Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires Review (Xbox 360) By Graeme Lunn

5 / 10
04 Jul 2006 at 20:53

Review by: Graeme Lunn

First thing - it's cheap so well worth a punt if you want something fun, Secondly though, if you've owned a DW title before, it's the same old same old - but there's something a little more clever to this than just the usual "California Games / Track n Field"-esque button bashing.
Sure, there's plenty of button bashing in evidence, as ever, but the strategy element of the title, ensuring that your officers are dispersed through the land well enough to counter any attacks from the opposition is absolutely key to the game.
To keep this short & sweet, the game is a mini-strategic button bashing fit of joy. My only criticism is that this plays (and looks) starkly similar to a previous version I had on the Xbox. Other than a vastly improved "number of enemies on screen at once" ratio, there is little evidence that EMPIRES is pushing the graphical boundaries of the 360. Come on Koei... not so lazy next time, otherwise this fun franchise could find it's way to a slating and eventual extinction.

Update
Having played the game for a longer period of time I have felt the need to reduce my rating from a healthy 8/10 to 5/10. Why the change of heart, all will become apparent.
In the Empire mode (which lets face it - is THE game mode to play here) there is no flow or continuity. e.g. you complete the Yellow Turban campaign, then you save the game and have to go to new game to select one of the newer campaigns which has opened. No issue here really - you can save over the top of an old game slot and even carry across your officer stats from the previous campaign. BUT you lose all of the officers you gained and probably trained up to be quality killing machines with massive armies. You also lose all of your items you may have produced and the "smiths" you may have levelled up in order to use better weapons all get reset to lvl 1 a the beginning of each campaign and then you have to begin the whole painstaking process again. You really do begin to wonder what the point is - and believe me i am beyond tedious and only have continued to play this because i have paid hard earned money to own it (yes even the £17.99 was hard earned) and feel that i owe it to myself to actually finish the thing. Another annoying thing which i am sure would have you pulling your hair out (i am presuming that you have hair of course - if you don't, read rubbing your head in frustration :-) is that if you are logged into xbox live and are quite happily slaying your way through the next wave of utter and complete chinese meatheads, if your connection suddenly drops and thus you are signed out, the game views this as you changing your profile and returns you to the main menu. Lazy, lazy programming and for me, completely indicative that Koei have utilised this as a really quick port from an average PS2 title with no thought to the hardware or operating system differences involved in porting the game to a different and superior machine. Believe me I was ready to throw my joypad in frustration when this happened to me as i was just about to conquer the last area of my current campaign until realised that (a) my pad is now wireless and i dont think 'er indoors would appreciate a joypad shaped hole in the window / wall and (b) £33 quid to replace a joypad which has suffered from game rage is a lot more expensive than just picking up freebees when Game give them away with new releases and storing them for future use.
Anyway, enough about my psychotic joypad hurling tendancies, in closing about DWE, i can safely say that when LOTRBFMEII arrives cuddled up to a cellophane wrapped copy of Prey in a bubblewrapped envelope on Friday morning, DWE will never see the light of day in my 360 again. Ever.

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