One of the greatest turn-based strategy games ever created!
The game revolves around an army known as the Black Hole army that's doing something to the planet and the world's different nations come together to stop Black Hole's evil schemes. I will not go any further into the story as that would be spoiling a lot of the fun of the singleplayer portion of the game. You control an army of infantry (light and heavy), vehicles (recon, tanks, APCs, artillery and more), aircraft (helicopters, fighter jets, bombers and more) and seafaring vessels (cruisers, submarines and more) to bring Black Hole down. The whole thing is presented through graphics that remind one of a Japanese anime.
The graphics are great without getting in the way. A lot has seemingly been recycled from the Gameboy Advance versions of the game, but they still look bright and shiny on the DS and hold up nicely. The art style is very much like that of a Japanese anime and gives the entire game an incredible amount of energy and drive, even though it's all turn-based.
The sound effects are also pretty much recycled from the previous games, but like the graphics they get the job done nicely. The music that fans of the series have come to love have been run through the synthesizer one more time and sound even better this time around. Every CO has his/her own theme and they all fit the different characters nicely.
However, it's in the gameplay department that Advance Wars: Dual Strike truly shines. The game is incredibly deep and very addicting and will keep you coming back for more all the time. When you're done with the campaign you can go buy more maps in the game's store that makes the game last even longer and every last map is a challenge in its own right. What also makes you want to play through the maps over and over again is the fact that you COs gain experience and access to different abilities like making your units cause more damage or able to resist damage better. These powers also work during the campaign which often makes it worthwhile to beat some of the non-campaign maps just to level up your COs up, because this game is hard and especially close to the end, it gets very hard, but it never becomes impossible to complete a mission.
Unfortunately, I haven't tried out the game's multiplayer part, but I can only imagine that it's just as much fun as the singleplayer part with the added fun of being able to beat one of your friends.
All in all, Advance Wars: Dual Strike pulls out all stops to deliver an incredible experience to fans of turn-based strategy games. Beginners can also start here because experience with any of the previous entries in the series isn't required. The game also has a nice tutorial that will help newcomers learn the game with little difficulty. It's incredibly deep but still highly accessible to those who haven't tried turn-based strategy games before.
Said in another way, if you're a fan of turn-based strategy games and own a DS, you simply have to go get this game. Newcomers can also start here without much difficulty, but I would still recommend them getting both of the previous games for the Gameboy Advance, because they're great as well. It's awesome and incredibly addicting. What are you waiting for, go get it!