Wargames, from real-time squad-level strategy games to global-level turn-based civilisation-building affairs, aren't a computer game format that's much associated with handheld consoles. That appears to have changed, at least on the Nintendo DS - perhaps because it provides sufficient processing power to make reasonably complex games, or perhaps because of it's incredibly easy and simple networking capabilities making multiplayer action possible to an extent undreamed of in the good old days of the Game Boy. I hear all kinds of good things about Advance Wars but, alas, I'm slightly too stingy to buy it new (at least at the current price).

That doesn't stop me occasionally buying second-hand DS wargames. Sometimes I do this by accident; I was sure that Lostmagic and Hoshigami: Ruining Blue Earth Remix were RPGs until I played them. This time, though, I've done it on purpose, to see if these two alternatives to Advance Wars can scratch my nation-wrecking itch.

Warhammer 40,000: Squad Command

Warhammer 40,000: Squad Command is a conversion of a PSP game to the Nintendo DS. Although it exploits the stylus and dual-screen features of the DS somewhat, it doesn't do so to any important extent (and in most cases it's actually easier just to use the directional buttons). In fact, it's a somewhat sloppy conversion - what, precisely, is the point of hitting "select" to switch the tactical map to the touchscreen when you can't interact with said map by touching it? Such a function can only be a holdover from the PSP version, a feature rendered redundant by the DS's features but clung onto anyway.

This sloppiness pervades Squad Command, and it's a real shame. At it's core, it's a turn-based squad-level skirmish wargame in which, in the single player game, you can take control of a bunch of Space Marines and battle the forces of Chaos. There is also a reasonably well-executed multiplayer function. The game does not especially resemble the Warhammer 40,000 wargame (or even Necromunda, its squad-based sister game) especially closely, although it does do a good job of encouraging similar tactics - you don't want to get your squad too spread out, you need to prepare "overwatch" zones (areas where your Marines can shoot at the enemy if it blunders into view) carefully, you soon settle into the sort of move-shoot-consolidate pattern that the wargame imposes.

The problem is that, technically speaking, it isn't quite there yet. A single Marine can impede your entire squad's progress by standing in the wrong place, even though it looks as though there's space for two Marines to stroll past him. The isometric view is all well and good, but the battlefields are so cluttered with buildings it'd be nice if they could go transparent or if you could rotate the battlefield in order to see the nasties you have a line of sight to - but you can't. Occasionally two Marines will end up standing in the same place, rendering both of them unable to move.

Couple this to a truly punishing learning curve (I could not, for the life of me, work out how to get past mission 4), and what you get is a good idea wrecked by a horribly flawed execution. I'll stick to the miniatures game, myself.

Dynasty Warriors DS: Fighter's Battle

I've always been impressed with the Dynasty Warriors games' effortless marriage of beat-'em-up action and tactical wargame. Lose either aspect, and they'd be rubbish: the tactics consist of choosing where your character needs to go in order to get rid of the obstacles in the way of your side's troops and keep the pressure up on the enemy, and the beat-'em-up aspects would become repetitive if it weren't for the fact that you're constantly rushing around to get to where you need to be on the battlefield.

Sadly, it appears that the Nintendo DS can't quite manage the processing power needed to conjure up the massive battlefields Dynasty Warriors is known for, but to their credit Koei have done an excellent job of producing a simplified version of the game which the DS can handle. The problem is, it's a bit too simple.

A quick rundown of how the thing works. You pick one of three playable characters, plucky young men who aren't especially interesting. You then fight battles in a bunch of provinces of China, as it existed in the time of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, against your opponent - human or AI. Both you and your opponent have a deck of "Battle Cards" to choose from - initially you'll only have a small selection to choose from, but you can earn more by winning battles and through other achievements. These cards represent all the major characters you know and love from the Dynasty Warriors games (or, if you've read it, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms on which the series is based). When you go into battle you pick from your battle deck the characters you want to defend your various bases - they'll also give you special bonuses, like boosted stats, or special obstacles you can deploy to slow down your opponent (once you've collected enough coins to activate them - collect 5 coins, and you get a randomised power from your selection, which you can deploy at the time of your choice).

Each battlefield consists of a web of nodes, a bit like a graph theory problem; except for your main base and your secondary bases, you can't travel freely between the nodes, but must defeat a set number of enemies to pass through them (cleverly, you never encounter your own troops, just your opponent's, which simplifies things a lot - if you see someone on the screen, you're meant to hit them). If you happen to meet your opponent, you have to fight a duel against them; if you happen to die, you just reappear in one of a small number of resurrection points dotted about the map. Your goal in each battle is to knock out your enemies' minor bases by defeating their guardians, and then attack and defeat the guardian of their main camp; your opponent will be trying to do the same to you. Whoever wins the battle, wins the province, and the game continues until all the provinces have been won, at which point the player with the most provinces is the winner. This does mean that if you do especially badly you can get into a situation where the campaign isn't even half over but you've already lost, but it's still worth playing to earn extra cards and to level up the cards you already possess. (The Dynasty Warriors games have always been good at avoiding "Do It Again, Stupid" play.)

This is all well and good, but there is several problems with it:

• It is unambitious in terms of what it's trying to achieve with the DS. OK, I'm glad that the little wobbly figures closely resemble the major characters from Dynasty Warriors, but did the graphics need to be quite this stripped down? The main fight screen looks kind of like an 8-bit fighting game from the mid-1980s, and while I'm well aware I can't expect top-notch graphics on a DS I feel that they could have done a little better.


• The gameplay is oversimplified. Essentially, once you've played through the campaign once, you've seen it all; there really aren't any more surprises to unlock, aside from a few cards. Fighter's Battle gets repetitive far, far more quickly than Dynasty Warriors itself ever does.


• The gameplay is poorly-balanced. At first, I sucked, because I had crappy cards. The AI always beat me. Then my cards levelled up, and I got a really good card after finishing the campaign and collecting a fat load of coins during the end credits. Suddenly, I was kicking 57 varieties of ass, and the AI couldn't beat me. There was no "sweet spot" where the game was just challenging enough.


• It's short as hell. The main campaign takes about two hours to play. While you could try to play it at all the difficulty settings with all the playable characters against all the other player characters, there seems to be little point; once you've found the character you are most comfortable with the other two are going to be frustrating to play with, and it's not as if you've going to see anything new aside from a couple more interchangable cards you probably won't used because once you've settled on a killer set of cards you're not likely to bother changing them about.


• Why do I care about these guys again? The strength of the single-player campaigns in the main Dynasty Warriors games lies in the characterisation. It helps that the games are based on a Chinese national epic stuffed with memorable characters, of course, but it's still completely awesome to play Cao Cao and crush Sun Jian and Liu Bei. Playing Mr Red and slapping about Mr Yellow and Mr Blue pales in comparison.

Perhaps I am expecting too much of Fighter's Battle; it seems to have been designed with an emphasis on multiplayer fights, after all. But the problem is, I don't know anyone else who has it, and I'd feel churlish recommending it to people given the problems above, and - crucially - the Dynasty Warriors series has always offered a strong single-player campaign of decent length and excellent replay value, so why should I accept less from one of its spin-offs?

I'm sorry to say that buying these two games was a false economy, in the end: sure, they were easier on my wallet, but in this case I got what I paid for - cheap crap. I wouldn't recommend them even second hand, and they just make me want to try Advance Wars even more. Maybe the widely-acclaimed king of DS wargames will convince me that there's a good wargame on the DS platform; I'm absolutely convinced that it's technologically possible, but so few people seem to be even trying to put out a games which aren't miserably bad.