Heavenly Sword showcased in London - Click this-

[KALEL114]

Wow. Nice vid. Thanks Zen.

 

[Zenien]

The video looks good, I just hope th game puts my fears to rest about how easy it will be to cut my way through the enemies. Hard mode will probably be what I'm playing on in the end I guess.

 

[Mugen]

http://threespeech.com/blog/?p=536#more-536


Quote:
As one of the games showcased pre-launch, Heavenly Sword, developed by Brit outfit Ninja Theory, has always been hotly anticipated. However, we’ll admit to being slightly worried about it – it always looked great, but would its sword-fighting gameplay cut the mustard? At last, we’ve got hold of pretty complete preview code and from the moment we popped it into our debug, our worries melted away. There’s no doubt it will be held up as an example of the sort of killer games the PS3 so badly needs when it arrives in the shops in September.


Following various early demos, it seems we obtained an erroneous impression of Heavenly Sword – it looked like an arena-fighting game, in the grand manner of Japanese beat-em-ups, but we saw no evidence of a coherent storyline. In reality, it proves to have a most excellent storyline, with some of the best voice acting, facial animation and motion-capture we’ve ever seen (both Andy Serkis, famed for playing Gollum in the Lord of the Rings and theatrical genius Steven Berkoff have been involved in that). And, more importantly, it boasts pleasingly varied and often innovative gameplay with a beautifully judged learning curve.

For the most part, you play Nariko – a quite astonishingly beautiful and seriously feisty redhead surely destined to generate a sizeable fan-club – daughter of local chieftain Shen and older sister of Kai, a young, child-like creature given to wearing a cat-eared hat and performing cartwheels. Nariko’s sword-skills and gymnastic abilities are the equal of any man’s, while Kai (who you also control at times) 0would give Robin Hood a run for his money at
archery.

The game starts with Shen, Nariko and Kai’s home fort under siege by the evil hordes commanded by King Bohan, a nasty piece of work surrounded by a bunch of mutant sycophants including his huge, dopey son Roach, the reptilian Whiptail and the metal-winged, shaven-headed Flying Fox. Actually, it starts with Nariko dying before flashing back to the siege, but we don’t want to spoil things for you. The siege provides a good means of introducing you to the basics of the control system – combinations of square and triangle produce different attacks. After fighting off the initial wave, Bohan’s full army descends, complete with giant catapults, which introduces another key gameplay mechanic: the ability to launch projectiles and by keeping square pressed and moving the Sixaxis around, to steer them all the way to their target. In the first instance, you’ll be firing cannonballs at the catapults, but the same principle applies to Kai’s arrows, shields and swords that you can pick up and so forth.

Before long, Shen has been captured and Nariko has acquired the Hevenly Sword, an enormous, cursed sword that Nariko can apply in three different ways from three stances. The default being speed, which generates low-strength attacks, but in which Nariko will automatically block incoming attacks (except for unblockable ones, which the game signals by highlighting their perpetrators with a red blur). In her Range stance, Nariko sends blades on chains whirling around her – later, you learn how to use this attack to create mini-whirlwinds. And there’s a Power stance, which is slow, but inflicts serious damage. Health is topped up by smashing special urns; Nariko can pick up pretty much anything and chuck it.

Before long, you’re chaining attacks together, working out the best way to take down different types of enemies (Nariko is a serious fighting machine and can take on loads at a time) and discovering cute touches, such as a great counter-attack, also using the Sixaxis’ motion-sensing capabilities, which lets Nariko embed a chain on a blade into an enemy and kick them off balance. Nariko can evade attacks if you flick the right stick. And when you get on a roll involving landing loads of hits without sustaining any yourself, you’re awarded Superstyle attacks, triggered using the circle button, which are seriously brutal and deeply satisfying.

As well as the fighting, there are levels in which you play as Kai, who has no melee abilities but an unlimited supply of arrows – and you can, for example, fire arrows through flames, then guide them into gunpowder barrels which take out several enemies at a time. There’s plenty of puzzle-solving, too, often involving opening gates (by repeatedly pressing the Action button, X) or chucking objects at gongs. A few also involve hitting prescribed buttons with alacrity.

And, of course, there are some seriously epic, multi-stage boss-battles – the bosses start with their health highlighted in green, which changes orange when you run it down (usually triggering a cut-scene). Then it will change from orange to red, and when you finally remove the last red health, you will have prevailed. Every boss requires a radically different strategic approach.

Heavenly Sword is amazing to behold, seriously addictive, pleasingly original, in that it manages not to feel like any other game you’ve played, demonstrates incredible attention to detail and, in general, is everything we hoped we’d find in a PS3 game. You could say that it’s about time, too – but once you get hold of a copy, you’ll agree that it was worth the wait.

