Video game review by ERIK LEIJON

Battalion Wars

It’s Mario meets Full Metal Jacket. Well, not quite, but Battalion Wars (GC/Nintendo, Kuju) takes the gruesomeness and killing of war and gives it a rosy exterior, with fun little animal-like characters waddling around like ducks. It’s not your typical war sim, and not only because of its light nature and cartoonish graphics, but also because it places a bigger emphasis on the action sequences and less on troop deployment and management.

Fans of war games are already doing a double-cringe as their eyes glance back at their Risk boards; put it this way, it’s a cartoon war sim that plays more like an action game. Similar to how Easy Bake Ovens prepare young girls for a life in the kitchen and boys play GI Joe’s because we’re all supposed to be tough, Battalion Wars will serve as baby’s first war game (chances are you aren’t playing Command and Conquer at age 12). So let this game introduce your young ’uns to the fun world of automatic rifles, tank warfare, Cold War stereotypes and corpses of cute characters who look like teddy bears.

Perhaps I’m not doing this game proper justice—there are a lot of interesting elements for older players who want a less serious take on war. Advance Wars (Nintendo), the handheld series that this game borrows from, has a complex tactical system to go along with its anime characters. Of course, most of the fun of Advance Wars comes from multiplayer, which this game doesn’t have.

GameCube owners should try Battalion Wars if only because

Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Nintendo) isn’t coming out this year and you need to take out your frustrations before turning to drugs and alcohol. Anyway, Battalion Wars is a surprisingly difficult game and there are enough missions to keep you occupied.

Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes

This game is to real-time strategy games what Madonna’s new album is to disco. There are a few signs you immediately recognize that bear similarity to the genre, but there’s something about Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes (Xbox/Microsoft, Phantagram) that makes it seem like a pale imitator to those who’ve done this before.

And again like Madonna, that includes their previous work, as the Kingdom Under Fire series began as an old-fashioned PC real-time strategy game. Today it has more in common with newer versions of Dynasty Warriors (Koei). Basically you hack, slash and kill until your hands go numb, you take a break to read some text, and then you continue the carnage.

In addition to the basic premise of the game, there are actually more problems once you delve deeper. There is far too much dialogue that has little bearing on your own characters’ development, and the story is the same knight’s tale you’ve seen before. In nearly every area you sit down in the local pub and eavesdrop on soldiers. Loads of dialogue will fly by the screen, but most of it is utterly useless when you play the missions.

When you finally enter the battlefield, you move your troops in a manner that still feels utterly random to me, and you proceed to fight against dozens of opponents while the camera tilts downwards and the background disappears. The battles are fun to watch, but are so simple you rarely even need to look at the screen. If you blindfold yourself and alternate mashing the two attack buttons you’ll probably survive.

Play Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes if you have a fetish for elves.