Batallion: Advance Wars for PC

Batallion: Head 2 Head can only be described as Advance Wars recreated using Flash. As long as you can get past the overly simplistic art and effects, the gameplay is basically identical. There's no software to install - the only prerequisite is signing up for a free account.

Once you sign into the game you'll be dropped into a lobby similar to Gunbound. Waiting for an opponent to challenge isn't necessary, however, since you can create your own game and add in AI opponents depending on the size of the map. This is good for practice, or, like me, you lack the patience to put up with half-witted humans. Though I quickly found out the latter wasn't that much of a problem - there simply aren't that many people playing Batallion. I think there were five players at one time waiting for games to be started up, and perhaps 14 games ongoing.

Where developers Urban Squall hope to make money is on the sale of Premium Memberships, which gives access to new units and allows players to create and upload maps. It also allows players to participate in "Squad Wars", which seem to be an implementation of a guild ranking system. Winning ranked games will give your squad "Net Worth" which can in turn be used to buy medals that add unit type attack bonuses in game. Net Worth can also be purchased with actual money, and gained for referring friends that sign up to play the game. This completely eliminates the notion that players sporting a full breast of medals are actually skilled. Nevertheless, this referral program serves as a clever device to get people interested in the game, effectively growing the player base.

Even though registration is free, having to log in to a game I see myself playing exclusively single player next to it's anemic online community seems like an unnecessary step. While the convenience of having the ability to access simple and addictive games without the installation of software has worked for services like PopCap, they at least offer the alternative of downloading a fully functional version that can be played locally. The purity of Advance Wars' turn based strategy is fully realized in Batallion, but it lacks a sizable community to make the game engaging enough to play online.