It was about two years ago that Advance Wars hit the small screen of the world's favourite handheld gaming device. Its mix of turn based strategy, a fun story, addictive gameplay and just downright joy de vivre made it a hit on the Gameboy Advance and an absolute must have for strategy enthusiasts and casual gamers alike. Well, Nintendo have decided to pull out all the stops again and release a sequel. How, you may ask, have they managed to improve on what was already an incredibly thorough and solid bit of strategic gameplay?

The story is similar to the original, in that the Black Hole Army is on the move and needs to be blasted to kingdom come before their evil armies wreak havoc in the various lands. This time they are after revenge as well as a nice bit of land to conquer and come with some beastly new commanding officers, each with nefarious new powers and characteristics. The armies of all the 'good guys' have joined forces to hold the invading hordes from their borders.

Okay, so it's a very similar story to the last one but like most games we're in it for the gameplay, right? Let's face it, the original Advance Wars is an extremely hard act to follow. To give you an idea of how involving the original was, I had to go to hospital for a day for surgery and took my Gameboy and a copy of Advance Wars with me. For nine hours I had to sit and wait my turn and was not allowed food or water for fear of causing problems with the anaesthetic. You know what? I didn't notice! For those nine hours I was totally wrapped up and involved in the absolute mind bending strategy of the original version of this game. It was only after the surgery I realised how thirsty and hungry I was!

So how on earth can you follow a success of that nature? Believe me, Advance Wars II somehow manages to pull it off. For those of you who don't know what the game is about, the core of it is a turn-based strategy where you control a small army. The units include troopers, reconnaissance vehicles, tanks, anti-aircraft and so on. Each unit has a strength level of ten but obviously some units are tougher than others. Putting infantry up against tanks isn't a great idea, for example. Besides the army, you also have a central base from which you start, usually surrounded by a couple of factories from which you can produce more units and some buildings that you can capture. The more buildings you capture, the more funds you have, the more units you can build and so the more serious backside kicking you can give the opposition.

To make things more interesting, various types of landscape give you different levels of defensive cover. You've got virtually none on an open road but have plenty halfway up a mountain or in a city. The most defensive cover you're going to get is in your own base. However, defensive cover usually comes with a price - movement limitation. Each unit has a certain limit to the number of squares they can traverse already and if they come across, say, mountains, then it may take them longer to get across to the other side of the range. That is if they can cross at all! Tanks and other armoured vehicles are pretty much stuck on one side, troops can move slowly across them and planes and helicopters don't have any problems with them at all. It's all very similar to the original but there is a new unit - the NeoTank! Rock hard and quite manoeuvrable, these little numbers are good against most opponents but cost the earth to buy. Deploying these at all can be risky when you could install three smaller tanks in their place for the same price.

You must make all these considerations in buying, moving and placing your troops before you even think of encountering the enemy! The devious COs (Commanding Officers) of the Black Hole Army send everything they've got at you to try and control or conquer the area within which you are fighting. They also have new CO powers, which are a great step up from the last version, where you were really only up against one CO with one power. Now you're up against several COs with two different special powers each. Yowza! However, your side is no different - you play one of several COs, each with two different special powers. For example, you could be in the middle of a mass attack but if you're up against Adder he can use his 'Sidewinder' move to increase his troops manoeuvrability and get out of your way. Similarly, if you're pretty well dug in but are up against Flak, he could use 'Brute Force' to increase the damage his units do and so break through your ranks. The good guys really kick butt too. Olaf is a big blue Santa Claus look-alike who causes blizzards that can damage and impair enemy units. Andy is a young lad who has the ability to repair all damaged units on the battlefield and Sonja has the ability to see further around the battlefield than other COs. However, where you may think this leads to serious advantages to one side or the other, it actually seems very balanced.

