Glory Days 2

The thunder of a hundred roaring bird's mechanical engines deafen the muggy air. The stampede of recoiling metallic substance grates across the dry earth as the ever stretching line of assault vehicles leisurely march forward towards their enemy. The smell of burnt ash and spent gasoline flutters past your nostrils as the first shot rung out just off in the distance.

War, no matter the coat of paint nor the propaganda, is never a pretty subject.

Glory Days 2 - much like Advance wars before it - has taken this bleak concept and not only made a game that is quite fun but also very light on the graphical realities. A sequel to (Super Army War) brought to a whole new platform (GBA > DS) and course hopefully in the process, a brand new audience.

The game aptly straddles the corners of a real time strategy/action hybrid game set on a 2d scene. Main objectives are very very simple. Escort your troops across the screen from right to left. In the process you'll A: pick up civvies (civilians) B: Shoot down the enemies fighters in the sky and C: Build troops/drop off troops (helicopter) and from time to time use special weapons (Unmanned fighters/bombs/parachuters). Most of the ground battles play out in rock paper scissor fashion; soldier's capture bunkers but get destroyed by tanks, tanks destroy bunker's and kill soldier's/any other ground unit, anti air units repel enemy helicopter/jets and then there's the two "special" vehicles with unique jobs to play out on the battlefield. It ends up looking something like this when you get all done:

M...........B......B.......B..C..C..B........B......B.......M
(Main enemy base)      (Civ)       (Bunker)   (Your Base)

Bunkers and civilians supply the forces with money (and if civs die YOU lose money) so you must also protect both as best as humanly possible lest your enemy gain the upper hand and build twice the force as you.

These simple mechanics are the game's greatest assets and (eventually) the weakest. See to handle all these complex jobs at once you'll be required to constantly search for the right button or tap the right selection on the touch screen all during the inane combat that ensues in later levels.

While not overly difficult through the first 15 campaign missions the final mission is not for the faint of heart. And being overly ambidextrous can only save you so much time and conversely so many troops. It's quite unfortunate this micromanagement was not addressed in same way... Like say the game pauses when you pull up the troop list or at the very least include a tutorial/training to ease the burden.

I had one other cringe worthy moment. The game's story (or lack thereof) is buried in the letter's of the video game's imaginary soldiers. These seemingly strike the distinct line between endearing and preachy. And then even after all this, I found it quite perculiar the game's backdrops in at least one level is very clearly displaying two towers in very close proximity to one another. It may be the developers merely wanted to show respect but the sight (and letters) came off a little odd.


Overall:
Still, Glory Days 2 is far from lost to the concept of poorly implented controls. It is far from perfect and can be infuriately annoying at times but all in the all this simply put is hands down one of best unknown games put out for the DS.

Score: 80/100



*I've been very very busy and had a LOT of trouble with the next couples of pages thus why the updates haven't been received yet. Soon however I will post it.*

About the future

It's been about a quarter from a dollar of posts and I believe eighteen or so (didn't check/count) have been solely facilitating my fictional writings. I acknowledge this solely because most of my readers have or will come from this very specific reason. I'm not quite sure I've yet to hit the other markets as well and my reviews are quite a bit lacking in energy (lethargic some would say) thus why these facets have been lessened to focus on the bread and butter.

This is no problem of mine. I enjoy the work and hope you do too. It's not quite blog like material (I'd imagine) but then I was never much of this type of update.

But I did feel compelled to examine and explain my recently sluggish updates and assure you that I have not lost sight of the original goals.

