The strange, confusing and ancient conflict between warring Chinese clans has been the setting for the Dynasty Warriors series of games since the dawn of time, but this time Omega Force have decided to do something different. By removing most of the action they’re going further into the intellectual part of the era… Oh who am I kidding? – It’s all just the same!

Anyone who’s played a DW game before will know the score: pick a cool general with a long name and spear to match, listen to some hideous American voice-acting and then hammer the X button and listen to wailing guitar solos until your thumbs (and ears) bleed. Usually you’ll love it or hate it, and you’ll find out after the first ten minutes of playing whether it’s for you (or not).

Although you still only get a small range of moves (short attack combo, charge attack and musou attack) the animations are much smoother - hacking through thirty men in one combo has never looked so good! You also have an even larger selection of characters to fight with (48 in fact), all with their different weapons, styles and animations. The bodyguard unit has been replaced with one badass bodyguard, who can pretty much fight for a whole unit.

Although DW5 has improved on some slightly lacking or already good areas, it seems to have forgotten about the main points that have been nagging the series since its first release. Although the draw distance has been pushed further back and the game is a lot smoother you still get graphical problems when fighting the big units, with some soldiers still magically appearing right next to you and taking a swipe.

But no matter how cool the cut-scenes may look and how many characters you have on-screen at once, it doesn’t change the fact that you still button-bash your way throughout the whole game without variation or advancement. After a while hacking through the endless hordes of very stupid AI becomes incredibly tedious, even for the purists trying to find everything this game has to offer, which is a lot.