fighters so they can unload their bombs down below. All the military strategy makes perfect sense and doesn’t feel like it’s a gimmick to force the gamer into a false strategy tactic. Due to this balance in gameplay one would think this is an advanced wars in real time.

Graphics

If you can accept the fact that 480p graphics can only get you so far then you won’t be disappointed. Everything has a soft rounded look. The vehicles look pretty good overall but the generally everything looks soft. At least it’s 480p @ 16x9. Explosions and stuff aren’t bad but of course there are the disappearing bodies after you kill them which just add to the cartoon feel of the game. Don’t get me wrong. Games like Zelda the windwaker look really good cell shaded but Battalion Wars 2 just doesn’t push the system graphically one bit. Game like Resident Evil 4 makes it apparent that even the Gamecube could push some good graphics. You just got to think that Nintendo took the same graphics engine and polished it a bit. Most strategy games don’t rely on graphics but once Battalion Wars ventured into an action type game there is a level of graphics needed to help the user experience. Overall, this game looks like it was done on a Gamecube and ported.

Online

Yes, there is an online addition. The 3 modes are skirmish, assault and cooperative. In skirmish, both sides start out with a pre-deployed force with facilities. This is a more common type of online play. Assault is an offense versus defense type game. One side tries to destroy the other player’s assets as the defense tries to hold them off. Cooperative plays are for 2 players and you just go through some missions. You get ranks and such for beating it and you can tell if someone online is good or not from their online history.

I liked the fact that this game is online. There are so few online Wii games it’s not even funny. Leader boards are not considered an online game even though so many games tout is as being so. I was able to get 2 games of co-op play pretty easily. What is nice is that you can match play with a random person that you don’t have a friends code with. You can play just between friends but codes are a drag. What is sad is that there are no lobbies. You would think there are lobbies for newbies and such but none of that is found here. You basically join a match and hope someone links up to you. There is no ladder system from what I can tell so it’s just random luck if you get someone who is better or worse than you are. Also not displaying how many people are online right now is pretty ridiculous. How hard is it to show how many people are playing or waiting for a game? Has Nintendo never developed an online component before? So you can possibly go into a match waiting for a paired game only to find out later there was nobody there. I don’t want to be waiting for a game when there are no players. As far as I can tell there has to be a connection matching system in terms of speed as the 2 games I played were without any lag. If the system isn’t going to pair you up in terms of skill level they are probably looking for the best connection.

Without voice chat there is limited communications from each player. Especially in co-op you can tell the other player to report in or focus in on a certain area but besides that it’s all motion gesturing. You will never really know what the other player wants from you in terms of attack strategy and you have to guess what they are thinking. This becomes a problem if one player is a long distance artillery vehicle and another is a tank. You really need to work together to provide covering fire to get the tank in to the action. The online co-op is pretty easy as I finished both but the objective is to finish with a S ranking and that might be pretty hard unless both players have played that map multiple times. Most of the time, speed is the issue in completing a task as dying can be avoided pretty easily.

Ending Comments

The game overall feels like Battalion Wars 1 with some slight modifications, additional vehicles, and online play. The game overall is fun to play but the graphics and voice acting brings down the level enjoyment a couple notches. This game probably shouldn’t have been rushed out so soon and could have used some refinements to the online component, and graphics. I understand there is an art style that they were shooting for but it could have been a bit cleaner. This isn’t going to be any deeper than assigning this unit to attack that unit. It could have used formations and flanking instructions. You can flank but you have to manually select your units and send them in a direction. It just seems like the game could have been a bit deeper for a military game. You’re not going to want to spend hours of your time honing your skills in this game as there really isn’t much to tweak. It’s a basic go in, blow everything up and get out ASAP. Maybe if the game was like a $30 Battalion Wars 1.5 I would have liked it more but it just felt a bit like the same old stuff.

2 out of 5 stars (average game that should only be played by fans of the series)

-spooon
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2nd Opinion

I had really high hopes for Battalion Wars 2. I can honestly say that I feel a little bit let down. I was hoping to see a polished, albeit light, action/real-time strategy game. What I discovered was a game that has some good ideas, but ultimately felt unfinished. Production value seemed inconsistent across the board. The pre-rendered cut scenes and playful character designs were decent, as is some of the 3d models. But those are easily forgotten when you find yourself in a screen full of dull infantry units where the color palette of choice seems to be a washed out brown. This is particularly true of the first campaign, which really amounts to a basic tutorial. Things do start picking up after this, however. The game slowly introduces new units which can be fun to control, particularly the flying units. The mission objectives become a little more challenging, though remain very linear. Being successful just requires some unit management skills. The game encourages you to use specialized units to overcome your obstacles. It’s the basic rock-paper-scissors sort of thing. The game never really gets frustrating, except for the fact that you can’t skip through cut scenes you’ve already seen.

The gameplay definitely is on the simpler side of things, which can be refreshing, but I couldn’t help but feel like it could have benefited from something a little deeper. Some advanced battle tactics and unit commands would have been a welcome addition. Often times, battles felt like they just boiled down to whoever had more units in the fight. This also seemed to be the case when I took a brief trip for some online versus mode.

All in all, the game isn’t bad. But it’s not really great either. 7 out of 10 for me.

– spac3m0nk3y