Kanbei, I wish I could quit you...

There's a magic to the Nintendo DS that I've only just become reacquainted with, one that is fundamentally ineffable but undeniably palpatable. I can't help but feel satisfied when I sit back and fire the system up. Granted, part of this may be that I've been incredibly selective with the games I've purchased for it, cherry-picking only the most acclaimed games that I'm sure will interest me and avolding the shovelware that publishers seem to excrete into the system's library. Believe me, those titles are legion. But even while playing a title that fails to live up to my expectations, I still can't deny the simple happiness the system brings me. There's a quality to the system that transcends gameplay. Everything from the weight and feel of the DS Lite to the system's interface just seems right. In an age where the most competitive hardcore gaming system has a lifespan of less than a year, there is something to be said about the quality of the DS. It has become a name that promises satisfaction no matter what game you're playing. I'm almost glad that my 360 died to rekindle my love affair with this handheld.

I happened to chance upon a copy of Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, and I can only wonder why I've let this title sit on my backlog for so long. I've been a huge fan of the Advance Wars series since the original landed on the Game Boy Advance, and Days of Ruin has reminded me of why I love the series. It is a game whose balance is nearly unquestionable, turning each battle into a precise chess game of deployment and strategy. To be fair, there's little variation to the main game equation. Each battle is essentially a war of attrition, the winner ultimately decided by the number of cities each player controls. Control more cities and you control more resources, which means you can bring more and bigger guns to the fray. Yet, the game avoids simply becoming a question of numbers, or even unit quality, as even an army of mighty War Tanks outmaneuvered by players (or AI) clever enough to sneak a weak but mobile infantry unit into the enemy HQ, or deadly artillery and rocket batteries rendered inoperable due to cut off supply lines. Too bad I'm usually on the receiving end of this.

My only qualm is the decidedly generic turn the franchise seems to be making. Advance Wars has always been over-the-top, its characters charicatures of real-life cultures and figures, from Stalin Soviet Russia to Imperial Japan. The modern-day fighter jets of Red Star would face off against the WWII-style prop planes of Yellow Comet, while a cartoonish stereotype of a Japanese commander squeed over the victory of his somehow still-competitive airforce. However, the distinct character that the franchise launched with seems to have eroded in each iteration.

As the art style and story became increasingly generic, so has the commanding officers and factions. One of the great things about earlier Advance Wars games was the variation that came with using different commanding officers. These commanding officers would have specialties, such as proficiencies in certain types of weather or with certain types of units, that would allow players to approach missions from completely different styles of play. One of my fondest memories from Advance Wars: Dual Strike was using Sonja's superior transports and infantry troops to wage a guerilla war against what might be described as a relatively modern tank army. CO proficiencies make a return in Days of Ruin, but in the form of an area of influence that radiates from a command vehicle that ferries your commander, making any portion of your army outside of this area a relatively generic army no different from the enemy. Luckily, Days of Ruin is so well-balanced that almost any strategy is possible if executed correctly. Still, I miss watching imperial troops with comically antiquated vehicles and technology beat back fighter jets and tanks that look like they belong in Battlefield: Bad Company. It's come to the point where I don't even care who I'm playing as anymore. All I know is that I'm red, and there's some blue guys over there, and I should probably blow them up in the most proficient way possible.

Still, Halo's proven that well-done red versus blue can deliver an outstanding game, and Days of Ruin follows in that tradition. It's a great game overall, and one that's sucked up much of my free time this week. I just miss my Kanbei. I wish I could quit him...

-- Mike