Game Review: Samurai Warriors 2: Empires (Xbox 360)

I haven't been reviewing lately, but you can thank exams for that. Afterward, look forward to a review for Condemned 2: Bloodshot, Ninja Gaiden II, DBZ: Burst Limit and The Bourne Conspiracy.

Samurai Warriors 2
Publisher: KOEI
Developer: Omega Force
Players: 1-2
Genre: Action Adventure

I really hope feudal Japan wasn't this boring. Onimusha would have a fit.

I remember the glorious days of Dynasty Warriors 4 and 5, their best years ever. Back then they had new ideas, but old executions, which were fine for that time (they weren't overused....yet.) Even the Original Samurai Warriors was half bad. And then KOEI went and vomited out Dynasty Warriors 5: Extreme Legends. Then they excreted DW5: Empires. But they weren't even close to satisfied with rubbing their game's name in mud. They then threw out SW2:E.

These Samurai should commit an "honorable" suicide.
Lets face it: Whenever a game relies on a single gimmick (not console, I said when a GAME does this) it 90% of the time falls straight on its face. Samurai Warriors 2: Empires is no different. However, unlike DW, this SW game doesn't even do that gimmick right; that is, throwing hordes of mindless soldiers that all seem to look like Mexican Matt Damons at you. While its fun for the first 10 minutes, those Mr. Damongonzales's start to get very annoying. Very, Very annoying. Combos hardly even start until late in the "game". And even when they do, all you do is press the X button about 5 times, do it again, do it again...Oh! Musou attack. Ok now then. X5...X5....O....X5... which gets beyond tedious, and extremely unfulfilling. Another part of the game that DW did that SW's crashes (and burns) on is officer fights. While DW manages to make these even slightly challenging (possibly even...fun....) the officers (aka mini bosses) are just as mindless as the pissants you run through the whole game. They simply have more health, and don't look like Senior Damon. Absolutely all parts of the "strategy that the game is thinly based on a complete rubbish. When you issue an order, you comrades follow it, but do about nothing else afterwards. You tell them to guard a base, so they go to the base, but don't defend it. Just kinda stand around looking all Japanese-like. Finally, the idea of governing your territories is boring and unnecessary. And with only 26 characters, all who are absolutely boring to play as (with the exception to Nene and Hanzo), you will most likely lock this game in a crate and throw it to the bottom of a river. To which i say: Please don't. Should in the future some alien race finds this game in that crate and plays it, it will almost surely make them attack and destroy the earth for creating such awful "games".

Hello Mr. Samurai, nice pop-in we're having today!
Onto graphics. The only semi-decent graphical thing in this game is the character models (Excluding Mr.Damon-Gonzales.) While they do their thing (with glitchy animations) on screen, it becomes increasingly obvious that the devs for this game just don't want you looking at backgrounds, and for good reason. This game has less stairs and level elevation changes then Wolfenstein 3D (for those of you who don't know, it didn't HAVE level changes.), so you'll be spending some to all of your time on a level surface. Occasionally there will be some pots of boxes which you can break with an attack, usually resulting in nothing whatsoever. Even when you do, the boxes just kinda fade away and don't even break. Almost every type of 3D building or whatever in the game is simply a texture slapped on the side of a box. Really, theres not even that much to even CRITICIZE in this game. Graphics are below poor.

Japanese style-soundtrack? Honestly, I hope not, for Japan's sake.
SW2: E sports a self-proclaimed Japanese style soundtrack to pummel countless Mexican warriors to. While its not really so bad, its easily forgettable and doesn't really fit the mood at all. That, combines with the ridiculously incoherent dialogue issuing from the NPC's mouths all game long really makes you want to mute the TV. Terrible sound effects. However, once in a blue moon a character or two will have a good voice over for crappy dialogue. Does that compensate? Heres another one: Does ice cream make aliens come to earth and dance the disco every Thursday night at every burger king across the US? If so, then yes, it does compensate.

Even samurai won't play this through again.
If you like this fecies, then you have the ride of your life; tons of story modes that all have the same characters doing the EXACT same thing over and over. If you don't, this game has no replay value.


Lets get to it then! (Thanks for standing still!)

Presentation: 1/5
You wonder why theres no paragraph on this? Because there is no story.

Graphics: 2.5/5
Decent character models offset by terrible everything else. Lame.

Gameplay: 2/5
Mashing the button over and over is fun for a good 10 minutes. Then it just gets repetitive and tedious.

Sound: 2.5/5
Decent songs don't fit with the mood. Voice overs are sometimes less then crap, but dialogue and sound is.

Replay Value: 1/5
What?

Overall: 1.5/5

Bad. Avoid. Shoot with a rifle type of avoid. Yeah, its that bad. If you don't know why you haven't read this review.