In fact, the gameplay as a whole is exactly that - incredibly well balanced. You can steam in guns blazing or try a stealthy option, or even sit and wait for the enemy to come to you. You also can consider land, sea and air attacks. Within this there are terrain considerations, cost implications and calculations involving whether to capture cities or consolidate your forces. The options are beautifully controlled, weighted and tested to such an extent that it really relies on brain bending tactics to find a weak spot, press it home and win the day. Let's make something absolutely clear here though - just because you have this balance doesn't mean it's a walk in the park - far from it! It's a twisted devious, hair pulling, brain melting piece of work but it's so damn addictive!! Aaargh!

Right, my brain is melting just thinking about the tactics and gameplay, so lets move onto more sedentary considerations, such as how aesthetically pleasing the game is. The core of the game has very simple graphics indeed but simplicity is the key to success here. Over-elaborate graphics on the small screen of the Gameboy Advance would lead to a messy and confusing encounter with the opposition. Instead of this you have little guys nipping here and there with some tiny representations of tanks, planes and gunships. The mountains are represented by little snow topped triangles whereas cities are shown as rectangles with windows of light flashing on and off. It is very basic fare and hasn't really been improved on that much compared to the original. Mind you, it is so nicely done that there wasn't that much to improve on anyway. Still, the graphics in game are a bit simple, there's no getting away from it.

However, the characters, sequences and cut scenes are well laid out and quite dynamic. When a CO pulls a special move you get a nice picture of them laying it on with a lovely fiery background. Also, when the units take each other on it cuts from the map to a full split-screen of the armies rolling up. Yours may roll up on the left while theirs roll up on the right, yours into a city and theirs through a field, depending upon the terrain you've moved into. You're treated to a nice animation of whatever unit trying to take the other out. Particularly nice are the helicopter gunships hovering through a lovely blue sky dotted with fluffy clouds. These cut scenes are quite satisfying but I did notice something missing that was in the original. When a unit does badly against the other you see little animations of the COs either cringing in defeat or laughing happily in victory. That's gone, which is such a shame. This did add a certain feeling of involvement, especially when watching your opponents features crumple in shame as their best tanks are turned into so much smouldering scrap iron.

This involvement recovers slightly when considering the music and sound effects. This is definitely an area that has been significantly revamped and deserves a special mention. The in-game movements, machine noises, firing guns and plane engines are fairly similar to the original; they can't really be improved on much as they are functional and just serve a scene setting purpose. That said, the noises do sound like they are supposed to, be it trundling tanks or the chatter of machine gun fire. What really gets you pumped is the in-game music. Each CO has their own special theme, which is played during their turn. All the good guys get an individual theme tune too. For the bad guys it's always something dark and sinister, from thudding drum and bass mixes to creepy chemical generation grooves. The good guys get empowering up and coming hardcore dance tracks that wouldn't be amiss in a Ministry of Sound gig. Well, with a few samples laid over them anyway. The overall impression of the sound is a racy atmosphere created from a lot of hard work and consideration as to such things as pace and setting. This is something missing from many games on the market but gets good marks here.

Okay, so we've got incredibly addictive gameplay, good graphics and lovely sound but how long will you be playing this game? Let me tell you, I want to stop writing this review and get back to it right now - I've been playing it all week and I can't leave it alone. There are so many options, so many new characters to play, so much to do! Once you've dealt with the Campaign mode (which you aren't going to do without putting in at least 50 hours of gameplay) you can contend with the link-up modes, the Battle Maps you can buy with points earned in Campaign Mode, the War Room where you take on the computer to earn points and rankings and oh, so much more! It even has a single system, single game pack mode designed for one to four players. Here you can each take a turn, passing the gameboy around and trying to outsmart each other. It beats card games any day and is a welcome addition for those unable to find three mates with the game and a link-up cable. All these options and additions are definitely an improvement on the original, which had plenty extras going for it anyway!

Nintendo have definitely not fumbled the ball on this one; they have taken what I thought was an already perfect game and improved on it significantly. New units, new COs, new powers, new non-linear gameplay, great new cut-scenes, superb sound - what more can I say? If you have the original you should buy this game anyway. If you've never played the original then Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising is an absolute must! It would be a crime to own a Gameboy Advance and not have this game in your collection.

Reviewed by Dave Wynn for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).