By Steve Boxer

 

[Havok83]

Part 1 of a 2 part review is up at this link

http://www.geekpulp.co.nz/2007/08/12/heavenly-sword-review-part-1-ps3/

 

[sandwraith]

Okay as much as I am looking forward to this game (and believe me, I am) do any of you guys wonder if the game is being a little too....Over-hyped? Please don't flame me or anything but I'm just curious to know what you guys think after reading about the game, playing the demo and the gameplay videos so far.

 

[Zenien]

Over hyped by what parties.

Personally Heavenly Sword is still an unproven entity to me, that may mean I'm a skeptic but so be it, I'm not sure the combat alone will be enough for me, but I have to actually play the game to come to any conclusions.

 

[WhatsHisFace]

Don't even pretend that this game has anything to prove to you.

 

[Zenien]

Well Heavenly Sword has already proven that a seven minute segment of it is better then the entirety of Ninety Nine Nights, that's something it has already proven to me I suppose.

 

[sandwraith]

I was just thinking about N3 and how 360 owners were so passionate about the game before it went Stateside. You know, the disappointment that ensued. There's another game in that vein that a friend of mind got for his 360: "Oneechambara Vortex" which is basically the chick version of DMC. Similarly overhyped. I dunno, for games like HS, it seems that the heavy comparisons to GOW, NG and DMC might tarnish it much.

 

[sandwraith]

Also I just noticed that Bohan looks like a Space Marine on more crack that an Space Marine should be on...Is that really healthy?

 

[Zenien]

I was just thinking about N3 and how 360 owners were so passionate about the game before it went Stateside. You know, the disappointment that ensued. There's another game in that vein that a friend of mind got for his 360: "Oneechambara Vortex" which is basically the chick version of DMC. Similarly overhyped. I dunno, for games like HS, it seems that the heavy comparisons to GOW, NG and DMC might tarnish it much.

True enough, though were it as broken as N3 we probably would have heard something about that by now. The narrative and cinematic qualities seem top notch, I'm just still wondering about how compelling the overall gameplay will be I can't see those basic grunts entertaining me for the entire game, I hope they branch out into other enemy types pretty quickly or the enemies become more of a threat (granted that segment is apparently an early section) (the heavy Axemen are cool though). It's not that you can just mow them down, I'd just like them to be a slight bit harder (hence hard mode)

Ok I didn't even believe you that something called Oneechanbara Vortex actually existed so I searched it up.

Luckily I find the concept of a girl dressed in nothing but her underwear, fighting with Katanas in the middle of a graveyard against flaming zombies to be hilarious, not offensive.

Double hilarity for how she also apparently had the time to apply full body lotion before entering the graveyard.

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/usermovies/29356.html

 

[sandwraith]

Yeah, played it on my friend's amped 360 which is region-free. There's a gun-toting blonde police woman too so every fetish is covered in the game. I'm a little surprised that Microsoft didn't bring it over to the West.

 

[Zenien]

not sure if you guys have seen this stuff before:

She is fit... She's got wild red hair, this mane of red hair... beautiful skin, big gorgeous lips... dressed very scantily...

She's the Hero.

- Anna Torv 'Nariko'

(Who, judging by interviews, might just be your typical theater actress [which isn't uncommon when it comes to women in theater])

 

[WhatsHisFace]

Well Heavenly Sword has already proven that a seven minute segment of it is better then the entirety of Ninety Nine Nights, that's something it has already proven to me I suppose.

I remember back when we were comparing those games. You didn't mention Heavenly Sword had an extra two years of development time. You suck. If both released at that moment, N3 would have been the FAR better game.

 

[Zenien]

Probably not considering Ninja Theory already had their combat and gameplay system locked down, it was just a matter of content creation and engine polish. They could have released the game with PS2 era visuals to make it all work if they had to release it tommorow 2 years ago and it still would have been a better game then N3 which has terrible gameplay.

Also, just to point out: You had said that N3 obliterates Heavenly Sword technically when we had already seen the Heavenly Sword trailer at E3 obliterating N3 which was hailled as being crap.

N3 couldn't even clone Dynasty Warriors properly, forget about being better then Heavenly Sword.

 

[WhatsHisFace]

That trailer was also CG.

 

[Zenien]

Only her face in the opening shot, sorry. Her current face looks better anyway.

 

[WhatsHisFace]

Only her face in the opening shot, sorry. Her current face looks better anyway.

I can't believe you still believe that crap.

 

[Zenien]

Unlike you I know exactly how it was arranged. It was touched up to run on the 1080P screen, but it was no CGI.

Part 1 of the Heavenly Sword Making of is up on Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-j099PaI7E

 

[WhatsHisFace]

Then:

Now:

MUAHAHAHHAHA!

 

[Zenien]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR7e8HOm9ag

Has the near finished environment you're thinkign of, you cansee plenty of flags and enemies. All realtime at 30fps, then they recorded it at High def and added the reflection in her eye.

