Advance Wars 2

Detailed Impressions:

Every Mode Returns, meaning: Campaign, Versus, Design Room, Link, Battle Maps and War Room are all there.

Campaign: This time around, there is no tutorial mode, instead, it tells you what to do in the first 8-10 missions. Easily skipped via start.

There are 4 continents, each for an army: Orange Star, Blue Moon, Green Earth and Yellow Comet. You select a mission to do on each island and have at least 3 CO's to choose from (which means a new Co for Blue, Green and Yellow). Each continent also has one map, where, if you find a map in by capturing a certain mission, you can find a new weapon that's pretty much the best armored vehicle in the game. There is a heavy focus not only on your opponents (who are tough and have some crazy Specials/Supers, but also the land based things around.

The first 16 missions are easy, then it gets tougher, and this time you've got land based things to worry about, such as lasers that will cut you from 10 to 5 and 5 to 1 (but won't put you past 1), Cannons that will do the same and have massive ranges of fire (and lesser mini-cannons) as well as 1 time use missle silos that any infantry can fire.

Instead of coins, you just get points, rated on a scale of 300 for perfect, seems as though anything about 280+- is an S ranking.

Beat that mode, and you can buy a hard setting, which, the first 3 missions in, is completely different maps than the first, which is totally cool.

The War Room Mode has all the maps from the first game to start with, and a shitload more to buy, so there's no need to get the first game if you don't have it. 2 pretty much has all of 1 and more.

Pros: Good challenge, new units, more CO's and Hidden CO's to get, You can change the color setting of CO's to 1 of 8 varaities, better maps and a new special system (now you have 2 levels, where the first is generally decent, the level 2's are brutal. Eagles 2 turn super is level 2 and Sami's level 2 allows her to use any infantry unit--I did it with a 2 health one--and capture a building instantly).

The APC bug is gone, so the AI is better and won't automatically attack an APC first if you keep sending them to the front, but cannons will attack the most powerful unit so decoy's can be used to an extent.

Cons: The other 2 bugs are still around, meaning the AI will create a unit next to a building if you are standing on it and they have no open factories (weak) and they will create a unit and attack with it on that turn (complete bullshit), but these are the only 2 inconsistent things.

Better than the first, I give it a 9.5/10 at least. Great game.

Okay...this game just went completely bullshit.

Now, not only do you have the bug where the Enemy can cheat by deploying a unit on a day and using it on that day, but it's even worse in AW2.

In addition to that, they can deploy 3-4 units at a time out of a Factory (not the normal factory but a enemy only building) and money has no effect on it.

When I get close, and there are no units that I can't handle, 3 fucking octopuss tanks suddenly appear and kill me before I can move.

Fuck you, Intelligent Systems, you suck monkey balls.

Well, not really, but it's a 8/10 now.

well, that sucks. how often does this seem to happen? in the few missions that i played, i didn't see either glitch.

The original one (From AW), occurs rarely, and seems like most often with Naval Bases and with Factories to a lesser degree.

If you have one of your units on that NB or F, the computer will simply create a unit one space away. That's minor.

In games that are against a tough opponent, for whatever reason, they will (again, rarely, maybe 1 time out of 20), create a unit and move/attack with it on that turn. That is bigger.

In the Hard Setting of Campaign, the occurance goes way up, and it happens almost every time.

This is a picture of a new factory, which has 3 doors, and on almost every single turn, the computer will put units outside of the factory and then move and attack with them on that turn.

It would not be so bad if the computer moved the units from outside the new factory, and then waited a turn to use them, but moving them outside and attacking on that turn pretty much nullifies the idea of a turn based game and allows the AI to use what would be 2 turns in one day.

When you add the fact that units that come out of this factory don't cost any money for the AI, you can see why suddenly spawning, and attacking with 3 MD tanks or something is a completely bullshit thing.

Picked up my copy at lunch today. So far I've just played through the first mission. Nice so far. I liked the intro. I still wish that they had training mode separate as I was ready to get to the "real missions" so to speak. I'll post some more after I play it a bit after work.

Matt, are the factories really that big of a problem?

Granted I'm only on stage 10 of the regular campaign, but all you apparently have to do is disable the pipes. Is this just extremely difficult to do in Advance campaign?

Shame about that flaw. Everything else is 150% better than the original. The missile silos are great fun especially.

Well, it's not an every map type of thing, which is cool.

Yes, all you have to do is disable hit the pipe (starts at 99 one Art strike and a MD Tank attack is usually enough), but getting to the pipe isn't that easy.

The main point is, why allow the computer to create units for 0 money and attack with them on that day in a turn based game?

What's next? The laws of gravity don't apply to AI cars in a racing game?

The silo's are good, but on most maps it just becomes placement and a race to get to the silo's first. Adding the benifit of capturing it as a standard building after you fire, would make it more worth while (since a 1-shot 3 damage spread isn't too deadly...though 2-3 are brutal).

Hard Campaign is touch and go, some are viciously tough (the ones with Pipe Factories) and others are very forgiving. I think it took me 33 days or something to defeat the 3rd map (a Max map) and I still got an 'S' ranking. A little too forgiving.

I am starting to like Colin as a CO, though. You can literally spam units all the time with his price (sometimes 20% cheaper than the other CO's) and his special which give's you 1.5 times the money you have is brutal.

I'm getting the feeling that AW2 is really geared toward multiplayer, especially with the new COs.

Colin and Sensei look like they'd be hella fun, especially in capture races vs. Sami. And it looks like they really increased Drake's usefulness this time 'round, with his 2nd level power that affects unit fuel.

Colin is good, but he can't hang with Sami.

Sami:
10 Infantry captures a building down to 5 left, she can be shot down to 3 and still make the capture on turn 2.

Colin: Captures down to 10, if he's shot down to 3, he can capture to 13 on day 2. If he can put another infantry unit on that buliding to make 10, he's must have at least 7 survive to capture a buliding on day 3.

He's not going to win a Rush and Capture race with her at all.

Never mind her Super which allows any infantry with any life to capture a building in one turn.

Eagle's Lightning Strike is a Super, not a Special, which is a massive de-tuning for him.

Sensei is interesting, and I like the good choppers (they will tear up Octopuss Tanks), but I've never had use for his specials beyond the better choppers.

If you are in a seige situation, where the enemy is coming in your area, then sure, the fleet of 9's airborne is good, but otherwise it's going to take a lot of APC's and T-Choppers to move them.

He's decent though.

God Damn GameStop is charging $36 for this game !!!! I did still get it though, and cant wait to try it out later today.