Warriors Orochi

Sometimes its nice that games aren't that close to real life, especially in the case of Warriors Orochi, a title that defies all logic, storytelling and good sense to create a manic frenzy of death.

The game all takes place in a bizarre time warp scenario involving the Dynasty Warriors (from Koei's Dynasty Warriors series) and the Samurai Warriors (a spin-off of Dynasty Warriors) getting thrown together in a battle royale, eventually realising that they're all going to die unless they kill the Serpent King Orochi.

You select one of several groups of players, following something approaching a storyline that leads you into gigantic battles against wave after wave of enemies that are predominantly devoid of Al, charging willingly towards you then standing still as you lop them apart.

Their officers are slightly more clever, deliberately knocking you off your horse or using special attacks,-but it doesn't get much more cerebral than tapping a key (beware driver conflicts if you're using a 360 pad) before saddling up and chasing down the next officer.

Can You Dig It?

The little strategy you use comes down to following the objectives that centre around killing officers, protecting areas, or saving your hopelessly stupid allies before launching a final assault on the enemy leader. The simplistic action gets very repetitive - to the point that you'll probably get tired of clearing enemies, and choose to ride directly to the final boss without touching any of his cohorts. This approach misses out on valuable experience and massive cohort combos though, and because your three freely-switchable characters don't share experience, problems can arise. What anyone but the most laboriously patient player will find is that one character will generally be a useless distraction to pull out while your better characters heal up.

Warriors Orochi never rises above simple hack-and-slash, but is fun, visceral and silly, with daft voice acting and Asian techno-jazz.