Battalion Wars followed a long road before its release this December in Europe. In 2004's E3 the announcement of an Advance Wars game hitting the Cube was great news for the fans. Finally a big version of the Advance Wars series would be made. Long have gamers lived up to a Cube Wars game. Imagine the graphics, the multiplayer turn-based battles with friends, even online support maybe.

But enthusiasm cooled down quickly when the name of the fairly unknown developer Kuju came in play. The game dropping down the turn-based system also wasn't something fans wanted to hear. Would it work? Fans even got more upset when the game got a name change. No longer would the Advance Wars universe be used in this game. Bye-bye Andy and Sami. Welcome the new world of Battalion Wars.

So forget about a game close to the Advance Wars franchise. This is something different. Your mission starts with an army deployed in a combat zone; you're the commander, among your men. You can be any unit you like, from soldiers to bombers, switching to any other you want, whenever you want (the Battlefield idea). From here you can command your troops to follow you or engage the enemy. You have to complete the mission with this equipment, with no option to recruit or build more. The objectives often include destroying buildings, capturing bases, defending grounds; that type of things.

The view on the battlefield can best be compared with Pikmin's style; the camera floats above the unit you control. In Battalion Wars if you want a different view of the region you have to change to another division. This way it's hard to get a complete overview of the whole combat zone. A chart would be helpful, essential even. Too bad you have to interrupt the game for this. A map of the area is available in the pause menu. Exciting wars just have to be interrupted for this. It's like yelling to your soldiers: 'Stop shooting the enemy for a minute! Your commander has to check out the chart here beneath the desk. Hold on now!'

Battalion Wars takes place in a world we haven't seen yet, although it's very clichéd. The game starts with the Western Frontier in a cold war with the Tundran Territories. Of course the Western Frontier is lead by the typical General Herman. Short, fat, shaved hair, cigar in his mouth. On the other side we have a colour-red loving Gorgi,Tsar of the Tundran Empire. You can see that resemblance with former historical events is completely coincidence…

The contrast in storytelling can't be bigger as in Battalion Wars. During the missions your superiors appear in the upper side of the screen yelling their instructions with their irritating voices. Officer Betty can really make you lose your temper. After you worked your ass to complete a mission her scratching voice come in with a childish 'now commander, that's not how it's must be done'. Argh!

The movies between missions on the other side are upper-class. Although the story itself is as cheesy as can be, the characters in there really grow to you. Battalion Wars is great in parodying historical events. The Kaiser Vlad easily resembles Der Führer with his subjects calling him Der Keizer and he only wanting superior beings to life. Interesting that a 'cartoony' looking game like this dares to touch these serious themes. That alone earns Battalion Wars some credits.

There're around twenty different units in Battalion Wars. Controlling them is easy. Soldiers can walk, shoot and duck. Only the control stick + A and B button are really necessary. a great achievement from Kuju that they made every unit easy to control. From a soldier to a tank to a bomber. Flying in the world of Battalion Wars is really satisfying thanks to the easy controls.

Controlling is a whole different story when you're about to command a battalion. Here we face the limitation of a Gamecube controller. There are just more things you want to do then you can. Forcing a squad into a region with you going the other way isn't possible. You can only move one squad at a time. Making different groups? No way. It's a disaster when you want one soldier to move into a bunker. Sometimes I wished there just was a Nintento Keyboard™ included with this game. I guess PC gaming has its advantages.

The basic principles of Battalion Wars are same as in Advance Wars. Bazookas defeat tanks, rifle units defeat bazookas, and so on and on. You can imagine why sometimes you don't want all units to engage. Preventing soldiers from attacking with you can be an unforgiving task. Accidentally pushing the wrong button can have a terrible outcome; believe me, it's not nice seeing dumb rifle units running into a couple of flame soldiers. Not a great view, really.

Eventually you get the hang of it, and start to enjoy crushing enemy forces, but the single player mode only offers twenty missions. On with the multiplayer modes of Battalion Wars then. I will be short: there are none. Nope, no custom battles, no multiplayer clashes, no cooperative and no, this will surprise you, no online mode. Or Kuju didn't had the possibility or the time to include multiplayer. Too bad for a game in this genre. It's like a pinball game without balls. Thumbs down.

Back to the single player it is then. But after completing twenty missions all that's left is to improve your mission score and so unlocking four bonus missions. Not enough to justify the work you have to do for this. There are no options to save during missions, so one mistake can ruin your score. Battalion Wars can be rough from times to times with missions taking up quite a few minutes. A save option would have been nice, in other words.

Battalion Wars has his problems. Map overview; save options; irritating voices; no multiplayer mode. However this game also has a lot of potential. The basics of the game already proof to be entertaining from time to time. The characters created in this game have enough charms (minus Betty) to return in further games. Battalion Wars has the prospect of a great future, if just commanding different units was easier. Online multiplayer would be nice too. Do I hear somebody say Revolution?