If I was to mention KOEI to you, the older veterans amongst the ranks may get misty eyed reminiscing about Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Those newer to the scene will certainly still have heard of the Dynasty Warriors series with which players seem to love or hate. For many gamers however, KOEI will be a largely unknown development team, which isn't surprising considering a lot of their games are foreign language, or focused on specific periods of Asian or European history.

Enter Crimson Sea (henceforth CS), a title which actually has nothing to do with epic Chinese history, but rather moves us to a totally different epic arena: space. You assume the role of Sho, a Vipa mercenary who loves to help people but feels bad about taking their money. Along the way you will pick up a squad of misfit fighters who will battle by your side through some of the missions as you take on the role of the leader of G-squad, the bottom of the pile in the forces aligned against the Muton threat. This will inevitably involve your mysterious Vipa heritage and the collection of pure sound to defeat the enemy. Yes, the storyline is quite befitting both KOEI's dialogue (more on that later) and space operas.

CS has quite a bit in common with the Dynasty Warriors series, and anyone who has played DW3 on Xbox or ps2 should be quite at home with the way CS plays and its overall design. The character's outfits seem to be an eclectic blend of traditional Chinese attire and futuristic space suits. The character models look exactly like those in the Dynasty Warrior's series, complete with some of the most ridiculous looking hairstyles ever to grace the Xbox'even Solid Snake's mullet looks sane compared to Sho's hairdo. But it is all part of the atmosphere that is trademark KOEI, and provided you don't take it too seriously is good fun.

Gameplay in CS is also much like that of Dynasty Warriors'for those not familiar, this is a third person hack, slash n shoot fest where you are often single handedly fighting off vast legions of enemies. The action tends to get repetitive quickly, but thankfully beneath the button-mashing veneer lays a surprisingly in-depth game for those who wish to delve into it. For starters, CS has a terrific weapon design and modification system, allowing you to customize your melee and ranged weapons to suit your playing style or the demands of the current mission. Apart from changing the fundamental aspects of the weapons such as whether it is a laser, grenade, automatic etc, you have two other components to adjust which allow for a larger energy capacity, better ranged damage, an extra attack, and energy absorption among other things. This really does add a whole new dimension to what may have otherwise been a standard run and gun shooter.

To complement this CS has an RPG component which allows you to gain experience with the weapons you use the most, thus allowing you to further specialize Sho's abilities to suit your playing style. This is also true of the Neo-Psionics which Sho can learn, which are basically like special moves and abilities you gain throughout the game.

All of this is achieved by collecting money from defeated enemies, smashing the obligatory gaming crates, looting vending machines and more importantly how you perform in the level. Upon completing a mission you receive a rank based on how quickly you completed your goal, enemies killed, damage taken, biggest combo (KOEI *love* combos!) and a Special category which varies from scenario to scenario. This in turn affects your earnings for the day. Sure, Sho may profess to not being interested in the cash, but without it, you can't purchase the nifty weapon upgrades or augment your range of powerful psychic attacks.

The idea of rankings is central to Crimson Sea's replayability, and trust me when I say your ranking makes a big difference. If you score all C's or D's, you will earn next to nothing or actually get diddly squat for completion, which prevents you from healing, upgrading or performing other necessities. Conversely, a few A or S (for super I think!) ranks will net you enough to put even the priciest items in reach. This definitely gives you incentive to replay missions, but there are some you will just be so glad to have finished you will never want to play them again'

This leads to one of my peeves in CS: the levels. While on the whole they are pretty well designed, some of the missions are totally let down by unclear or poorly implemented objectives. Combine this with a few confusing designs, and you have a disparity between really easy and overly difficult missions. And it isn't purely intentional: some things are just too obscure or hard to pull off. Add to this some horrible camera problems, and it is a recipe for disaster. That said, the levels have a fair variety of objectives, ranging from the kill `em all style to treasure hunts and body guarding among others

Visually, CS is a very nice looking title. The main characters are bright and colourful and well designed. The boss enemies also fit the bill of epic, some towering well above you and they too look suitably impressive and imposing. Some of the level textures tend to look a bit repetitive in some areas, especially in caves, but overall are quite good; especially some of the larger city areas and the IAG space station looks terrific. Which leads to the best improvement from DW3: Crimson Sea boasts a much further draw-distance. More importantly, there is very little slowdown as a result of this enhancement, and it makes a big difference in the more open areas. That said however, popup still occurs, and can make locating specific enemies a real pain. It is also worth mentioning that at times there are dozens of enemies on the screen, often up to a hundred of the smaller ones, but the game engine handles this admirably and there is very little slowdown during these massive fight scenes. Some of the pre-rendered cutscenes are breathtaking, and even the in game cutscenes look terrific.

However, it has to be said that the issues with the camera seriously detract from the visual enjoyment KOEI have striven to create. To begin with, it is very, very jerky, and will snap from one position to another extremely quickly, leaving you disorientated enough to probably get whacked by baddies. In outdoor arenas, it isn't so bad but once inside it becomes extremely awkward to look around, and it can be very off-putting. Hopefully one-day developers of third-person titles will realize that unless the camera is perfect, it really detracts from the game.

One of the things that most grabs your attention in CS would have to be the epic music score. It has a real space opera feel to it, very reminiscent of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. The music succeeds in sweeping you up in the action and immersing you in the universe: the score is exactly how a space epic should be.

Likewise, the voice acting in the game is crisp and clear and of a high standard. The problem with this is, that the dialogue has clearly been translated from Japanese, and like Dynasty Warriors, often makes little or no sense, and will either cause you to cringe or crack up laughing. It can really trip you up in places as it is unclear what is supposed to be happening story-wise, but if you can get past it, it actually adds to the atmosphere of a schmaltzy space opera. One of my personal favourite lines is when the voluptuous Live-D offers Sho a job in the opening scene, and when he expresses his doubts (without even speaking mind you) she replies with 'Trust me. It's just that I am a mysterious and sexy woman, with a slightly lawless aura.' If that warranted a smirk from you, odds are you'll be highly entertained with the enthusiastic voice actors whose lines make virtually no sense at all in some scenes.