The last real-time-strategy game I played on the GameCube was Goblin Commander: Unleash the Hoard released in late 2003. I’ve been racking my brain to think of another RTS for the Cube that has been released since then and can’t come up with one. (I’m sure someone will correct me if I am wrong.) Anyway, suffice to say that console RTS games are rare. So for the console strategy fans out there it is a day to rejoice. Battalion Wars, from the same line of games that gave GBA gamers the excellent turn-based Advance Wars games, is here and is a good title to give the thinking gamer something to sink his teeth into while still providing a nice side course of action gaming.

The countries all sport fictitious names, but the opening antagonists of the Western Frontier and the Tundrans are clearly meant to stand in for the USA and USSR in their cold war guises. What Nintendo has done for Italian plumbers is now done for the "cowboy" Western Frontier and oh-so-Russian Tundran forces. Nintendo uses more ethnic stereotypes than any other game company, but they do it so cutely that nobody seriously complains. Later in the game you get to see even more stereotypes in action … even a commander with ambitions to be "The Govenator."

Anyhoo, the Western Frontier and Tundran forces face each other across a demilitarized zone just waiting for an incident to ignite conflict between the two sides. Needless to say, it comes quickly and the war is on. You will play the Western Frontier. Early missions will have the player using few soldiers in simple missions. Naturally, later missions introduce more types of soldiers and vehicles, as well as harder and more complex mission goals. Like any good game, Battalion Wars eases the player into the action, seldom letting the difficulty level take too big a bump at a time.

Units under the command of the player take a few forms. There are the ground pounders like the cannon-fodder grunt riflemen and veteran soldiers that carry specialized weapons like bazookas, flamethrowers, assault rifles, mortors and missiles. Other units consist of vehicles like tanks, scout cars, self-propelled artillery and missile carriers. There are even some air units in the game.

At any one time the player may command only one man or vehicular unit directly. While in combat the view is similar to a third-person adventure game, though there is an overhead view and an overall map view that can be accessed during battle to facilitate maneuver. Unlike most strategy games that have the player leading from on high, and thus rather detached, Battalion Wars has the player in the thick of the fight, with all the immediacy issues that engenders. When an airstrike is coming down on your position and you’re seeing your boys going down all around you, it makes you react just a little bit faster. It also adds a nice action element into the game since the player gets to wield a weapon and turn the tide of battle with direct intervention and skill with arms.

Of course it would not be much of a strategy game if you weren’t also doing a little more than just running around shooting. No matter what class of soldier or vehicle the player may be operating as, he still has indirect control of all the units at his disposal. With one button he can order either individual or all units to defend an area or follow him into combat. Another button orders a rush attack on an enemy position or unit. In some ways the whole command and attack structure plays out as an elaborate rock-paper-scissors game. For example, you realize the road ahead is blocked by bazooka-firing enemy soldiers. Sending a tank into the attack against them is suicide as it will get chewed up. The better solution is to send rifle and flamethrower units in ahead of the tanks and clean the bazooka men out. On the flip side is the infantry’s vulnerability to enemy tanks. Use bazooka men to clear tanks out of their path. So often the game becomes a rather repetitive exercise in moving to contact, deploying the proper forces forward to deal with a given threat, leaving the vulnerable units behind so they don’t get killed, and then packing up all your soldiers and moving on to the next pocket of resistance to do the whole thing over again. It is still fun, but there could have been more variety.

If the game sounds like something that it might be fun to play with a friend to test your strategies against an unpredictable human … forget it. The game only allows for one player. And while the enemy AI is pretty good, the game is not such that it offers a lot of replay value once you’ve fought your way through all the missions.

Visually, Battalion Wars’ cute graphics belie the deadly serious gameplay. The soldiers almost look like children dressed up in oversized uniforms and the vehicles have a slightly rounded, plush look about them. But looks can be deceiving as these units can deal out death to the enemy and take casualties (all done in completely bloodless fashion) in a most efficient manner. The story moves forward through some rather nice cut scenes with full voiceovers in proper stereotypical accents. The sound overall is very good.

At this point I have got to comment on one of the commanders you’ll encounter during the game: Brigadier Betty. This commander, who looks exactly like what you might imagine a Malibu General Barbie to be, orders your forces into battle with such chipper enthusiasm that you’d think she was organizing a tea party in the park instead of an attack where troops will die on both sides. She is just one of the elements that keeps the tone of the game from ever getting too serious.

Overall, Battalion Wars is a good offering that is definitely one of the better real-time-strategy games to come out for the GameCube console. Its lack of any type of multiplayer support is a serious hindrance to its long-term enjoyment, but lonely strategy fans gaming on the Cube will find it a must-buy.

Questions? Comments? Contact willhill2600@charter.net .