Advance Wars

Title: Advance Wars
Platform Played On: GBA
Release Date: September 9, 2001
Date Played: Fall 2001 - Spring 2002
Time Played: 10 hours
Completed (Y/N): Yes
Score: 5/5

Opinion:
Wow did this game really come out 2 days before 9/11? That really sucks. I am sure it would have sold better than it did if it would have come out at a different time. Terrible timing.

Advance Wars is one of the greatest handheld games ever made. At its core it is a simple yet very addictive turn based strategy game. You control an army consisting of dozens of different types of units, and your goal is simple, to destroy the enemy headquarters. You can use factories to build more units, and different terrain types to use strategically. Each game can last anywhere from 30 minutes to couple of hours making the game's time to dollar value incredible, and the skirmish mode adds limitless replayability. Each unit type moves and attacks uniquely. This variety makes every game entertaining and unpredictable.

Advance Wars is missing only one thing, asynchronous multiplayer; however, it would be wrong to knock it because of that since that is limited by hardware, not the developer. The game did come out at the time when few had internet, and even that was 99% dialup.

Even now, over a decade later, Advance Wars remains one of the best portable games. I wish they would port it to iOS with all of the benefits (asynchronous multiplayer) that it could offer. Advance Wars and its sequels on GBA and DS are a must play, no question about it.