 

[sandwraith]

Whoa, those guys in the first pick look like an army of medieval spawns

 

[Zenien]

5 minute gameplay sequence

http://www.n4g.com/ps3/News-58994.aspx

 

[Havok83]

wow, teh amount of characters on the screen is amazing

 

[KALEL114]

Heavenly Sword: 10GB of sound FX audio work on the ambitious PS3 game

In our monthly look behind the scenes on the audio production of a recently released or upcoming game, John Broomhall speaks to Ninja Theory's Tom Colvin and SCEE's Garry Taylor about the making of music and sound FX in Heavenly Sword…
HEAVENLY SWORD
Format: PlayStation 3
Developer: Ninja Theory
Publisher: SCEE
Audio Team:
For Ninja Theory: Tom Colvin (lead audio); Nitin Sawhney (original music score); Dave Sullivan (senior sound designer); Play It By Ear (fole***y and cut scene sound design); Harvey Cotton (audio programming)
For SCEE Cambridge: Garry Taylor (audio management and cut scene mixing); Lee Banyard, Jeremy Taylor, Andrew Riley (additional sound design); Ed Colyer, Shepperton Studios (additional foley); Dan Bardino, John Broomhall, Kenneth Young, Dave Ranyard (additional audio production); Chip Bell (audio programming)

The Numbers:
10GB of sound FX, approximately three and a half hours of music, 4,500 lines of dialogue

With an epic story, epic game and an epic audio production, Heavenly Sword oozes high production values. Even before audio lead Tom Colvin’s personal two and a half year labour of love began, a belief in the power of sound had already been demonstrated by the team’s calling for potential signature sound designers to pitch – a practice more commonly associated with composers.
Colvin explains: “Al Zaleski’s demo work (at audio team Play It By Ear) stood head and shoulders above the others and his movie pedigree speaks for itself. To top that, he was great to work with. I’m really happy with the foley and combat sounds – all vitally important for a game so focused on graceful, agile, martial arts-style sword fighting.
“For me, sound is very ‘immediate’ to the player. Music has a well-established cultural language; sound is much less clearly delineated – but you can get straight to someone’s emotional responses with it – there’s little time for the brain to analyse. Sound is key in making this awesome weapon – the Heavenly Sword – come to life so you can sense its brooding power and almost hear it feeding off each kill.”
The game features a strong narrative exploring the interplay between heroine Nariko, her father, their clan subjugated by an evil king, and their guardianship of the Heavenly Sword, an historical weapon with the power to change their fate. Cut scenes play a vital role but with visual finessing continuing late into the project, the sheer scope of work was a challenge.
SCEE’s Garry Taylor elaborates: “There’s an hour and a half’s worth of cut scenes in eleven languages, so mixing alone was a massive undertaking. That’s why we ‘in-sourced’ all the dialogue mixing to our colleagues in Foster City, USA whilst I focused on the music and effects mix at our new Cambridge-based recording studio. I kept a close eye on continuity issues to avoid any jarring between in-game and cut scene sound – whether ambiences or relative levels or even matching FMOD’s surround positioning. Some cut scenes are very small segments replayed within complex branching structures so we ended up using three-frame audio overhangs at the top and tail to cross-fade on – it works a treat.”
According to Colvin respected music artist Nitin Sawhney was a clear choice as composer: “We wanted someone with a genuine grounding in Eastern culture who was equally at home with contemporary or classical forms, as well as being completely comfortable with the project’s technological setting. With his eclectic talents, Nitin was perfect and enjoyed the opportunity to create for a wide-ranging and diverse set of requirements.
“In-game, we work a lot with his mix stems (e.g. perc, strings, woodwind) bringing them together in response to game events and status. Several factors (e.g. threat level) are weighted and combined to determine the exact music replay – but it isn’t just a universal ‘cross-fade, catch-all’ approach. We make the engine observe the music forms to allow (say) long emotionally-charged vocal phrases to play out properly, rather than being faded out just because the game state’s changed. This allows the music flow to be maintained – it keeps the connection to the action, without compromising musical sense.”
Taylor and Colvin undertook an overall mixing phase during the development’s final stages, again deploying SCEE’s studio as the objective listening environment and using Ninja’s powerful run-time mixing tools. Explains Colvin: “We have the virtual equivalent of a ‘flying faders’ film mixing console with extensive hierarchical grouping and scene snapshots. ‘Live’ editing of audio at this stage is absolutely essential – not just volumes, but proximities, frequency fall-off – even the listener position…”
Taylor continues: “…and also not being afraid to strip things back if necessary. Sometimes when you stand back and take in the overall sound picture, you think - does that really need to be there? Never distract the player’s focus! The machine’s so powerful now – capable of handling so much audio, which is great – but as we all know when you’re mixing, sometimes ‘less is more’.”

http://www.n4g.com/ClickOut.aspx?ObjID=59237