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Glory Days 2 opens with a wonderful soundtrack. I mean, truly fantastic for something with as small a footprint as the Nintendo DS. There is a war somewhere. It is unnamed, although you're an American pilot. The enemy is not described and neither is the time period, but it echoes World War II — from the "radio" announcer to the propeller planes, leather aviator helmet and goggles found throughout the game. The game provides instructions in English, Spanish and French and suggests headphones for the best sound effects. I cranked up the sound.

You, as the player, will control airplanes and helicopter gunships. Your goals are to destroy the enemy. Bomb their bunkers, and leave them for your own troops to capture; shoot their planes and helicopters down, and rescue civilians.

The Campaign mode opens with a poignant letter home from a beloved son, and each chapter begins with another letter home from John. Each chapter also starts with the screens graphically illustrating what the controls do for that specific scenario. A for the nose gun, B for bombs and X for dropping paratroopers, for example, while the D-pad flies your airplane or helicopter. The lower screen showing that if you used the stylus and touchscreen, the D-pad would act as your A and B buttons.

Glory Days 2 is hard to describe. It is a shoot-em-up side-scroller, a tactical game, and a strategic game. You have goals to accomplish — destroy the enemy base, rescue a number of civilians — but you also have to build your own army by earning money, since your ultimate goal is to take the enemy base, and that is only done by your ground troops: your tanks, anti-aircraft jeeps and ground troops. Those AI units are what you are buying with the money you earn.

Bombs are limited ammo, but your gun never runs out, so it is tempting to just stay where the action is and strafe to your heart's content. However, money is earned by rescuing civilians, if you are in a helicopter; or dropping paratroopers into bunkers if you are in an airplane. Bunkers have to be captured for your army to advance, so remember to head back to home base often to drop off civilians and pick up more bombs and paratroopers. You also have a limited numbers of lives, but depending on the mission, sacrificing your gunship in a Kamikaze manner isn't a bad tactic, especially when already limping from vicious enemy attacks.

There is no tutorial per se in Glory Days 2, but you start off slowly in Campaign mode by rescuing civilians with a helicopter gunship. You then move on with a bombing mission with an airplane. Depending on the mission, you have control of either the helicopter or the airplane, and this gives a significantly different feel to each mission. Both have nose guns and bombs, but that is the extent of their similarities. The choppers can zip around in quick turns and are used primarily when there are civilians to be rescued. They also allow you to almost hover in place over a bunker and bomb it repeatedly, and you can strafe constantly as you move, since they tilt with their nose pointed toward the ground. The planes are faster and have certain maneuverability, such as a loop-the-loop, and I found them fantastic at taking out enemy choppers and the occasional line of tanks in a kamikaze tactic when unable to reach safety.

The learning curve of Glory Days 2 was actually a little on the steep side for me, as the menus are not the most intuitive and the interface a little clunky in switching between the stylus and the D-pad / buttons (press X for turbo). It took me a long, long time to get used to the plane enough to get past chapter 2. The dual screens also can be confusing. The top screen is your action - what you are actually doing (flying, shooting, crashing). The lower screen shows the long tactical view (where your front, the ground action) is. It's hard focusing on the action screen while keeping an eye on the big picture; although, all the necessary information is provided to you in the interface bar at top: your ammo, the cash earned, and the big tug of war between you and your enemy, and the number of bunkers captured by each side, who's advancing and who's retreating.

I found that I had much better movement control with the stylus; there was excellent response in diving, swooping, looping the loop to get out of the way fast. It was not very comfortable, easy or accurate holding the DS and firing/bombing with the D-pad and controlling the aircraft with the stylus. However, flying with the D-pad was far less exact.

As you move further into Campaign mode, the action can get intense as you gain new weapons and aircraft as well as ground vehicles and troops. You begin to see new landscapes — now-covered mountains, sandy deserts and beaches. While you are controlling the war in the air, your army marches along. Each chapter is a tug of war as you and your enemies destroy each other and advances or retreats in side-scrolling fashion.

There are two different games. The Campaign (story) mode and short, customizable games (Battle mode), which guarantee you hours upon hours of fun. You have choices of three arenas of combat, three types of games — Action (destroy bunkers), Tactical (destroy bunkers and rescue civilians) and Strategic (destroy, rescue and build your army). From there on, there are enough choices that you can create a great number of games. Difficulty level, friendly fire, respawn timer, timed game, weather, amount of resources, aircrafts for yourself and your allies, and your enemy's aircrafts, and go at it.

I actually found a lot more fun in Battle mode as I found I enjoyed the Tactical game most. I like the helicopter and enjoyed rescuing civilians and placing troops on the battlefield. It was a challenge to clear enough of the enemy to do that safely, and I had a tendency to forget the building part. Although, I found that the game eventually would deploy your troops for you, but you would be at a disadvantage. Like most other DS games, there is also a multiplayer mode that supports up to eight players. I did not have a chance to try this.

Graphically, GloryDays 2 is put together amazingly well. The graphics tend towards the realistic although there is little detail due to the zoomed out view. The landscape and weather effects were impressive for what the DS is, and the amount of detail in a complex battle can be overwhelming. The rain coming down, bullets tracking through the air, smoke billowing from your nose when you are hit and the battle of the ground troops marching inexorably on. Add to this an incredible soundtrack in the background as you march towards victory.

Glory Days 2 is an incredible package for war-game aficionados in a small portable format. Do not despair if you run through the Campaign too quickly, the combinations and permutations available to you in the Battle mode will keep you going for many, many more hours. For that commute or doctor's waiting room, two cramped thumbs up for Glory Days 2.