[Gamers' Day 2007] Blades of Chaos
Woo hoo, new Heavenly Sword demo! We go hands-on with the short little snippet of gameplay.
Published: May 17, 2007
There are few games that are as hotly anticipated for the PS3 this year than Heavenly Sword, and why not? It's got a beautiful, fairly scantily-clad, ass-kicking female of indeterminate Eastern heritage on a quest of vengeance against an evil king played by Andy Serkis (Gollum from the Lord of the Rings movies), and it looks good. What's not to love?
Though the demo was painfully short, it finally allowed us to play through the sequence that was shown on Heroes a few months back, plus a little more. We started out on a ledge that overlooked one of the most gorgeous vistas we've ever seen in a game, preceded by a little cutscene where two women chatted shortly and a close-up was shown that was easily the most impressive character model we've ever seen (there were pockmarks in her skin, man). Waterfalls poured down sheer cliff faces tucked in between a sprawling mountain kingdom rife with what looked like castle ruins (though they could definitely be populated).
After taking in the sights for far longer than we probably should have, we kicked off a short little button pressing sequence similar to Resident Evil 4 or God of War (hey, we're tired of using Die Hard Arcade and Shenmue references for nerd cred points, okay?) by slashing a massive, thick rope and started running down the rope even as enemy troops on the far-off platform in the distance did the same, trying to prevent our incoming attack. As the ropes leading lady Nariko was running on were severed, we flipped to another one and kept going, eventually running up a snapping rope and taking a massive leap of faith to impale an enemy on the waiting platform below before breaking into combat.
It's here that the weapons system was sort of thrust upon us. The Heavenly Sword that Nariko wields gives her incredible power, but it was never meant to be used by a mortal, so it's slowly killing her (she has just three days to exact her revenge on the king's "sacred genitals"). Luckily, this means she can kick ass three ways; in her default stance, all incoming attacks are automatically blocked and speed and power are on an even keel. By holding the L1 and R1 buttons, though, attacks can shift to the former and latter. With speed, Nariko gains wide, sweeping blades that do low damage but are good for crowd control. With power, she can eviscerate enemies with just a few blows, but she's obviously slower.
After running through a handful of enemies (pressing Circle near a weakened enemy will finish them off with a brutal attack where she jumps onto them, pummels their face and then slides around to snap their necks), we cut the rope on the platform , upsetting the balance and causing the one good rope left to pull the entire stone slab down into a courtyard filled with unsuspecting enemies. After putting the hurt on them too (stopping of course to sample picking up any object in the level and chucking it, then guiding the path with the SIXAXIS), we were treated to a cutscene where more enemies burst in... and then the demo was done.
It was short, it was sweet, and it demonstrated that developer Ninja Theory has the core combat engine down. The framerate was, at times, a little chunky (though only during cutscenes), but the game still has plenty of development time (time enough, we hope, to finally see the massive thousands-strong open area battles rather than these confined little bits o' carnage). Hopefully they decide to show off more at E3.
Though the demo was painfully short, it finally allowed us to play through the sequence that was shown on Heroes a few months back, plus a little more. We started out on a ledge that overlooked one of the most gorgeous vistas we've ever seen in a game, preceded by a little cutscene where two women chatted shortly and a close-up was shown that was easily the most impressive character model we've ever seen (there were pockmarks in her skin, man). Waterfalls poured down sheer cliff faces tucked in between a sprawling mountain kingdom rife with what looked like castle ruins (though they could definitely be populated).
After taking in the sights for far longer than we probably should have, we kicked off a short little button pressing sequence similar to Resident Evil 4 or God of War (hey, we're tired of using Die Hard Arcade and Shenmue references for nerd cred points, okay?) by slashing a massive, thick rope and started running down the rope even as enemy troops on the far-off platform in the distance did the same, trying to prevent our incoming attack. As the ropes leading lady Nariko was running on were severed, we flipped to another one and kept going, eventually running up a snapping rope and taking a massive leap of faith to impale an enemy on the waiting platform below before breaking into combat.
It's here that the weapons system was sort of thrust upon us. The Heavenly Sword that Nariko wields gives her incredible power, but it was never meant to be used by a mortal, so it's slowly killing her (she has just three days to exact her revenge on the king's "sacred genitals"). Luckily, this means she can kick ass three ways; in her default stance, all incoming attacks are automatically blocked and speed and power are on an even keel. By holding the L1 and R1 buttons, though, attacks can shift to the former and latter. With speed, Nariko gains wide, sweeping blades that do low damage but are good for crowd control. With power, she can eviscerate enemies with just a few blows, but she's obviously slower.
After running through a handful of enemies (pressing Circle near a weakened enemy will finish them off with a brutal attack where she jumps onto them, pummels their face and then slides around to snap their necks), we cut the rope on the platform , upsetting the balance and causing the one good rope left to pull the entire stone slab down into a courtyard filled with unsuspecting enemies. After putting the hurt on them too (stopping of course to sample picking up any object in the level and chucking it, then guiding the path with the SIXAXIS), we were treated to a cutscene where more enemies burst in... and then the demo was done.
It was short, it was sweet, and it demonstrated that developer Ninja Theory has the core combat engine down. The framerate was, at times, a little chunky (though only during cutscenes), but the game still has plenty of development time (time enough, we hope, to finally see the massive thousands-strong open area battles rather than these confined little bits o' carnage). Hopefully they decide to show off more at E3.
