I *LOVED* the original one, and thought it was one of the best strategy games ever made (still do). Remember the Penny Arcade guys talking about playing WHILE playing a PC game?
It's one of those rare games that just makes technology look pointless. I mean it's as addictive as anything on the 360 (though in general I do think more technology can lead to better and more interesting/deeper games).
But...I *HATED* Advance Wars 2. It started off HARDER than the first game ended. I gave up a few missions in, and because of that, I skipped Advance Wars: DS. I seriously wondered if I had made a mistake buying it at Circuit City for $7 or whatever.
Until I started playing it this week.
It's a million times better than the second one so far-it's back to the difficulty and insanely great design of the first one. I love the enhanced graphics. I love the second screen (one of the few games it's actually doing anything).
I thought the perfect "pure" strategy simplicity of the first one was going to be wrecked by throwing in tons of new stuff, but it's not! Having a second CO doesn't change much or make it harder, but it adds a bit. The new units (new to me anyway) are nice and don't seem to break anything. The dual strike missions with two fronts are REALLY fun rather than being frustrating.
Basically all the new stuff just gives them more options for building interesting new missions. It's like how fog of war isn't used in most maps-it's just one extra thing they can use (I love that too about the series how they occasionally use it, and really don't bother with an explanation for why it's only there some of the time-it's just fun to use it occasionally, that's why!)
My only issue is that the touch screen support is totally worthless. I don't care per se, but I'd hate to see more games require touch screen support when it doesn't work well, or require you to do a combination of both for no reason (Advance Wars isn't like that, but I'm just saying there ARE some DS games like that).
Anyway, this game is indeed insanely addictive. It takes a real effort of will to quit playing. It's SOOOO easy to say "just one more round".
Completly disagree with most of the other games people have listed as being in the same category. Phoenix Wright? I like that it came out here. It was a neat change of pace. But I was kind of sick of it by the end of the second case. I certainly don't care about playing any a sequel. Mario Kart has never done anything for me. I don't like the multiplayer, and the single player has extremely little content. Animal Crossing was fun the first time, but I can't play it again, and even on the 'Cube it never reached Advance Wars addiction to me. I mostly played it 'cause I had to keep playing it, and eventually quit after a few months when the fun was overpowered by just a responsibility to keep playing.
One game that did fit in the addiction category for me was Card Fighter's Clash on the NGPC. Like AW, it's just pure, perfect gameplay. Can't wait to play the DS one (and I hope they don't break it...)
ing win!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
