Samurai: Way of the Warrior is a Hack n' Slash game but there is definitely nothing else truly like it in the App Store. Its game play is very simple but extremely fun and addictive, and could easily be compared to Ninja Gaiden on the Nintendo DS, although admittedly it's a samurai not a ninja.

You play as Daisuke Shimada, the wandering samurai, and slice your way through the game, taking down every enemy that gets in your way. The controls in Samurai are very intuitive; tap where you want your character to move and swipe to attack with your sword. Different combinations of swipes trigger different sword attacks, and as you venture through the game you'll unlock more you can use. We found that these one finger controls work really well and are perfectly suited to the iPhone.

There are seven chapters in the main story mode of Samurai, each of which has a different environment. Every chapter is spilt up into many flowing segments and you have to kill all the enemies in each one to unlock the next and continue through the game. The levels themselves are pretty linear but being able to explorer around different parts of the environment helps to keep this to a low. We found that the difficulty in Samurai was exactly right with it increasing as you progress. Towards the end of the game it becomes pretty hard and you'll be dying frequently, but it isn't so difficult that you'll give up, instead we found it to be the perfect challenge to make you try again and again. Between each of the chapters is a series of beautiful comics which depict the natural storyline of the game. We think that the story is one of the things that really pulls this game together and makes it flow so well.

Between each of the chapters is a series of beautiful comics which depict the natural storyline of the game.

What really pops out at you in Samurai are its comic book style 3D graphics. In the screenshots they look pretty mediocre, but in reality it's a pleasure to move your samurai around in the many environments in the game. Your character is also fully rendered in 3D and the animations look very smooth and natural as he slices up his enemies. In fact you'll be literally cutting your enemies clean in half and decapitating others; creating a huge bloodbath. The game also has a calming Japanese style soundtrack which fits in surprisingly well with the shouts from you and your enemies. We think that Samurai is definitely one of the best examples of what can be done with the Unity Engine simply because of its beautiful graphics and smooth game play.

As well as the story mode, which is actually pretty lengthy, there is a "Dojo" survival mode. Like in the story mode you'll be slicing up enemies that come in rounds, but you start with all the attack combos unlocked and only regain health after each boss instead of each section. At the end of a game you'll be given stats with your final score and the round you got up to. While the game would definitely benefit from online highscores and achievements, especially for survival mode, we feel that the game isn't at a huge loss without them.

Samurai: Way of the Warrior really screams polish in every way; from the smooth animations of the main menu to the wonderful 3D graphics. Many might say that the game would get repetitive after a while but we found that because of the game's ongoing story, different environments and increasing difficulty it is actually the contrary since we would easily play it again.

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