Metareview - Samurai Warriors 2

After a two-year absence from consoles, you may have thought that Korean publisher Koei had forgotten about its fledgling Samurai Warriors series. Not a chance, tomodachi! It's just too easy for developer Omega Force to feast on the considerable assets of the Dynasty Warriors, Xtreme Legends, and Empires games, and swap out ancient China for feudal Japan. Staying true to form, this entry adds only minor, Madden-like increments to the series. And Koei isn't finished for 2006. Samurai Warriors 2 Empires is due in November for PS2, while Dynasty Warriors Vol. 2 for PSP arrives next month.

• GameSpy (70/100) was the most generous, praising the dynamic battlefields and new modes: "The game could have benefited from one or two full-fledged alternative modes, but it does include a challenging tower mode. There's also a board game mode called Sugoroku, which is a variation on a Japanese board game that somewhat resembles Monopoly."
  
  

• GameSpot (60/100) is calling for a seppuku of the outdated graphics engine, but found one honorable feature: "To its credit, Samurai Warriors 2 does change up the skills and upgrades system a little bit, forcing you to purchase new skills in between levels with gold you collect. Unfortunately, the tangibility of these upgrades isn't always apparent, so it can sometimes feel as though you're plunging money into nothing."
  
  

• TeamXbox (55/100) was disappointed with the limited Xbox Live options: "Koei feels that rather than going up against a friend in any form of real time combat, people would enjoy fighting against a CPU-controlled general while your friend does the same in a time-based competition. Needless to say, they're mistaken. When people take their games onto Xbox Live they want to feel like they're online, not like they're playing the single player game all over again."

See also: Metareview - Ninety-Nine Nights