Dynasty Warriors 5 Special [XBox360]

[bapenguin]

IGN (http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/651/651682p1.html) has a hands on preview with Dynasty Warriors 5 Special for the XBox 360.

Visually, Dynasty Warriors 5 Special isn't a big leap over the current crop of Dynasty Warriors titles. It looks slightly better with higher resolution textures, better lighting effects, a further draw distance and less jaggies because the game itself is being displayed in a higher res, but the graphical differences aren't amazing,
That's a shame. Especially when you look at a game like 99 Nights (http://media.xbox360.ign.com/media/747/747832/vids_1.html) and what it can do.

[KamaItachi]

Yeah, comparisons don`t do DW any favours, but you got to get the titles out that people want. I never liked the DW series very much, but it`s a big seller and maybe it`ll help more people get into 99 nights and (fingers crossed) a next gen Kingdom Under Fire.

[Savok]

God dammit, another superior version, this is getting like DVDs.

[The Iron Weasel]

Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing what the next Kingdom Under Fire game looks like on 360 (you know the one after heros), sure its not confirmed or anything but just imagine it, it would kick ass!

[Vileblitz]

Nevermind this is just a rehash of Dynasty Warriors 5? Or what.

[Twigz'N'Berries]

Nevermind this is just a rehash of Dynasty Warriors 5? Or what.
Yup a rehash.
Also, I'm impressed w/the looks of Ninety Nine Nights. What I don't like is that it a next generation Dynasty Warriors clone. Dynasty Warriors seemed like a dumb button masher. I was hoping N3 would have been more of an RPG.

[AspectVoid]

Its a port. They're not going to completely rewrite the engine for a port. It makes no sense to do that from an economic standpoint. *shrug* Frankly, my favorite in the series is still DW4 Empires. I just found the light turnbase stuff to add a bit to the game.

[TheBigL]

ahhh, guys... Its too early to say 99 nights is a good game, aftar all, there wasnt any gamplay shown in the trailers, they all CG.

Although I never liked DW, I gave the 5th one a try, WOW, that was soo much fun. Brainlessly kill kill and kill, then kill some more!!! It was best with a friend.

Besides, Heavenly Sword (http://www.gamespot.com/ps3/action/heavenlysword/index.html) for the PS3 looks great, watch it trailer. (Most of it CG but there is a gameplay too).

[Babbster]

Fortunately, I haven't been playing Dynasty Warrior for years, buying every iteration. I've played a lot of Dynasty Warriors 3 and was thinking about picking up 5 for the Xbox. Now that I see a version is going to be released for the X360 I'll just hold off a little longer. Thanks for saving me the cash, Koei! :)

[Deadend]

Koei are the kings of the double-dip franchise to the point of making EA look downright creative and avoiding sequalitius.

There are more Dynasty Warrior PS2 games than ANY other franchise, hell, I think there are more Dynasty warrior games than there are FOOTBALL GAMES. Samurai Warriors also counts as one as well.

DW2 was cool when it was first shown, back when the PS2 just came out, wasn't it? It was a game that had been impossible in the past. I think they still use the same ground textures 4-5 years later.

[Vileblitz]

Dynasty Warriors is an action strategy historic battle game. I'm not sure how much RPG you can add without drowning out the action. It would be neat if you could learn kung fu though.

I guess that is why I prefer the Dungeon & Dragons arcade games or even Gauntlet Dark Legacy over LotR or Demon Stone. Too much talk and epic movie plot. They would be better off with a Zelda project.

[SmellDumpster]

That game 999 looks pretty slick. I like the characters although I hope they have more than the 3 shown in the trailer. That was one thing that I thought Kingdom Under Fire fell short on as well (especially after playing Dynasty Warriors where, because there are so many characters, there's a ton of replay value). Although, if the singleplayer missions are as involved as Kingdom Under Fire (relative to Dynasty Warriors anyhow), I suppose it'd be OK. Still, cool looking characters.

As far as gameplay, I had no idea what was going on in the video that showed gameplay for 999. Even though it looked at least 7.8 times better than Dynasty Warriors, I (sadly) have a better idea of what's going on in Dynasty Warriors during gameplay than from that video. If they just pulled the camera up about 20 degrees to above the level of battle to a partial top-down, I bet it would have looked *incredible* .

I played all the way through Dynasty Warrior 3 on a couple of the characters. I played a fair amount of it in splitscreen as well. I don't remember having anywhere near as many problems with the draw distance in splitscreen as I have in Dynasty Warriors 5, even (but to a much lesser extent) in singleplayer. For one, they draw the coop player before drawing the enemies on the screen, so if splitscreen runs out of cpu power to render, you see your buddy but all the important enemies end up blipping out even though they're only like 10 feet from you. This is stupid as your coop buddy can't hurt you while enemies can (nothing like getting 3/4 of your health removed because an invisible general started juggling you before he became visible).

#5 game is almost the same as Dynasty Warriors 3 except for small tweaks. A lot of the maps even look more or less exactly the same with the same scripted events (ex: the night-time boat level where everything catches on fire).

I'd be willing to play all the way through except for I think that they screwed up the balancing on some of the maps. Some of the lose conditions go way too fast compared to #3. Combine this with some of the named generals being ridiculously overpowered compared to the other generals you've been fighting (by the time you've had to run away 3 times trying to find jars to break open for life-ups), I start getting the "hey, that's not fair" game-over feeling. Then again, maybe I just suck. I definitely think those bosses and saving the game-over condition wouldn't be as much of an issue with me if the draw problem wasn't as bad as it was (especially in coop). Combine this with a mediocre camera and defense system and it makes you wonder if the developers have the programming support or interest to implement play-testing or review feedback. Really, I think it all comes down to the crappy draw distance. I'm really curious how 999 will hold up in splitscreen or if they'll support it.

In #5, they've done some nice things with the bodyguard system since 3. I just wish that you could bring the old guy who introduces the bodyguards into combat with you. I bet he's an ass kicker.

wooo.. rants in my pants.

Dynasty Warriors is like the dark drug of video games for me. I sit and watch other people play coop for a few rounds thinking, "damn, I really don't need to get into this game.. it looks so mindless." But then after playing, I can't imagine not going back for more. I needs it.