142, Delaying 143, Days of Ruin

 Advance Wars: Days of Ruin is quickly growing on me, but first thing's first... For some reason, according to @Edubuccaneer, the RSS feed is poop. If anyone's experiencing problems please let me know what they are. Al and I combed through the feed and couldn't find anything wrong with it! Sad face. In any case, you know where you can directly download Episode 142, but just in case you don't: http://trigames.net/articles.php?content_id=843. Please leave a comment if you're having issues with the RSS feed though and if there's any information you can provide, that'd be great...

Also, for the first time ever, Al will be participating in the infamous 24 Marathons which have disrupted podcasts in the past, so 143 will be on hold! Sorry guys, but the call of BBQ and Jack Bauer are just too much to resist.

Now, Advance Wars: Days of Ruin. It's not that I ever disliked the game; it's simply that I was a little disappointed in the lack of changes. I ended up being wrong, of course, about the CO powers though: I initially thought that they simply weren't present, but I finally reached a mission in which I was able to use a CO power. The power I used was far less game-changing than those in the past, and I don't know whether it's simply due to the CO I used or because that's how the game is now balanced, but from Ryan Davis' review on That Other Site, it seems to be the latter. I suppose it's better for the sake of game balance, but I always got a kick out of being able to get out of a REALLY tight spot by unleashing the fury of a Dual Strike.

Nevertheless, the subtle changes and unit additions (and subtractions, though I've not yet determined what's missing since I'm not even halfway through the game) do make for a noticeably different experience when you dig deep. I like the new anti-tank unit quite a bit. It's a ranged attacker, so it can't move-then-attack, but its range also covers the space immediately in front of it so it can still counter-attack when approached by a tank. (Hence, anti-tank. Dur?) The Flare unit is a godsend for those who hate Fog of War, though it's a little useless on maps without FOW; it CAN attack, but it's not entirely powerful. There are great additions in the Carrier-Seaplane combo, where a Carrier can roam the seas and then produce a seaplane that is very useful against sea and ground units. I can't remember whether or not it's weak against its fellow air units, but it's expensive (it costs money to build the carrier and THEN build the seaplane) so I can't imagine that it's supremely vulnerable to anything. So while at first I was a little bummed, now there seems to be much more of an expanded roster than when the NeoTank was the ONLY new unit, way back in the GBA days.

I like the ranking system (whenever a unit destroys another, it goes up in rank which increases its potency), as it forces me to take more care of my units. I also like the area-of-effect that a CO-occupied unit has. Similar to a hero unit in many RTS's, a unit that's carrying a CO buffs units around it. That unit is also the one that executes a CO power, though, so if you wanted to use that unit to bulldoze a hole through enemies, you'll have to consider postponing usage of the CO power or wasting an active turn with that unit. It's a nice balance, and I guess that's mostly what this game is: more and more balance.

I've started skipping the dialogue and story though. There's just too much ham-fisting and unnecessary reading. At least it's not super zippy chipper sugar rush...

...but is fake emo really worse?