Samurai Warriors 2 Empires

Inept

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Throughout your life you'll experience many many moments of absolute undeserving frustration. Take the Rubik's Cube - a 'stupid' toy/game impossibly difficult, completely alienating to virtually everyone who can use their fingers and draw breath. It's a pointless object made famous by its difficulty to understand - and anyone who can figure out how a Rubik's Cube works needs to be horribly burnt in any case.

Samurai Warriors 2: Empires, thankfully, will never be as widely known. It sits comfortably lodged in the absolute dregs of the barrel in the stink of sub mediocrity. A place where games are ignored, because they're lame enough to create the same sort of morbid curiosity as a public hanging, and are certainly not good enough to be deserving of any critical acclaim (warning: there are some publications that have enough of the proverbial in their peepers that bizarrely demonstrate such misjudgment, ignore at will).

Also belonging is the same cliched narrative of the early Total War games: Japan's warring territories. The Shogun games have been doing this for years, in fact so has this very Samurai Warriors franchise - which can be confused with the Dynasty Warriors games - Koei are responsible for them too. It's the same dusty footpath that sells in the East and does moderately well here. A tinker here and there and a new game is up for purchasing. Samurai Warriors 2: Empires features some of the features seen in Dynasty Warriors but more painfully. Outside the monotonous hack and slash gameplay (we'll come to that balls'd up bit of video gaming in a moment) is a strategy system simply not suited to console gaming. It boasts a difficulty spike that needs climbing gear or some sort of jetpack to scale...put simply, and I say it again, it's not suited to the console gamer. Obviously you'll have your complaining strategists with Xbox 360 controller in hand who'll jump that sentence, but the fact remains that most strategy, (certainly when done with text boxes rather than action) should be confined to PC gaming.

The pre-battle end of Empires states the size of the two forces about to face each other. Usually you're party to the lesser of the two armies; your task seeming grand and noble akin to Frank Miller's own over estimation of the 1 million strong Persians (it was more like 250,000) versus the 300 Spartans. Okay those numbers fail to correlate with Empires, but you get the picture. You take to the battlefield with another of your captains (at the beginning of the game, many more later on) and set about taking and defending camps and territory. Along with your 'army' you charge into battle; your blade catching the light as the claret spills to the floor. You're surrounded by the enemy, overwhelmed, swarmed, drowning in a sea of swords - you look back, your army is waiting...perhaps to see the heroism and skill of their noble commander, to be lead into battle for glorious victory, or perhaps it's because they're a stupid bunch of imbeciles unaware of the fact that the fighting has begun and their illustrious leader is about to be buggered by a bunch of very angry men. This all in spite of my smashing of the 'ATTACK' command button - this is supposedly meant to direct your army in their tactical advances, although it has no effect at all.

Meanwhile, across the map the ineptness continues. Your captain, someone you've placed the utmost confidence in, leads his troops into a death trap. And as a marker to how badly the battle is going, among the slaughter of 80% of his men; their screams of anguish to a family they'll never see again; of a grave inches deep on the battlefield, is a lone voice: 'I don't believe this battle is going too well' - you what mate? Too bloody right fella! I'm getting my arse handed to me on a plate because my bunch of merry biffs would rather watch from afar as I'm porked and you're showing the tactical ability of a turd as the men, who have at least shown the common decency to follow you into to the fight, are now all laying dead at your feet. Then to lace the poo-pie with arsenic I'm suddenly greeted with the 'mission failed' screen without explanation as to the specific reason why. Don't get me wrong, I was well aware I was doing pretty badly, but at least give a morsel to work with for the next go - if indeed there is another go in you.

Such an inept gaming experience is something that I'd expected video gaming to be long since rid. Apparently not. It's blatant shoddy craftsmanship, frustrating not because it could have been so good and never was, but because it starts off, continues, and culminates in shoddiness. The only thing memorable about the whole affair is that Samurai Warriors 2: Empires will be the game you forgot quickest.

Should you be of the forgiving kind, and I am, you'll be swiftly punched in the face by the clunky graphics engine. To say that Koei haven't made best use of the 360's clout is a gargantuan understatement. The differences between the PS2 version and the Xbox 360 port (because that's what it is) is minuscule, certainly not worth any additional cost - in fact, if the truth will out, there's absolutely no point in wasting your cash in purchasing this. The developers have made a half-arsed attempt at creating a video game (so similar to past endeavors) and have followed no guide of good practice to guarantee a reasonably playable title.

There's nothing I can recommend, not a single ounce of quality to be found. Ridiculous difficulty spikes, a shoddy strategy system, a game broken, all add weight to this scathing review. I doubt I've played a game this bad in the last five years. There's a jump button that you never have to use, and musical score plus acting that creates all the atmosphere of Arsenal's Emirates stadium on a Saturday afternoon and an attack system that offers nothing in the way of variety to boot.

In fact I can't be bothered to go on. Anyone who buys this is an idiot. I wish artistic license would have allowed me to start and end the review in as many words.

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By Gary Flavell