1.     Slow updates quickly answered; the ending has less holes to open and more to fill all of which currently have been paved and casted in a vat of instant drying cement. I can't change anything if I find it wrong and expect it to work in the future thus the footing has to now be check trice as much to ensue I don't retread or retcon anything. Most assuredly things won't get any worse.
2.     The ending of our story hasn't change by any drastic nature since it's inception. Yes things haven't went as planned nor have they flowed down the pipe as expected but the ending will remain (mostly) intact from original design.
3.      The future after this tale is still but a mystery even to me but I will offer this sneak peak. The greatest asset of a forum such as this will allow me to offer up instant retrospects and reviews of my own work through my own eyes. This I'm hoping will help alleviate any questions and misunderstanding that will soon be found.
4.      Will there be any new iterations or altogether completely different stories after this one? Of course. Will they be more simple minded or? Don't know.
5.      What about that pesky "complete" edition? Well what about it? Honestly I did begin my evaluation some time ago and found the typical holes or minor annoyances but I must stress this once again. This is not so much a "complete" edition as this is more of a "wishfully" better edition that WILL NOT AFFECT THE BLOG EDITION. Whether you purchase it or not, the tale will end here in it's original drafted glory. 
6.       And finally outside of the narrative... Yes I will come back to the reviews and prodding of video game deficiencies till they erupt. I hope to bring new looks, new styles, and new characters with possibly introducing The White Panther's Pub (reviews, retrospects) and The Russian's Corner (previews, initial reactions, etc)

What this all means to you, my readers? Hopefully it satisfies your queries and keeps you enthralled enough to come back for more fiction/insight. 

As always,

Thanks,

Rossini

    

Segment 6 (What becomes)

        Like so many pedals rung around the ring of the core, the detached flutter slowly and awkwardly towards the depths from which they came. An intimate dance amongst only the single entity, a tranquil but violent struggle against the destructive sense of gravity tears against the soul's earthly vessel. This, a letter, a love song, a final goodbye to those that came looking, wishing for more; much more.

       "Those words were solemnly uttered by a very quiet veteran from the great war." Spoke the tall burly man seated at the front of the room. "Do you know why he clung to such morbid philosophies?"


A young private rose from his seat and quickly answered the man. 


"Sir, it is because the man watched as his close friends and enemy wildly flailed to the ground in the great agony of death"


The young man was seated before the tall man retook the podium.


"Because he felt the intrinsic prickle of pain and guilt all associated with the fury of war. A basic emotion all men have shared not only the in the trenches of the nearest fox hole but also carried through the streets of Fairway. Much that we've ignored and discarded"


Again the man sat and poked inside the nearest desk drawers.


"Michael" he spoke without bothering to bring about his head from it's work. "Come to the front and draw me a man on the chalk board"


"Sir!"


The young cadet arose from his seat and shuffled with haste towards the blackboard. A moment later he was done and gone; back seated with his peers.


"Yes... Very good Michael. Now here we have the physical representation of man" the teacher cocked his head to better appreciate the boy's art.


"Yes as we all see..."


But the teacher's words never continued past that original train of thought. Instead his eyes wandered past the row of desks towards the final and last of souls seated at the far end of the room.


"Sir, I do not believe you belong in this room" The professor propped his glasses back upon the bridge of his nose.


"I..." tingles of cold sweat dripped down the base of my spine.


"Sir..." 


"I was told to come here..." I continued the procrastination disregarding the blood currently dripping from beyond the tip of my cranium.


"From who?"


"I was told to come here..." I repeated.


"Sir I must ask you to-"


Unexpected and abruptly the teacher faltered his words and comprehension of logic. A small, tiny, intrinsically minute lapse of time was just the right amount of time it took for me to spot the repeat.


The quake ripped the glossy lamented floor in half, splitting the children and blackboard into two separate entities. The subsequential shock-wave shattered each and every last remaining porthole to the outer realm bringing the shards of glass inward similar to a hundred thrown spears all of which began rapidly impaling their victims. Those fortunate enough not to fall in or to these plagues were only to be set aside; to be their witnesses.


"When they forget" I began to repeat the line written across the board. 


    The waves of radiated heat covered the earth underneath an ocean of purging blankets sundering the lands with long sprawling rifts that stretched farther then a mile a piece.


