It's always hard reviewing a game that's part of a successful and popular series like Advance Wars. It's hard to know who to aim the review at - the die-hard fans who want to know about the changes, or the newcomers who want to know about the game. Because of this, this review is going to be split into two parts. We'll deal with the shorter section first.

To start with, I'll talk to the people who have already played games in the series and liked them. If this is you, there are some changes - as always - to the weapons and troops. Some new ones have appeared and some old ones have gone. But otherwise this is Advance Wars, and it does everything you'd expect and hope for. It's as much fun as the previous games and if you liked them then you'll love this. Go and buy it, now; you don't need to read the rest of this review.

Okay, so the fans have gone. If you're still here then either you've probably never played Advance Wars before - in which case you've missed out - or you're the editor and you have to read the whole review [Always a pleasure, never a chore! Ed].

Advance Wars: Dark Conflict, is, to put it simply, brilliant fun. There may be people who don't like its simplistic graphical style (almost cutesy, but much darker than the earlier games). There are possibly some who'll find the cool little sound effects annoying; the guns aren't chunky enough or there aren't enough screams (in fact, there are no screams at all). Some people may not like the turn-based nature of the gameplay; they may find it slow moving or just not exciting enough. But to these people, I have only one thing to say - you're wrong. Advance Wars has always been and hopefully will always be a supremely sweet blend of great playability, addictiveness, cutesiness (but in a cool way) and strategy. The graphics, sound and presentation don't matter (although they're far from bad); what really matters is that you'll enter each battle with a sense of excitement, you'll have to be strategic in your plans and whether you win or lose is down to your skills as a commander, not the speed of your trigger finger.

When it comes right down to it, Dark Conflict is actually a little bit like chess and a little bit like rock-paper-scissors. Each turn involves you carefully moving your troops - there are many different types, ranging from cavalry (who can move quite a few squares and capture cities but who are weak in combat) to tanks of varying 'weight' (fairly slow-moving, heavily armoured, great against most ground forces but hopeless against certain aircraft), to aeroplanes, rocket launchers, motorbikes, jeeps, and so on. Movement is grid-based and each square of the map has advantages or disadvantages because of the terrain it contains and, of course, because of the terrain around it, as well as the current enemy position.

If you're within range of an enemy unit then you can attack it. Attacks are simple and are largely based on the rock-paper-scissors mechanic; tanks, for example, will almost always beat cavalry, but will almost always lose to bombers. Working out what beats what is a big part of the learning curve and the gameplay, but it's not completely straightforward, as the terrain does play a part, as well as the condition of the units - if a unit of tanks only has one left for example, and it goes up against ten weaker troops, it may actually lose. When a unit reaches zero troops, it dies and disappears from the battlefield. As well as moving and fighting, you can merge damaged units together, place damaged or depleted (in terms of ammo or fuel) units onto a friendly city for a restock, build new units in any factories you control, take over cities and factories, send up flares to illuminate the 'fog of war' that affects some levels and so on. Each turn of play will see you doing a variety of these things and only when you're done will you select 'end current turn' from the menu and let your enemy do their worst.

As you progress through the game, you'll watch cut scenes that are designed, I guess, to make you care about the commanders that are your avatars. I found them annoying though and they can't be skipped, which makes them even more irritating. As you'll know if you have played the previous games, these scenes are conducted between non-animated 'cardboard cutout' characters and are text-based. This is bad enough, but the dialogue is cheesy and the plot twists unbelievable. The story centres on a global disaster - a meteor strike - which has left everything in ruins and most people dead. For various convoluted and almost laughably ridiculous motives, the survivors begin to fight. To be honest, the story and cut scenes could happily be removed; the game stands strong enough on its playability without needing them to back it up. There probably are those who like them though and find them atmospheric, and they're certainly the only bad bit of the game.

The graphics are a simple top down affair, but they work really well. It's easy to see what's what and who's who; the unit types look different and are easy to recognise, the two levels of zoom help to get a sense of what's going on, and even though I'm pretty badly colour blind I had no problems differentiating between the good guys and the enemy. The bottom screen has the map, the top screen displays various useful information depending on what's currently selected. During fights, both screens display the opposing units as they face off against each other. The sound effects and music are simple, unobtrusive and effective; you probably won't even notice that they're there, which is normally a good sign.

The controls are intuitive and every action can be performed with either the stylus, the buttons or a mixture of both. There's almost no learning curve in the traditional sense; everything feels 'right' from the first level and the balance between tutorial and gameplay is perfect. You'll never feel that you're being shown the ropes, even when you are; right from the start you'll be involved in battles and it's only as new troops and new strategic elements (cities and factories, for example) get introduced that you notice how limited you actually were at the start. There's plenty to do; lots of 'mission' battles, plenty of side fighting, a map designer (you can use your own maps online) and good multiplayer modes that work both locally and online. As well as the main storyline, there's a 'free battle' mode too, which has over a hundred single and multiplayer maps for you to work through; this isn't a game you'll finish playing in a hurry.

As you've probably guessed by now, I love Advance Wars: Dark Conflict. It's yet another classic entry to the series and continues Advance Wars' proud heritage with all the ingredients that have made it so damn great since the original game was released. If you're a fan of strategy games and have a DS then it's pretty much your duty to pick this one up. If you've never tried the series before then give it a shot; chances are you'll love it as much as I do.

Reviewed by Dom Turner for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).