Dynasty Warriors 2

If nothing else, Dynasty Warriors 2 is a unique gaming experience presented within a stunning graphical shell. Its best and worst attributes can all be traced to the game's most prominent quality--its reluctance to fit into any one particular genre. On one hand, DW2 defies strategy game convention by putting full control of only one character into the player's hands. As a result, the game is dripping with action. When you're not slicing at enemies with one of several available weapons, you're riding a horse across the map to support units in trouble and boost your troop's morale. Watching two or three dozen warriors dash at once while the PS2 effortlessly keeps pace is impressive. On the other hand, rolling action, fighting and strategy elements into one package means making sacrifices in each area, so more particular gamers may long for greater depth. The strategy element is really limited to either attacking or not attacking a mass of enemies, and there is little need for planning before battle. As far as the action element is concerned, the attack moves look nice but there are very few of them, which means the same monotonous button-pressing over and over most of the time. And since single battles can last over an hour, all this repetition definitely hurts the overall experience. Nevertheless, DWa is fundamentally intriguing and a decent execution of a very original concept.

Imagine what any of Koei's strategy titles would be like as an action game and this is what you get. There are a few flaws once you get past the initial "wow" factor of the graphics (which are amazing). It feels like a first-generation game--like a PSi game with upgraded graphics. Control is tight, but the camera is too often not where you want to be looking. The biggest problem, though, is that the combat in the hour-plus battles gets monotonous. Hack, slash, look at the map, repeat. Each character has his/her own style, but you're stuck with his/her moves and weapon ail the way through. The combat's too simple for a game that professes to have more strategic elements.

With a good deal of action and pretty decent artwork, DW2 seems really appealing at first. I found the action to be reminiscent of the old Ninja Turtles arcade game-once you figure out which of the two or three moves to use when, you lose interest after a couple of levels. Although there are several different characters to play the game with, they're not going to make you want to start an hour-long battle over again. The sound, story and gameplay are pretty average, so there's not much to bump it up the chart. While fun for about the first half hour, DW2 gets too repetitive to really enjoy long-term, so you'll probably want to rent this one first.