Well maybe its a little late to post this but I wrote it out but never got around to posting it sooner. Well might as well, don't want to waste. Well my choice for Love/Hate is the Dynasty Warriors games. Koei's Dynasty Warriors series first caught my attention with number 2 on the PS2. I purchased the PS2 the day it came out but the choice of games were small and I only could get 3 at the time which were: 'Tekken Tag', 'Orphan: Scion of sorcery' and 'Dynasty Warriors 2'.

Dynasty Warriors 2 lasted me a good few weeks while I took my time playing the game and finishing it with each and every character since Tekken Tag was only worth playing against my brother really. My semi OCD thought I had to complete DW2 with every character. Wasn't untill Dynasty Warriors 3 where I managed to enjoy the game more passionately. The 2 player co-op is when I really got into it and did't put it down. Me and one of my closest friends (Mikey) sat down and played the game again and again trying every scenario and getting into it on an over healthy level.



The war room chats we had before starting the battle got us all pumped up and then we just blissfully bashed our way to victory. We never even thought about how easy the game was and even had to knocked the difficulty setting up eventually. We both sat down more often playing as our favourites: Me as Zhang Fei and Mikey as Guan Yu. We famously battled all over China and role playing out many historic fights like against Lu Bu (the only character my brother can name) who is the toughest enemy to appear. This meant that I tried to call dibs for a one on one so that then I could then feel good after defeating the boss and then enjoy stealing his special Steed the 'Red Hare'.



I found that before I had a part time job that I always seemed to have the smallest stack of games on my shelf which meant DW3 had to last a while longer than usual untill I got a new game. I ended up maxing out every character (well not all, just the cool ones), I even read the games encyclepedia and got into the games back story and where it derived from as I seemed to have nothing better to do. I found that about 1% of people I knew liked the game. I got reactions when I paid for the sequal.... and the the Empires version and then the next sequal and so on. Well I was glad to see you could use old memory data to carry on to the new updated versions which saved me some time but the realisation that I've paid full price for a game I've more or less already played didn't ever dawn on me.


Well although my days of co-op campaning around China has passed and the realisation of how tidious the game really was, I still look back and enjoy the small things that I've enjoyed from the game. The game wasn't the best but I wouldn't deny that I enjoyed it. The cultural and aesthetic look to the game stylised it enough to get my attention and the actual history did grab my attention. Well anyone who hasn't played DW should give it a go but I'd suggest not to jump in and play the Samurai Warriors cross over versions which would just be an overload.



Anyway speaking of Koei's DW series. The company also did a Gundam spin off which used the same engine and was just DW and Samurai warriors dressed up in a new shell for those mech suit fans..... and now I can gladly say they are on board with the new 'Fist of the North Star' game. I'll assume it will play the same but never the less I will prob try get a copy on it's realease.

[url]http://www.gametrailers.com/game/fist-of-the-north-star-warriors/12209[url]