Plan the Battle - Nintendo

Your Battalion is under attack, gunfire is raining down from every angle and through the chaos you can just make out an enemy battleship looming on the horizon. You’re going to need a plan – fast.

In Battalion Wars II (BWii) for Wii the beauty lies in the freedom you have to choose exactly how you co-ordinate your troops in any given situation. Will you forge ahead with your speedy Recon vehicle and clear the path for your Assault Veterans, or take to the air and bombard the enemy with a low flying Bomber? As the people who made the game will tell you, BWii is all about choices.

The basic premise that greets you in each of the game’s multi-faceted missions is simple: Wipe out the enemy and advance from one end of the battlefield to the next. Along the way you’ll have to capture strategically placed facilities to earn reinforcements and new vehicles that will aid you in the sub-missions on your path to victory. As you complete objectives passed on from your superiors, however, you’ll quickly realise that how you get the job done is as open-ended as your imagination. For the people behind the game at Kuju Entertainment Ltd, the freedom to play as you want is foundational to the BWii experience.

Lead Designer at Kuju, Andy Trowers, enjoys the fact that no two players need make their way through a mission in the same way and can choose how involved they want to be in planning the finer details of a battle.

“There is what we like to call an ‘optimal solution’ for levels, so we often see missions like puzzles – if you get it right and unlock it then it should all come together. But that doesn’t mean you’re restricted in the way that you approach missions, and people tend to play the game differently.

“You get some people who sit back and order their units, whereas other people are a bit more gung-ho and they like to have all their units following them and just charge in and lead from the front. And in specific areas you can take very different approaches. For example, there are missions where your naval units are escorting land units that are on an island and you can choose whether to take control of the land units or use your ship to support from the water. It is very creative.

“We also needed to ensure that the artificial intelligence was strong so that if you want to play the game without really thinking too much about all your units you can just keep them in Follow mode and let them do their own thing and react to what is going on around them. But for those who really want to get into the commanding there’s the option of ordering every unit directly.”

Taking control amid the chaos as the battle unfolds in BWii is as easy as it is satisfying thanks to the unique capabilities of Wii. With a simple point and press system taking care of much of the action, getting to grips with the game’s frantic form of warfare feels immediately natural.

A combination of the Wii Remote and Nunchuk gives you total control over your units, allowing you to direct them with the Control Stick as you use the Wii Remote to aim at enemies, determine the camera angle and select which vehicle or soldier to control. A simple press of the A Button is enough to make the rest of your Battalion wait at a safe distance as you forge ahead with your chosen unit, or to order an all-out assault on an enemy target of your choice. Gestures with both the Wii Remote and Nunchuk enhance the action further as you prompt soldiers to dodge bullets or order your Submarines under the surface by making simple context-sensitive movements.

Kuju’s Creative Director Tanc Dyke-Wells believes the novel blend of action and strategy that shapes the gameplay in BWii is perfectly suited to Wii, and wanted the game’s control system to be as straight-forward as possible.

“We really tried to use the features of the system to support the game design in a streamlined way. Developing for Wii forced us, in a good way, to be more focused and more disciplined in our control system design. So, whereas, in the first Battalion Wars for GameCube you used several buttons to do your commanding, here it’s all baked into the A Button. That may seem very obvious and very simple when you’re playing BWii, but it was quite a challenge to get that right.”

Another thing the Kuju team expended a great deal of energy on was the creation of new armies and units for players to take control of in BWii. As with the time invested in perfecting the control system, Tanc believes the effort necessary to let players control no less than six different armies has been well worth it.

“There are a few armies that made brief cameo appearances in the first game – like the Iron Legion and the Solar Empire - that are much more fully fleshed out this time and appear as full armies. There is a vast array of units as well. There are six different infantry types, and in terms of vehicles we have the Heavy Tank, Light Tank, Anti-Air vehicle and Auxiliary and Recon vehicles.

“Then there are the new naval units. The Dreadnought is the terror of the seas. It has triple cannons and is a floating fortress! Battleships are really useful for tackling other naval units but also for clearing out land-based defences, while Frigates are interesting dual purpose units. They act as anti-submarine units as they carry depth charges, but can also switch to using anti-air weapons. Then you have Submarines, which are the stealth units in the game.”

Incredibly, that impressive list of military muscle stops short of highlighting the range of airborne weaponry players will also have at their disposal in BWii. From slow but devastating Bombers to fierce fighting planes, the thrill of cruising into enemy territory and levelling bases from above is made all the more satisfying by the fact you can guide your aircraft through the skies by simply tilting the Wii Remote in the desired direction.

With so many units and even more options for how to utilise them, what do the experts suggest you do to bring the enemy to their knees? For Lead Designer Andy, the old adage “safety first” is one worth bearing in mind.

“My biggest tip when you’re playing the single player game for the first time is to use the map screen – be aware of what’s coming up ahead and don’t be afraid to keep back vulnerable units and put them into Wait mode. For example, if you are coming up against a bunch of anti-air towers then make sure all of your air vehicles are in Wait, go forward and deal with the towers and then bring those air units in.”

Of course, the BWii team at Kuju would also be quick to point out that while one tactical approach might be more successful than another, it is the joy of trial and error that makes the game what it is. After all, who could resist at least one attempt to bring down an entire enemy army with a lone foot soldier?

However you want to win your wars, rest assured that in BWii you’ll never be short on options. Your army is primed and ready for action – all you need now is some imagination.