No sooner has a console been released than a Japanese game developer will begin work on a title focused around Japan's warring historical tales. So it is written, and so it ever shall be. What amazes me is that despite the UK and the US beginning to catch up with our far-Eastern cousins in terms of our familiarity with gaming technology, we never seem to release anything along similar lines. Admittedly our ancestry doesn't quite match the artistry involved with that of Japan, but who says we couldn't successfully market a game called The Great Hosepipe Ban, or a title where the US arrive at a war just a tad too late.

If there's one thing we seem to enjoy across the board, it's historical Japanese stories involving the likes of Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee and, to a lesser extent, Chuck Norris. The earliest game of this genre to make its way onto the PlayStation Portable platform is Samurai Warriors: State of War, an epic tale that aims to rewrite the history books by reuniting all of Japan's wartime leaders and throwing their differences aside to lay feud against a common foe. Due to the number of Hollywood stories involving ancient Japan's wartime battles, I am unsure as to the facts surrounding events that took place throughout their history, but I'm guessing this isn't how it went down. In fact, let's get the first gripe out of the way quicker than a spinning roundhouse from Chuck Norris: no less than two minutes into the introduction to this title, the user is informed in no uncertain terms that this is a fictional tale. Despite my earlier claim that my Japanese history knowledge is not up to much, (until researching for this title, I thought the capital of Japan was Toshiba) I am knowledgeable enough to know that not many humans possess the ability to cast spells over their enemies. So the issue of me failing to realise that this game had fictional foundations hardly requires any attention. This oversight aside, there are better ways to suck your potential audience into the story than telling them it's all fabricated nonsense.

Roundhousing swiftly on, the user is presented with a choice of characters, with a variety of abilities, which aren't really explained but are straightforward enough. The characters are nicely modelled and have clearly involved a great deal of artistic thought, but the problem here is that their attributes don't vary enough. The general rule of thumb is that you present the user with a choice of an all-rounder and make up the rest of the characters with extremes of each skill variation. State of War, however, contains some characters that are very obviously superior to the others.

Nevertheless, each warlord does come with an interesting story about where they came from, how they came to power and their attitude towards the wars. But just when a positive element to this game looked possible, I realised that these stories were being told in the most mundane way that I have seen since the days of the ZX Spectrum; nothing more than mugshots on a variety of static backgrounds, with text slowly scrolling away next to them.

Once you have trawled through the rather lame attempt at humorous but informative banter, you move onto the game itself. It's basically a somewhat trumped up combination of two popular board games, Risk and Dungeons & Dragons. You are presented with a map that shows a number of squares, each tinted either green or red and inhabited by varying symbols. You and your gang of bickering old women are represented by the green pieces, your land possession by green tinted boxes and the same in red for your opponent. The aim is simply to negotiate the quickest path to capture the opponent's main base.

At this moment I held my breath; surely I would not be stumbling across the first game I have ever reviewed that warranted a score lower than 2. Luckily for developers Koei (because let's face it, if reviewing legend Rob Byron doesn't approve it's not worth even glancing at) my fears of nothing more than a board game were quashed. Each time you invade a square you actually get to do battle within a 3D environment, killing dozens of anonymous henchmen. Maybe this is a ploy to lower your expectations before metaphorically roundhousing you in the face with the main selling point of this title. If so, then to begin with it works, but once you wipe the blood from your face and regain some sense, you simply question why on earth some of these animations and graphical effects weren't employed in other areas of the game.

Unsure, I ventured on, and as much as I would love to say that everything improved, it just didn't. The general rule for the combat scenarios is to head towards the guy with a name above his head and repeatedly stab him in the face until he falls down dead and all his little cronies scamper off into the woodlands while you chase them off like a pack of confused kung-fu mice. You would hope that killing the leaders would involve some skill, but whilst surrounded by mindless opponents with the AI of a hoover, you can but only tap the square button continuously, occasionally hitting circle to perform some kind of Jedi-like mind trick that sends enemies flying, most of which were failing to attack you anyway.

Within the combat areas you can pick up spells in reward for tapping the square button over and over and over. These spells can, along with other effects, freeze your opponents from making any advances on the map, or reduce their entire army's health, leaving them open to a jolly good face stabbing. As far as I can tell though, this is all circumstantial to your opponent putting up more of a fight than simply standing there trying to repel your weapon with his face. At no point through playing this game was I concerned as to the whereabouts or actions of my enemy, because at any time I could be sure that his whereabouts would be 'at the end of my weapon', and his actions would be 'getting stabbed in the face'.

The movement and combos that your characters are able to perform look quite impressive, and the authentic harmonic Japanese music couple well with the screams of agony coming from anyone foolish enough to stand in your way. The only problem is that this is nowhere near enough to save the game. It does boast some variety, there are a fair few weapons you can get hold of, ranging from a spear right through to an umbrella!?! And there are over two hundred supporting officers to unlock that will join you in battle. However, with such poor AI, you'll notice that when you tour the battlefield to see how they are getting on, they are usually just fixed in a staring competition with one of the more pathetic adversaries.

The simple fact is that is that as a PSP owner from as early as its release in the US, I am becoming more and more frustrated with titles that feel like they have been rushed onto this platform. Samurai Warriors: State Of War has wireless gaming enabled, which gives an added dimension, as battling against real people makes there tactical choices a little less predictable, but good luck finding anyone foolish enough to part with their money for this. Unfortunately, State of War is only in a state of war with itself and fails to battle convincingly with my time.

Reviewed by Rob Byron for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).