Game Overview
Unlike Nintendo to come up with games like this but to us, this is what the DS is made for. Strategic war games where you control a fleet of soldiers and machinery in an attempt to influence a new civilization after a meteor strike wipes out the majority of the world's population.

Touch screen is a brilliant way of playing these types of games and although the graphics obviously aren't as good as you have come to expect from todays technology it offers up some sort of simplicity to a game that is virtually non stop.

You'll team up with Captain Brenner and venture through the campaign mode unlocking level at a time, between missions there is dialogue between in game characters that advance the storyline and explain what is going on. It's a simple layout to a game that is very effective. You know where you stand with Advance Wars: dark Conflict.

We never actually played the original Advance Wars on the DS but we are told that bar a few complicated features it was a brilliant game, we haven't been confused by anything in game at all and things seem fairly straight forward and easy to get to grips with so we assume they have done away with the confusing features. We really enjoy Advance Wars and we are genuinely shocked at how addictive gameplay becomes over time. It took us an hour or so to get in to the swing of things but once we worked out what was going on and how to advance your army it became very "more-ish" and we really struggled putting it down.

Our Conclusions
With the addition of online Wi-Fi play fans of Advance Wars should have hours and hours of gaming ahead of them in the next few months, being online means that it has plenty of replay ability for that one feature alone. Addictive, enthralling and something a little different, isn't that what the DS is all about? Although it is only February at the moment we think that Advance Wars: Dark Conflict should be up there for DS Game of the Year come the end of 2008.

Overall Score: 8/10

Thanks to Nintendo