Game title: Advance Wars: Days of Ruin (NA), Advance Wars: Dark Conflict (EU)
Franchise: Advance Wars/Wars
Developer: Intelligent Systems
Publisher: Nintendo
Platform: Nintendo DS
Original release date: January 21st 2008

What is the Game?

Advance Wars: Days of Ruin is the 4th game in the Advance Wars series in which you take control of an army by moving their position on a grid to defeat the enemy. The story takes place after most of humanity was killed following meteor strikes. You play as Will (Ed in the Japanese and European versions), who after being attacked by bandits, is rescued by Captain Brenner (Captain O'Brian in the European version, and Captain Brown in the Japanese version). Will joins Brenner's army and rescues a girl who has no memories.

What Are My Thoughts?

I'll be honest and say that I haven't really played many strategy games before so I really didn't know what to expect. I'd have to say that this game showed to me that the genre definitely is really fun. I managed to complete chapters 1-5 and I'd have to say they were all really fun chapters. I enjoyed the combat system and found it to control well. I especially liked that placing your army members on specific terrain would grant some shield from the enemy's attacks. and reduce their impact. The story also seems really intriguing and I like how the characters are written, though I didn't like some of them. Graphically, it's really nice too look at as well. I'd have to say the only real downside from what I've played so far is that the tutorials are really bad and provide too little information. This caused me to lose chapter 5 the first time around as I misinterpreted that only grey buildings could be claimed. Other than that though, I really enjoyed this game and can definitely see myself coming back to beat it and playing some of the other entries in the series and genre.

My Score: 8.5/10
Will I play it again?: Yes

Previous game: Clubhouse Games (2005)
Next game: Sonic and the Secret Rings