Nintencast.com has a preview up for Battalion Wars 2 for the Wii and it’s shaping up to be a must own in my book. I’ve enjoyed the Advance Wars games and military games like this in general and with the inclusion of online co-op with friends, it’s a no brainer. I could only wish Nintendo got the voice chat in gear to make it a bit easier to communicate with friends while playing, but that’s not even close to being confirmed, more of a pipe dream.

Here’s a portion from their writeup, be sure to click on over and read it all.

Imagine a game that combines Advance Wars, superb level design, glorious 3D graphics and addictive gameplay; the outcome? Battalion Wars of course. Released back late in 2005, it was one of the last games to appear on the Gamecube, and it delivered what was one of the best real time strategies for any home console. Players controlled their own character as well as an entire battalion consisting of soldiers, tanks and aircraft. Sounds confusing, well it wasn’t. Kuju created a great control scheme implanting the C-stick to select the different parts of your battalion and by pressing either Y or X would send them to attack the enemy or defend different areas. Each level was incredibly well designed and it could take ages to master. Fast forward to 2007 and Kuju are in the final stages of the long awaited sequel Battalion Wars 2 (Also known as BWii - see what they did there). So what have Kuju done to improve on the already great Gamecube game?

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Last but not least is the inclusion of the Co-Op mode. This can be done with either 2 players playing through on one Nintendo Wii console or it can be done wirelessly through the Nintendo Wifi Connection. This is a fantastic addition to the game since it will be the first time players can control battalions with a friend on all 15 co-op missions. Hopefully Nintendo will include full voice chat for the game, since it would seem impossible to do co-op online without any communication as you couldn’t discuss tactics or battle plans; perhaps this is why the game is taking so long.