Order and Chaos Online

"It's pretty much World of Warcraft"

It's been a while since i last wrote anything here and there are several reasons for this, one of them being is that there is bugger all to review but the main reason is that I've been suffering from a severe case of "can not be arsed".....or writers block as it's more professionally known to us professionals.

So as a special treat I'm going to review a game that very few of you have ever heard of at all.

Now assuming that you have read the large and pretty sub-title above then I've said all there is to say about this game. It literally is a Mobile version of World of Warcraft.  The world is split into two distinct forces known as Order and Chaos, the forces of Order consist of Humans and Elves whereas Chaos forces consist of Orcs and the Undead, (Alliance and Horde?) so already you can tell the similarities.

Gameplay is fairly simple, you wander around the world completing quests for NPC's and these are all very simple, such as to kill X number of beast Y in order to level up and become stronger. There is some PvP (Player vs Player) in the game but i haven't yet tried it out. I've been put off PvP ever since RuneScape to be honest.

One point i feel that needs to be mentioned is how well this game operates on a touch screen device. Movement is controlled via a virtual joystick in the corner of the screen and interface menus are all controlled by virtual and context sensitive buttons located on various parts of the screen.
The only problem with the control system is the in-game chat which breaks the flow of gameplay. In order to send a message you need to tap the bottom of the screen to bring up the chat box, you then need to tap the chat box to open your phones virtual keyboard (which completely covers the screen) and type out your message then send it.

Now imagine trying to do this whilst in combat, it will be awkward and will most likely end in your characters death.

Never the less it's one of those things you put up with. It's a game for the mobile and i paid just under £5 for it so I'm not expecting perfection. As with most MMORPG games there is a subscription fee of about 69p a month, but you get the first three months free and that's plenty of time to enjoy this game.

Basically in a nutshell this is a watered down version of World of Warcraft and the main plus of this game is that it's a great time killer, As long as you got a fairly decent signal on your phone you can connect and kill a fair bit of time and for £5 your pretty much getting a slightly similar experience to World of Warcraft without having to say goodbye to your social life.

 Oh and it's made by a company called Gameloft, thought i'd better throw that in there.

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Dynasty Warriors 7

"Quite possibly the worst review of the Series"

The Dynasty Warriors series has always been a sort of "hit and miss" series of games, you either don't like it and don't understand why others do, or you do like it and don't understand why you do either, simply because the gameplay is highly tedious and each game is just a repeat of the same story with only a few minor changes to gameplay.....but i love it.

The story of Dynasty Warriors is based on the Chinese historical novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" which covers the events of the Three Kingdoms (Wei, Wu and Shu) which took place between the Yellow Turban Rebellion in 184 AD up until the unification of the Three Kingdoms under the Jin Dynasty in 280 AD, however the games only ever followed the story up until after the Battle of Wuzhang Plains in 234AD.

These events are known as one of the most bloodiest periods of Chinese history and i can't think of a better setting for a game really.

Gameplay wise Dynasty Warriors 7 is similar to the other games of this series and is a very "hack and slash" game, you play as an officer of one of the kingdoms and progress through a series of levels, each level representing an important battle during the Three Kingdoms period, gameplay is in third person and mainly consists of the character engaging enemy forces on the battlefield, defeating other officers and completing specific objectives in regards to the battles strategy. Although i have to point out that the battles are incredibly unrealistic as characters can wipe out legions of troops with a single sword swing.

Unlike the previous installments of the series Dynasty Warriors 7 makes a major change to it's story telling, previous games of the series would have you pick one of the many historical characters and take part in the battles they were involved in, sometimes the series would try and alter history and have your character take part in a battle that they weren't in originally. Dynasty Warriors 7 however lets you chose between the Wei, Wu, Shu and even the Jin kingdom (which has never made an appearance in previous installments) and play each battle as a character who played an important role, the major battles are split up into several stages and in between each level there are various cutscenes and narration telling you the story of the Three Kingdoms....it's all very interesting if you care about this sort of stuff.

The art designs have once again changed with everything in the game once again getting a makeover with new character, weapon, outfit and map designs which all look a lot better then previous versions.

 Some of the new features of Dynasty Warriors 7 involve each character being able to use every weapon and not just their primary ones (doesn't sound like much of a new feature but seeing as the main advertising point of Dynasty Warriors 6 was the "new" ability to swim and climb ladders i think this is a vast improvement.......). Another new feature is the conquest game mode; this involves picking a character and forging your own path through Three Kingdom era China, (another amazing breakthrough of Omega force's development team was online Co-op for this game mode).

Now I'm going to keep this review short and summarise here, simply because there isn't much to say about this game. Dynasty Warriors 7 is quite possibly the best game in the series and a must buy for any fans of the series so far, the story telling and the flow of gameplay is greatly improved; the larger battles being split into several stages also adds to this. Also if your new to the series feel free to pick this game up as rental to try it out or buy an older version and see what you think...this game isn't everyones cuppa tea but if you can get into it you will have endless fun.