From a new review posted on underground online at:

http://www.ugo.com/ugo/html/article/?id=17986&sectionId=2

I found the following quote disappointing:

Battalion Wars 2 lacks any sort of local multiplayer component - co-op or otherwise - but it makes up for this with a robust trio of online modes via the Wii's Wi-Fi Connection.

That disappoints me greatly.  For that very reason I won't be purchasing the title.  It seems more and more developers are content with providing multiplayer online only and leaving out local multiplayer.  Oh well.  It looked fun. 

Soul Calibur Legends has me interested soley based on the fact that it has local co-op. The game will probably be ho-hum, but being able to co-op with a buddy in the room through the game. It can be average and still be a blast.

If all that matters to you is local multiplayer, then yeah, don't get it. But did you get the first BW? Which had NO multiplayer. If you did, why would you let no local multiplayer stop you from getting it for the single player experience again?

I'm excited about the online multiplayer. I haven't had the time to do it yet though.

Hm, yeah. Honestly Local Multiplayer was a big draw for me as well. It might fall off my purchase list as well. Or atleast be put on the "Find it used instead of new" list.

Local multiplayer is important to me as well. Especially on the Wii, which I play primarily with friends. I'll still probably pick up the game at some point, but not until it's budget priced aways down the road. The lack of local multiplayer really bothered me about Motorstorm too. Local multiplayer is what got me into gaming in the first place way back on the NES.

 I played the first one a bit but put it down and never went back for some reason.  I just got sidetracked.  My daughter is now old enough to play games with me so I'd like more co-op stuff...  

How would you do local multi-player of a real-time strategy game? *Maybe* co-op would be possible split-screen, but in competitive play seeing the other player's screen ruins a lot of the strategy aspects of it. Yeah it'd be nice but it's the type of game that doesn't really lend itself well to same-screen multiplayer.

 I completely understand being disappointed about no local multiplayer.  I've been very disappointed about other games that haven't had it.  Local multiplayer matters to me more than online.  I just personally wanted BWii for the single player, and didn't hear that it had multiplayer until I got it.  Besides, the only person I'd play MP with on BWiii, I'd have to do online anyway.  So just for me, it doesn't matter.  But it does suck.

The same way you can play FPS on a split screen i'd imagine. 

I was looking for Local co-op myself.

FPS is more action-oriented tho so screen-looking doesn't totally ruin the game. The whole point of RTS games is you don't know what your opponent is doing and can get surprise attacked and stuff at any time, caught off guard, etc. A local co-op mode should be possible tho, that'd be neat, but I can see why they didn't do it.