Heavenly Sword

[Melbosa]

http://www.us.playstation.com/heavenlysword/

So I thought, after that big discussion we had about the PS3, I thought I would check out Heavenly Sword and see if the commercials that make it look so kewl are telling the truth.

Well how to describe this game?  Lets just say, if God of War I & II were PS3 games, and had updated graphics, the only thing they would have on Heavenly Sword is a longer game.  Yes HS is short, almost Portal short, but fun none the less.  If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was the same guys from Sony that did God of War did this one, as the voice acting is tight, the cut scenes fantastic, and the mini-games in game (just as the God of War series) are kewl as hell.  Even the gyro sensors in the PS3 controller are used decently, not adding any level of difficulty to the game, but making use of them in a way that is fun.  Story is compelling as well; drawing me in, making me want to just finish one more level, just to catch the next part of the story.

Lack of blood or gore during cut scenes, and short span of game play are about the only thing this game has holding it back.  Any game I can finish in one night is not a very long one at that.  Although there are incentives to replay the game (similar to 306s achievement system) and unlock ables for better chapter performance, but not enough I'd say to make this a God of War contender.

Now to try it on Hell Mode, and see how much harder it becomes!

Anyway, thought I would share this; too bad Sony isn't going to revive the PS3 on just one game

[Lazybones]

To me you really shouldn't be able to finish a $50+ single player game in one evening no matter how good the graphics are.

[Melbosa]

I totally agree.  That is what the downfall of HS is, too short!!!!!!

I think it took me 6.5 hours to finish on normal.  Way to short!!!!!!  And I so want more.  The game has so much potential and is very very very well done from a story and attention holder aspect.  Wish it had just more lengthy story , and therefore a longer game to play through .

[Lazybones]

Makes you wonder how long Metal Gear will be, but that series has a good rep for not being too short.

[Melbosa]

Yeah.  After seeing what the PS3 is capable of in this title, I am so stoked to see how good MGS is going to be.  I still am not a huge fan boy of the PS3 and think it will tank overall, but the technology does have promise.  Graphically and fun level, this is a contender for anything I have played on the 360, but as for content length (content it has is superb), I just can say it enough - it fails so horribly.

[Tom]

Its remotely possible that the reason the games are short is because they fought too long in trying to use the hardware to the best of its abilities (no simple task with the Cell).

[Melbosa]

Probably, good deduction.  Watching the "how it was made" you find out it was in development for 5 years, and on hardware that couldn't even run the game for the first 3.  Could have also been a case of "lets not be another diakatana" and get this sucker out.  I will give them this, they have some of the best facial animation I have ever seen, even better than Unreal 3 Engine, but they used motion capture for every character in the game and made the CGI versions very similar to the actors they used, so that might be why it looks so good.

But I agree with you Tom, I'm sure that is just one of the reasons the game was so short.

[Tom]

I was just thinking, I intend to get a new multicore computer to replace the two boxes I have for xen handling.. At first glance the ps3 looks like a good bet. Lots of power. But on a second glance, it has much to little ram

[Shayne]

Its also very slow... http://www.geekpatrol.ca/2006/11/playstation-3-performance/

[Tom]

A lack of ram would do that sadly. KDE and Gnome prefer 512MB ram...

[Shayne]

I believe it also uses in-order execution vs. a typical cpu that uses out-of-order execution