Dynasty Warriors 5 Empires
PS2
Koei


'Dynasty Warriors 5: Empires' is Japanese developer Koei's ninth title in the series for PS2 alone. As such, it's growing more difficult not to see the series as little more than a money-making exercise. The problem is that the series haven't changed much since 2000. They're still set in the same Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history, from the Yellow Turban Rebellion of 184 AD, to the conquest of the Wu by the Jin Dynasty in 280 and there are still the same characters. The gameplay has remained the same as well; a third person hack-and-slash, as you take your chosen general through a war zone, defeating vast numbers of enemy forces and the occasional enemy officer. The aim is to take over their main base, and thus the region, on your way to controlling China as a whole.

However, the ''Empires' spin-offs, which were first introduced after 'Dynasty Warriors 4', introduce a little variety to the formula by adding a strategy component inspired by Koei's NES title 'Chronicles Of The Three Kingdoms'. This allows you to structure and train your army, engage in alliances and prepare tactics for battles ahead. Unfortunately, it comes at the expense of the engaging story mode of the regular 'Dynasty Warriors' games and also removes the scripted battles, replacing them with nothing but invasion after invasion. There are four scenarios to be unlocked, but none of them offer anything different - there's the same map of China and the same regions to be conquered.

The series have never been spectacular graphically - although impressive in the number of characters shown at one time, its weakness is immediately obvious in its abysmal draw-distance and repetitive character models. This title improves the environmental and character textures, but there's nothing to differentiate it from 'Dynasty Warriors 5'.

The music is predictably awful. The series have always featured battle music that sounds very much like Ronnie James Dio done instrumentally with electronic drums, and 'Dynasty Warriors 5: Empires' collects every song from the previous games like some sort of horrific greatest hits. The voice acting hasn't improved either, with the same Americanised voices full of talk about going to "Pound on an enemy". For a series that takes the historical seriously, it seems odd to include this kind of anachronism in the speech.

'Dynasty Warriors 5: Empires' isn't a bad game; it's just wearyingly similar to every other game in the series. The addition of strategy elements goes some way to refreshing the tired and repetitive action components, but, even then, we've seen it all before in 'Dynasty Warriors 4: Empires'. The series could be rejuvenated to some degree by balancing story and strategy more effectively, but until then, it's much too much of the same.

Alistair Wallis