In reality, a single blade-wielding warrior with silly hair would promptly see the state of his insides when faced with the might of a thousand-strong Japanese army.

But reality makes for pretty dull video games (witness the first horrible hour of Heavy Rain...).

SW4 plops you right in the middle of 16th century Japan where unfathomably large skirmishes take place between sensationally preened commanders and a whole mess of faceless soldiers. They're supposed to loosely echo historical events, but I don't remember pretty ladies with deadly umbrellas dressed in horribly restrictive clothing in the thick of many battles. Perhaps that just highlights the holes in my knowledge of Japanese history.

Successfully mowing down ludicrous amounts of soldiers on the battlefield, plus the chaps in charge (handily highlighted with a floating red arrow and the word 'Boss') will unlock other campaigns around the divided nation and ultimately you'll endeavour to join the warring factions into one, happy, war-mongering family.

It's not an unrepetitive little monkey but smashing the living gravy out of a massive battalion in one fell swoop is tremendously satisfying.