You know what Dynasty Warriors is? It's the Kiss of video games. It's got a dedicated legion of fans and a far greater expanse of people scratching their heads and wondering what the big deal is. The fourth trip around the yin-yang ball attempts to bridge the gap between the hardcore and the deathly bored with several flashy new features...that, by some divine miracle, somehow make the game even more engaging than before. For the uninitiated, Dynasty Warriors is an endearingly modern take on the Three Kingdoms era—as a general in ancient China, you must hack and slash and power-break your way through 15 stages of chaotic warfare. The story mode's been completely revamped: instead of choosing one general, you choose one side of the conflict (Wei, Wu, Shu, or "independent") and switch generals between battles, making character-building much easier than before. There's also an Edit Mode, which lets you build the perfect warrior out of a basket of weapons, armor and facial expressions. As a result of all this, the game's much more story-driven and RPG-like than DW3—a ball of jade-laced fortune for gamers sick of DW3's incessant fighting. The biggest difference, however, lies in the flow of the battles. Koei's obviously performed emergency surgery on the AI routines, because everyone's a thousand times smarter now—allied generals actually put up fights against the enemy, rank-and-file soldiers actively attack you, and everything is more challenging than before. The siege hardware adds a little spice, too—foiling enemy conquests by destroying their battering rams is a great change of pace from the usual stabbing and thrusting (hur hur hur). Dynasty Warriors 4 still isn't flawless—the graphics look better but now feature occasional slowdown, and the voice acting's as unintentionally amusing as ever—but the series has never made it closer to nirvana. Even if you aren't a fan, it's worth giving a shot—the new features make the game about as accessible as it'll ever get to non-hardcore folk.
