What is Bladestorm all about? War. Mainly the 100 Year War between England and France. We've always liked the chaos of a Dynasty Warriors game, but let's face it, this is like the 30th reincarnation of the series. It's a little pass stale at this stage. It's like the bread you see in horror movies being eaten by rats.

The worst thing about this game is that fact that you don't get to play as any of the characters during the time. No. You get to play mercenaries who can align with England or France. How generic is that? Koei did manage to give you complete control of your troops this time. This is done by running up to some allie troops and hitting a button, which tells them to follow you and do what you do. Then you run around killing everything on the battlefield until you take the enemy stronghold.

To make it more interesting, you have a timer that starts in the morning and ends at night. If you don't defeat your enemies by night, you have to start all over. Your troops can include archers, cavalry, or foot soldiers. The battlefield is massive and very busy, but the enemy AI is very bad. They might not fight you at all even as you're cutting them in half. While it's nice to see a large battle with troops, we estimate around 40 to 50 are actually in contact with you at any moment. The rest is background eye candy.

The graphics are primitive because of the number of troops on the battlefield at once. The textures are very plain and the battlefield is mostly empty except for a few trees and landmarks. It sounds like a battlefield and the music matches the atmosphere of a large battle. You do get some special effects when you do your special moves, but it's very limited compared to the old Dynasty Warriors series.

This game does not have an online mode or multiplayer mode like the Dynasty Warriors series. It's all pretty lackluster, which is what Bladestorm is, lackluster. Even Gundam Musou is better than this game, and that's saying alot since Gundam Musou sucks.