Despite a few things preventing this game from becoming a 9 it's still an excellent game
So the real review. There is a campaign and there is instant action. The storyline is pretty funny and the campaign itself is allright. There's enough of a tutorial where you know what you have to do to play the game. The instant action is fun, there's 18 maps where about half of them are domination (take control of certain points) and deathmatch (obviously you destroy the other players). You can add computers to fill in the spots or if you have friends they can fill in the spots. You can do teams so for example if you have 1 friend with you, you and the friend can face 2 computers. It's a shame there's no ds download play but the main disappointment is the lack of wi-fi especially considering the game is a real time strategy, you'd think there would be wi-fi
The actual gameplay itself is limited, meaning that you don't personally control every unit. This part has its benefits, but also it's frustrations. You only control your heroes, while the other units you use through "control points" such as place a flag somewhere and units where go there. The PROBLEM with this is that usually only a few of your units will go there. How this is frustrating is let's say you have 10 soldiers units and you place a flag there to for your units to go there. Only about 3-4 units will actually go there so it's really really FRUSTRATING if your attacking and then only a few units go in and help. Also some units won't even follow your directions even if you place a flag 1 foot near them. One campaign level requires that your units move in and out of a certain range and it's really dumb when you place a flag and they don't move, and in this certain campaign level your enemy then "brainwashes" your units.
There is a positive note to the gameplay. Let's say your unit is walking and then is attacked, then your unit will instantly fight back. Games like age of empires 2 (a real time strategy on the pc) if your unit is under attack while it's moving to a destination, the unit won't fight back. Also if your buildings have taken damage then a... resource collector will come over and fix it instantly.
The good: a solid real time strategy on the ds.
A decent campaign with a funny storyline
Instant action will keep you playing for hours and hours
Local wireless play with your friends and computers in instant action
Heroes are cool to use, such as the flamethrower hero
The bad: Way you control your units can be frustrating
No wi-fi for online play
No mapmaker
No ds download play