POSTED 1/8/13


DYNASTY WARRIORS 8

Koei
PS3 (also on Xbox 360)

CLINK-CLINK-CLINK-CLINK! Ca-rring-tons, come out to play-ayyyyyy...

Oh alright, so Dynasty Warriors isn’t ’80s soapie characters going the biff in a dystopian NYC. But we’d buy that for a dollar if it was.

We’d also buy this for a dollar, or even several. Pretty obviously the eighth instalment in the main DW series, Koei’s strategy battles for those who just don’t dig the strategy bit delivers all that it promises.

Yes, mazes stuffed with wave after wave after wave after wave after wave after wave of adversaries swarm you all mozzie-like as you slash ‘n’ burn a frenzied, bloodied swathe through them. Uh-huh, there’s ace Japanesey arcade sound, from wailtastic geetaw shredding through to cheesy dialogue that you laugh with, not at.

Sure, there’s a massively branchy story mode chockas with 77 playable characters and gigantic battles, along with a palace-building ‘Ambition’ mode which adds more of an RPG feel to the throng-laceration, plus ‘Free’ mode, where, of course, you don’t wear undies, returns. Those who like co-op will like the co-op mode. Obviously.

Yep, it’s hacky, it’s slashy, it’s hordey – yet it’s anything but boring. Alright, so you can do the mash, do the button mash, but master the various combos, weapons, counters and funkgasmoricious attacks – including from horseback - and you’ll feel gooderer about yourself. Or ‘better’ if you’re not illiterate.

If you can’t sit back and relax as you choppity-chop your way through oodles of mindless meat puppets over and over and over and over and over like a monkey with a miniature cymbal then you’ll like this about as much as previous episodes of Dynasty Warriors. But fans should dig the tweaks and tune-ups – even if you still can’t have Joan Collins beating seven shades of shite out of Heather Locklear.

Hm, I see... Well that will do, I suppose.

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