open your eyes

Heavenly Sword is a mythical tale of revenge in which the heroine Nariko must weild a sword that will kill her in order to protect her people and save her family. After having just finished playing through Heavenly Sword for Playstation 3 I only have one thing to say: WOW! I have never seen presentation and production values in a video game at this high of a level in all my years of gaming. Off the top of my head, only Hideo Kojima and his Metal Gear Solid series come close. The facial animation is the best ever, the voice acting is very good (some of the bosses are too eccentric for my tastes though), the musical score is breathtaking, and the acting is direct-to-dvd quality. I mean that in a good way. Oh, and the graphics are among the best you’ll find on a console this year.

The only thing holding this game back from instant classic status is, well, the gameplay mechanics. Not that there’s anything wrong with the gameplay but its not up to the level of everything else in the game. The fighting is fun and satisfying but definitely not groundbreaking. However, when fighting as the other playable character Kai, you get to guide her arrows in slow motion clear across the levels using motion control. Very fun and a good change of pace from the button mashing. If I could break the score into two parts I’d go with 8 for the gameplay, 10 for presentation/production values, and end up with something around a 9 overall. Now if only the game were more than eight hours long…

I had planned on getting reviews up about a week ago but I spent the first week of the tv season (last week of Sept) watching the entire season of The Black Donnellys with my wife.  Now you guys already know my feelings on TBD but my wife snickered when I told her many months ago that TBD was my #1 show last season and I’d rather it come back than Heroes.  Now her tune has changed and she says Heroes was nothing compared to The Black Donnellys.  Vindication!

Hopefully those reviews will start appearing this week.