Bladestorm: The Hundred Years War review (X360)

“THE STORM OF THE CENTURY!” is the bold proclamation on the box of Bladestorm, which despite sounding like some kind of Japanese anime series is actually a game based on the long and bloody conflict between England and France. For those who don’t know, the Hundred Years War was a conflict surrounding the heir to the French throne and took place between 1337 and 1453. Granted, that’s 116 years and not 100, but somehow the Hundred and Sixteen Years War doesn’t sound quite as dramatic.

History lessons aside, the game sees you taking on the role of a mercenary, fighting on the side of either the French or the English depending on your preference. It’s possible to fight for one side in one battle and then switch allegiance in the next, with different amounts of money on offer and the perceived difficulty of the battle influencing your choice. As a patriotic Englishman this reviewer stayed firmly on the side of the English, but being able to choose a side is a nice and necessary feature considering the game is more about your life as a mercenary for hire rather than focusing on one particular side in the war.

‘Allo ‘Allo

The main gathering point for all mercenaries is the local tavern, in which an oddly indifferent French barkeeper provides you with all the information you’ll need about how to survive in your life as a mercenary. In a bizarre twist he also seems to supply you with the contracts for each battle and seems to play an unwitting role in orchestrating the whole war. It’s a slightly stupid decision to have a barkeeper as your main contact, but in having the tavern as the central hub, it works well in the context of the game.

As well as selecting contracts in the tavern, it’s also possible to hire other men to fight alongside you, listen in on gossip and tinker with your equipment and items. The strange mix of other patrons present, such as the ‘Scarred Woman’ or the ambiguous ‘Drunk Man’, will give you tips on how to improve your chances of winning battles, and the odd cut scene that pushes the story forward also takes place via speaking to someone in here.

Once a contract has been selected you can actually get to the heart of the game. Anyone who’s played the Dynasty Warriors games will instantly feel at home here, although the actual nuts and bolts of the gameplay differ quite considerably. Instead of fighting as a lone man you command a small squad of men or cavalry, and issue commands via the contextual controls. It is possible to just run around on your lonesome, but this is almost always a bad idea as being singled out and surrounded by the opposition is very real possibility. Selecting a group of units is done by pressing A, although this can take several attempts of selecting and deselecting if there is more than one group in the vicinity of your mercenary. Three attack and defence commands then become available, mapped to the B, X and Y buttons, and these differ if you’re controlling archers, cavalry, spearmen or whoever.

Ups and Downs

Being able to change who you’re in control of, and the ability to issue different orders and attacks depending on this, can make for some interesting tactical decisions. It also means you can approach battles with more than one strategy, although it’s still possible to just rush a group of enemies and brawl with them until they’re dead. You can be as tactical and thoughtful as you like, or just do away with strategy and kick some ass. There’ll be certain people you need to take out in order to secure an area, but on a basic level it’s about killing anyone that moves and turning all the bases on the map the colour of your chosen side. Before a battle starts you can choose which base to start from, which can affect the length of a battle quite considerably if you’re a long way away from your target.

Traversing the map is a slow affair, with even a journey on horseback taking a good while longer than we’d like. It’s not even as though the environment is particularly nice to look at. Although large, it’s a sparse and uninteresting map with a few trees dotted here and there and then just swathes of green. The battles themselves are enjoyable for the most part, but the time in between can be a long and drawn out lull in the action. Enemy AI can also contribute to a lack of action; it’s not uncommon to find soldiers running into walls for no apparent reason and continuing to do so until you go over and put them out of their misery. Horses and their riders will happily just stand there while you kill everyone around them and then just rotate on the spot as a poor attempt at avoiding your attack. It’s laughable at times, but because there are so many people on the screen at once it doesn’t become too much of a distraction or affect the gameplay too much.

Stop the voices, stop them!

Talking of laughable, the game’s voice acting is abysmal. The French (we think) barkeeper has possibly the most unconvincing accent ever, and everybody else in the game sounds like one guy trying to put on all the different accents himself. An American voice actor trying to sound like an Englishman or a Frenchman clearly doesn’t work. At the other end of the spectrum, the music is great, with suitably styled pieces accompanying the different menus and times between battles. How the audio can go from being so bad to so good in the space of one loading screen is a monumental achievement in itself.

Bladestorm is an odd game; on the one hand it offers reasonably entertaining action and a good mix of strategy and battling, with some excellent music and a strangely compelling story mode to play through. On the flip side, dodgy AI and a feeling of being detached from the game at times can raise the question of whether you’re really having fun, or if you just think you are. With only one single player mode, and no multiplayer to speak of whatsoever, the limited amount of actual gameplay on offer coupled with the some-will-like-it-some-won’t feeling that Bladestorm gives off, it’s a difficult game to recommend. Definitely worth a rental if you’re into the Dynasty Warriors games or you like the sound of the style, but be wary, as it’s very much a game of highs and lows.