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The level for which perfection is measured has been raised another notch with Ninty's latest Advance Wars offering.

Lending itself to the unititated, AW:DS caters to those new to the franchise with a campaign mode to educate and motivate. Adding to this is the user friendly, and highly intuitive tactile aspect of the game, which can be used to play the game exclusively. No buttons to fidget, unless you want to, and no quick reflexes or two-scoop motions to learn. New or old to the franchise, the stylus is a warm, welcome, and essentially much needed addition.

Graphically speaking, it's much of the same with a few new tricks, like more sprite scaling, and of course, more vehicle and character artwork. This franchise has looked the same since Super Famicom Wars in 1996, so to stray from the established style guide and motif would be like the fork in the eye Megaman fans have had to endure with each of Capcom's newest ventures.

The gameplay itself has gotten a little more complex in it's simplicity. Battles can take place on two fronts now, the top screen, and the bottom screen. The top is your air battles, or sometimes screens to keep the story going, like a missle tracking system, as well as the statistics screen for whatever your cursor is hovering over. The bottom screen is where the bulk of the action takes place, as well as your interface with the game.

Aside from the obvious new machinery, you've got new COs and can pair them together to boot. The idea here is to pair COs that compliment eachother. For example one CO may be an expert at direct combat, while being weak at indirect combat. That said, you'd pair that CO with another that's strong in indirect combat, and weak in direct combat. This really reminds me of Warcraft III and it's introduction of the Hero system. This works exactly the same way as in with COs, whereby they enhance your army. This aspect of the game severly enhances the depth of the gameplay on a single player level, and on a multilayer level. Don't be suprised if games go over an hour if challenging mates.

So with that all done and said, what about the music? Fantastic...

There was a time when all video game music was made by the sound chip inside your console, or lack there of if you owned a Nintendo64. The point is, these wonderful bleeps and bloops made music, good music. Unfortunately that's all disappeared since the advent of CD media gaming. That's why AW:DS deserves the utmost commendations for it's musical score. There is a musical piece for nearly every character, and or screen in the game. Each and every one of those pieces melts faces. Period.

If you've followed the series, you'll be pleased to hear the mainstay tunage is still there, shredding guitars and all. This time around, the sound team has added a little more funk with dr.dre-esque beats and scratches. It's not what you think, this actually works, and is complimentary to the mainstream sound you hear on the radio where someone throwing a few scratches into the mix is normal. Same dice here, and it's sounds soo cool coming from the DS speakers. Razz

10/10

If the gameplay doesn't rock your socks off, the music will.