"They grow indolent and content to forever echo these mistakes".


And just like that the book - carefully caressed from the professor's hand just a moment ago - fell to the ground bursting into a puff of gray and black dust before disappearing towards the set backdrop of central white light currently overcasting the skies a distance and a half away.


In my mind the sight looped evermore. In my dreams the sight looped evermore. In my eyes...

Segment 5 (concluded)

The long arduous trek across the foriegn land had me biting down hard on my own words.

"What will you do when you find it and what exactly will you do with it?"

Will I merely recalibrate the settings to discover exactly where the contraption faltered? Or will I inevitably buy into the fully laid out and deployed arrangements.

"We're losing the sun skipper, pick it up" an agitated voice calls out.

The device speaks to me as we near the end of our trip. It's distant cry has become a vaporous cloak cast along the thick smog dying the fog the same distinct color as itself. Red drapes strung along as far as the eye can see. Past the ferns, shrubs and roaming hills all leading me, taunting me... Dragging me forward.

It's hand is cold to mine, freezing the skin it contacts a sickly death brown.

"I told you to pick it up Jerry!"

The breath spewed from the lips of death is an atrocious mixing of fecal matter and rotten flesh each of which is carefully strewn together as not to disrupt either delicate fetor.

But most of all I can feel the heartbeat I once lost. A synthetic throbbing of mechanical gears and rotating cylinders... A sense of attachment, adornment, and empty hollowed passages that flutter aimlessly through my head.

Something... No...

Someone has awoken it. I can feel the pace rapidly increase in speed, and then decrease in volume. A cycle of mass that is in constant fluctuation but most importantly never ceasing.

Something is wrong.

The deeply woven thicket finally wore thin by the time we arrived to a clearing paved through nature's backwoods with all but the last lingering rays from the sun's final lapse at our backs. The ghastly fog on the other hand never surrendered an inch as the ankle high cloud spread past our feet sweeping across the esplanade all the way to the nearest asphalt road.

"Come Jerry, I wish to show you something before day's end"

At the very end of our maze we trotted past the lost silence that still crept along the vines and branches entrenched within the marsh. Alfred's swift feet thrust back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, faster and faster and faster until the surreal vision of a man was engulfed by the darkness.

"Alfred? I can't see a bloody thing!" my cries fell unto deaf ears.

"Stop playing and help me ya damn fucker"

But the vision nor the voice ever reverberated back towards me. With just a click of a finger, light and leader dissolved into an ever bending, ever falling, and ever twisting abyss of shadows and unilluminating wonder.

I was stuck back down there... I was stuck back down there, under the earth, buried and blinded by the never ending tunnels. In every direction I swam I began to drown.

But a life preserver did finally come. A circular tube... No a oblong cylinder. An egg like bulb, florescent, energetic and lit like a match.

Light peered down at me from atop the ceilings, past my shackles and through the bleak wounded areas.

With it I was healed.

"Jerry?" A hand tightly grasped my left shoulder-blade. "I thought I lost you my friend. Come, it's right over here"

Around the green bends light had been repelling the coats of darkness and illuminating the crevices dug through the ground.

"Why are you showing me this Al?"

"No not this. There" with a finger and a smirk the man drew my sight towards a small hill of ragged corpses waiting for the undertaker's shovel. "Do you see that Jerry? Now take a closer look. Do you see that?"

It was not possible. It was not plausible. It was not... It was not... No...

There they lay, thrown off from the carrier's shoulder and stacked neatly in order. All of which now were nothing more then lifeless vessels, molding from the humid winds.

But that did not disturb me so.

It was their hands that did startle my consciously broken mind.

"You're awfully quiet nowadays Jerry. I remember it like yesterday. I remember you being so full of confidence. I remember you comprehending the situation like it had been trained for." spoke Alfred.

"What's wrong Jerry? Where's that guy who knew what it all meant? Where'd he go?"

