Advance Wars

Genre: Turn Based Stradegy
Christian Rating: 4 of 5
   (slightly offensive)
Gameplay: 5 of 5
   (excellent)
Violence: 4 of 5
   (barely present)
Adult Content: 5 of 5
   (none)

This is Advance Wars one of the most original games of 2001. This game is great in so many ways. Advance Wars is a Turn Based Strategy game which means that you pick where your character is going to attack it and it does all the work you just watch. The story is pretty weak as your just supposed to protect your country from other countries invading. This is a good old war game which is why it didn't really sell well since it came out right before 9-11. You fight with modern vehicles such as tanks to bombers to cruisers.

Your going to need a lot of skill for this game as it will give your mind a real tune up. Learning is easy though as they have a nice training mode which shows you everything. All the units have their strengths and weaknesses. For instance an infantry unit with a big bazooka on it can do more damage to a small tank than an infantry unit with just a machine gun but the one with the machine gun can move more steps a turn… You will have to use your mind as the infantry units are the only ones who can capture bases so you may want to buy the cheaper infantry to capture bases faster and the more expansive one to bust tanks.

Sometimes you can't choose to buy your men as in some missions your forced to work with what you got. In other times you can capture the bases yourself to open the factories which let you buy your units. The units aren't the only things you have to worry about though. The CO your must pick before you go into a mission has strengths and weaknesses too. For instance one may be good at attacking people with his direct units but may be weak with indirect units. Direct units fight muzzle to muzzle while the indirect ones can fight hiding somewhere far away and shot rockets but they can only shoot while standing still.

The graphics are nice and colorful. They aren't the best the GBA can do but it does a good job of the detail of the map in which you will be looking at most of the time. But when your attacking someone the view changes to the brief battle and zooms in. If you hiding in the forest when your being attacked it will show trees in the background and if your unit is destroyed then your CO will show his/her emotions.

The sound suffers since it uses a 16-bit sound chip but you barely notice because the music goes with the mood. Each CO has their own type of music and don't worry their are not any words to the song so its all good.

There is nothing to be afraid of for the Christian gamer for this rated E game. There is no blood or anything. Its a war game but when a unit dies it just blows up no blood. The only thing you have to be worried about is that this game is so addictive that you may find yourself playing this game all the time even when your not in the car.

Year of Release—2001

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