Whether you want to admit it or not, change is inevitable. It's only a matter of time before our favorite companies take a look at their franchise games and elect to go in a different direction, and such is the case with Nintendo and its popular GBA series, Advance Wars. The first two games are extraordinarily deep turn-based affairs where you pit your mighty army against the enemy AI's, and it's safe to say that most of us were and still are shocked at the Big N's decision to throw out that style of play and craft an entirely new adventure for its GameCube system. Advance Wars: Under Fire is a real-time combat game where you basically run in and kill anything that moves, and while I as well as some of you have reservations about this radical gameplay deviation, I'm crossing my fingers that it'll surprise us all.

Nintendo's previous Advance Wars games clearly pushed mind over matter. While both of those titles' graphics look great running on a GBA SP, their appeal isn't the eye candy (although the cut scenes are pretty sweet) but rather the complex strategizing that's necessary for defeating the enemy. Like a chess game, you take turns maneuvering your pieces into place with the hopes of reaching the other side/capturing the base, and while Under Fire may include similar objectives it's really all about action. Going on special missions (such as rescuing hostages or just pummeling the opposition), you'll lead a squad of tough-as-nails army guys into a 3D chaotic world. You can take control of any soldier that's in the field and run about causing all sorts of havoc. There are numerous weapons at your disposal such as machine guns, a rocket launcher, and a flame thrower, and there are also a plethora of different vehicles on the field, all of which you can supposedly hop into, so if you see a chopper or a tank just jump right in. In some instances, your guys will even accompany you and man the guns!

Just because you can bust into an enemy fortress and rapidly press buttons in order to kill everyone doesn't mean that the game isn't governed by a deeper strategy element. While Advance Wars looks like a mindless shooter it actually sports some RTS gameplay that will definitely spice things up. Since you're not a one man army you'll need to bring troops along for the ride, and much like a standard RTS game you can select a group of guys or just pick them separately. Not only can they be ordered to accompany you on your anarchic trips but they can also be instructed to guard specific locations, and in either situation you're going to need to do some thinking. For example, would you rather have a guy with a bazooka and a guy with a flame thrower guard a particular post, or should the men with machine guns occupy that spot? Is it a good idea to send your entire group of flame thrower dudes to take down a helicopter? Probably not, so you're going to need to understand what each weapon does and what situation it's best used for.

Although it's in 3D Under Fire sort of resembles its portable counterparts. For example, the vehicles that I've seen bear a striking resemblance to the ones found in the GBA titles, but that's where the similarities end. Most of the character models have a stocky macho appearance similar to Fisher-Price's Rescue Heroes toy line except these guys are armed with fully automatic weapons, which really isn't bad at all. Both the vehicles and character models sport a decent level of detail and look just fine, but they have to because from what I've seen, the game's environments aren't nearly as impressive looking. Featuring generic-looking bases and deserts, Under Fire's bland locales make it look more like a PS2 title than a GameCube game.

I don't mind change, but with it always comes a whole new set of issues that need to be discussed, and Under Fire has several. For starters, it's not being developed by Intelligent Systems, which is responsible for the first two games. Nintendo instead decided to go with Kuju Entertainment, the house that birthed the mediocre games Reign of Fire and Fireblade, so its employees haven't proved that they can deliver the goods. Also, and I hate to keep saying it because every journalist does, but this game needs to be online. It's not going to happen, but there's no point developing a game like this if you're not going to allow people from the around the world the opportunity to smash one another into smithereens. At least we'll have split screen to mess around with.

Finally, although its graphics are decent, Advance Wars looks like another Army Men sequel. I've been studying screens and checking out movies of this game for a while, and nothing about it screams innovation. Instead it resembles several other games that have already been released.

Since Advance Wars: Under Fire isn't slated to ship until August I expect to see it at this year's E3 (it was also at last year's show) and it's a safe bet that we'll be playing a close to final build. I have reservations going in, but since this is Nintendo I have a good feeling that it's watching as well as criticizing everything that Kuju does so there's a great possibility that this game won't be half bad. However, if you absolutely refuse to accept its style of play, then you always have Advance Wars DS to look forward to.