"He's dead you sick son of a bitch." I dropped my head in anguished failure, leering past the ribbons of gauze tied tightly around my palm.  "He's fucking dead"

Segment 5 (My eye is hurting*)

"You can't get to where you want to be by just standing there Solider. Come, we must make it past the marsh before the sun dies"

I nodded, agreeing and shuffling behind the torrid pace of my leader.


What was it that I said so long ago... What was it that I spoke for or against that would have altered the difference a minor degree? Or did I already charge that burden unto the shoulders of those who've failed to represent the best interest?

"Watch this here." Alfred stuck out his tarnished machete in the direction of the aboriginal plant life. "The green ones aren't too harmful I reckon but the violet and amber ones have been known to kill people".

"Really?" I naively asked hanging on every word.

"Of course not Jerry I was just checking to see if you were paying attention"

"Now what the hell else would I be doing stuck out here in the wilderness?" I retorted.

Alfred's voice was unusually low and dreary. "Dreaming I'd imagine... That's what I'd be doing"

"Not very bloody likely Alfred."

"Oh? You beyond that at this point?" his tone shot back up to it's normal buoyancy.

"Not at all. It's just that dreaming is for the poets or the clever, neither of which I am"

"And what makes you so god dang certain all this is not some faraway dream you've been lulled into by a powerful dose of medicine and or spell from the decrepit wizard's hand? Hell how do you even know that right now you're not just dead somewhere. Sitting, waiting, sleeping, sitting, waiting, watching, waiting, and sleeping away the penance?"

I withdrew the small nagging blade that clung aboard the side of my ankle and ran the sharp jagged edge down the closest seam of my hand. The crimson darkness rapidly seeped out from the rift and bled, flowing flawlessly towards the ground.

"This is how I know the world I live in is real Alfred. This is how I detect what I understand and appreciate; by the sense of feel and the searing tingle of pain that currently jolts through my palm."

Alfred and I held our gaze intently on the leaky faucet of human nectar.

"Do you believe me now that I am authentic?"

*Mine, not the characters/story relevant. Just me. So don't mind any mistakes for the time being. Sorry!*

Segment 5 (Time is changing)

What was left of us in the shadow of our lost moon?

There I stood, head cocked aside, crooked and tilted inhumanly backwards towards the ground. In the sky lit the world beneath bundled sheets of puke orange and brown sprawling lines of ever expanding universal stretch marks. The damage had been done, processed and expelled. Whatever lingers is not what should remain.

I took a deep breath inward, absorbing as much of the nefarious toxin possible and then quietly released my intake. Once in the hot air spiraled like a tornado inside my cringing lungs. The gases quietly diverge as the sweltering oxygen ushers out the carbon dioxide. Once in and once out. Once in, once out.

A burst of sunlight tears at the bottom of my eyelids, peeling at the edges and eventually ripping the flaps backwards with sweet causal innocence of only requesting a glimpse.

Night has receded, faded back to it's perpetual resting spot upon the other side of the world whilst I am alone left to watch the rising sun illuminate and foreshadow the towering city over yonder. A sight I am stricken by and will never be allowed to forget.

As if stolen directly from my many drifting dreams amongst the sundered earth I coyly watch as the cascading rubble and debris from human endeavors leisurely sway across the planet's crust akin to the water washing over any given beach. Their physical life is still there, their belongings, their emotions, even their deep impressive footprints still linger albeit now covered or buried a hair bit more then a moment before.

When I do finally open my eyes and begin to properly siphon the enlarged morning sun's rays into pure concentrated energy I begin to realize just what I hadn't days, months, years, centuries before.

The painted vista from my brain overlapped the actuality perfectly, outlining the edges from the lone skyscraper still standing and dropping it directly over the fallen city of Lucentis. And just adrift to the side, and immediately smack dab in the center, green wilds latched upon the decrepit leap of man and began to bring back the indigenous world to her awaiting mother.