Almost glorious
Much of Glory Days 2's relative success comes from it's really awesome 2D engine. While such graphics might seem outdated to some of you, the game's development team has definitely proven that a game's quality is completely independent of its polygon count. The premise of Glory Days 2 is essentially that you're a pilot during a war, so all the things you'd expect in a war game are there. The title's got tons of soldiers, tanks, bullets, other aircraft, paratroopers, even civilians running around -- and, of course, huge explosions. Everything is crisp, clean, and looks really great on the DS. Additionally, some of the aircraft you pilot can get going pretty quickly, and the game employs a very neat blur effect that adds tremendously to the game's sense of speed. I'll confess that the game's visuals were the reason I decided to pick up this game -- however, it was the way the game was designed that really kept me playing.
The set-up of Glory Days 2 is interesting. As I've already emphasized, it's a 2D action game. But what's cool is that every battlefield is kind of like a football field -- it stretches way far off (there's a linear map up at the top of the screen), and you've got free reign over where you go. It's not top down, like you might expect from a 2D game involving any sort of aircraft -- instead, you'll fly back and forth, essentially trying to turn the tide of the battle in your army's favor. The enemy has a pretty impressive force for each battle, and your job is to stop their march to allow your troops to get to work. Dropping bombs is the most efficient way to take out land units, but you've also got a machine gun on your plane to take out some weaker land units as well as any enemy pilots that attempt to contest you in the air.
However, Glory Days 2 isn't just an opportunity to mash the Bomb button over and over again -- rather, there's a lot of strategy involved if you want to come out on top. For starters, you can only be destroyed a set number of times during a mission before you fail, so blindly rushing into the fray is usually a bad idea. You ground troops are in greater quantity and are therefore collectively stronger, so it's usually a good idea to soften up the foe and allow the rest of your army to finish them off. Additionally, your aircraft can only contain a set number of bombs in its hold, so you'll often have to return to the airport -- all the way at your end of the battlefield -- to restore health and refill your weaponry.
As I already mentioned, your ground troops are pretty capable, so long as they've got some backup, and part of Gory Days 2's strategy also lies in assisting them in ways other than just bombing the crap out of any tanks in their way. Scattered throughout the battlefield are a number of bunkers -- capturing them give you funds to deploy more units, and many missions require you to capture all of these bunkers. Dropping bombs on a bunker will neutralize it, but by the time you go back to reload the bunker will likely have been retaken by the enemy. The solution to this problem? You take advantage of the fact that your aircraft, in addition to carrying bombs, can also carry soldiers. You can then fly low over bunkers, drop a number of bombs to neutralize the bunker, and let loose a few paratroopers to secure the base. It's this sort of strategizing that will ultimately help you win missions, and thinking through a mission combined with the frantic action that the game provides allows for a pretty exciting game play experience.
The game offers plenty of variety, ensuring that you have fun with it till the very end. Missions tend to be cut from the same mold, but there is a bit of variety -- for example, you may be required to capture a certain number of bunkers or rescue a set number of civilians. The game's real variety, however, comes in the form of the different aircraft you can use. Sadly, there's no option to choose what to use -- each level has an assigned vehicle -- but the variations in them is pretty cool. Each of the many aircraft have certain specialties, and it is often in taking advantage of your aircraft's particularities that you'll be able to complete a difficult level. In fact, doing so is going to be pretty important, because the game's difficulty level is pretty high, even from the start. The AI is smart and you can't expect to just breeze through missions -- you've got to think about them logically, develop a strategy, and then execute it. It's a fun, addicting experience that will be enjoyable for both action and strategy gamers alike.
Sadly, though, there's very little reason to spend much more time with Glory Days 2 after you've completed it. There aren't very many missions, and while there's a neat little plot cleverly told via letters written home from a soldier, it's no incentive to play through the game again. It's one of those titles that's great the first time around -- afterward, however, it'll probably sit and collect dust. For this reason, it's a bit tough to whole-heartedly recommend Glory Days 2. But if you prefer some serious quality in your handheld gaming and are willing to sacrifice game length to get it, or if you're in a situation to rent it, then Glory Days 2 is a good game to pick up.