t’s no secret that the GameCube hasn’t seen the kind of support over the last several months that its two competitors have. Some had hoped that this game could mitigate some of that pain, but I’m unfortunately here to tell you that such is not the case. Battalion Wars is flawed from every angle of analysis to some extent or another. Conceptually, combining action and RTS isn’t exactly the strongest idea. Technology-wise, the AI continually makes some of the dumbest decisions ever, and the target selection is completely hosed. And from an execution standpoint, it’s nearly impossible to make any strategy you might come up with happen with Battalion Wars’ messy control scheme. At least the game looks nice, I suppose.
When first popping the disc into the ‘Cube, things look fairly good. A short tutorial does a decent job of explaining the goofy control scheme, and the presentation (minus the wretched voice acting) is fantastic, with a bright color palette and cool unit designs. The first few missions slowly acclimate you to the various unit types and how they counter one another, and it’s entertaining enough to watch the gorgeous explosions caused by the constant mayhem onscreen. However, the moment a tough engagement arrives, all of the game’s problems come into glaring focus.
During the heat of battle it’s incredibly difficult to give your troops orders, as neither of the two worthless camera views allow for any sort of acceptable target selection. Targeting a specific enemy unit can take upwards of 10 seconds due to the utterly asinine mechanic for doing so – in the fast-paced world of Battalion Wars, this literally breaks the game. By the time you’ve actually selected a friendly squad and given the attack order, the situation has probably gone to hell. The negative impact of this dreadful system is exacerbated by the fact that friendly AI, when not under direct orders, is awful. I lost count of the number of times a lone enemy infantryman ran through my entire army and was barely even scratched before I explicitly told my units to deal with him. Not because my men were busy shooting something else – they just didn’t notice the bad guy. Needless to say, I shed no tears for my fallen minions.
The broken RTS portion of the game could theoretically be forgiven were the action any good, but sadly it’s almost as bad. Vehicles are a total nightmare to drive, though they do pack a fair punch. On foot or behind the wheel, though, it’s tough to say which is worse: dealing with the aforementioned targeting interface to lock onto an enemy and shoot it, or trying to fire while free-aiming. With a bit of practice, you can abuse the enemy AI pretty badly by circle-strafing and parking in blind spots, but that’s not good tactics – that’s bad programming.
Though Battalion Wars’ eye candy is a treat, it doesn’t come close to redeeming the horrid action. Were the level design better or multiplayer present, it could have been at least a passable title. As it stands, though, I can’t think of a single part of this I’d like to see again – unless it’s the graphics engine being reused in a completely different game.