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Heavenly Sword Demo Out
Thursday saw the release of the Heavenly Sword demo on the PlayStation network. Kotaku has impressions from the play experience and GamesRadar offers up some helpful tips to make the most of the short playtime. From Kotaku's rundown: 'Seven minutes, and it ends just like that. No big boss fight to try out, no giant plot revelation, no finding an ancient artifact. Just, "here comes more enemies, see you in two months!" You know that feeling you get when you're about to sneeze and then can't? Exactly the feeling I got here. As for aesthetics, the graphics were solid but the framerate was erratic at times. Sound was excellent no matter which language option I chose in order to stretch out my playtime a little by pretending I was a different guy from another country. By far the best aspect of the whole demo for me, the music was completely top notch. Very atmospheric and brilliantly arranged. ' Back at Kotaku, Brian Crecente received a longer version of the demo than the one publicly available, and is now playing through it live over the internet.
Not only do you apparently fail at life, you obviously fail at trolling too.
The graphics are jaw dropping and the combat system is very deep and satisfying. I've played it at least ten times through since last night when I downloaded it learning more and more about the counter system and the different stances.
0 7
This was a good thread to learn about the demo:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1743
The next few months are going to be absolutely insane for the PS3 with Lair, then Warhawk, Ratchet and Clank, Little Big Planet, Heavenly Sword just for the major first party titles.
Yeah it's out... all 2 seconds of it. Kinda disappointing.
If you don't mind downloading a GB of data for ten minutes of gameplay, anyway. What did they waste all that space on, big fat titties and bloom effects?
Rob
I pre-ordered the game about ten minutes after playing the demo. It's that good.
The game looks very, very good. The frame rate at the very start of the demo is a bit inconsistent with noticeable tearing, but through the rest of the demo the frame rate seemed rock solid. The combat has elements of button mashing, but I guess that happens with games of this nature until you get the combos down. My only other criticism is that I just couldn't get the motion controls down at all, so I turned them off. Again, that probably has more to do with my lack of mastery of the controls than anything else, but I would be curious to know if anyone else had the same problem.
The game feels very much like a ninja version of God of War, as they share many of the same elements: context sensitive mini games, vicious combat, finishing moves, swarming enemies and stunning locations. I wasn't all that excited for this game before the demo, but I am now. A definite release day purchase.
This game, beyond most, incredibly irks me. I put up with a lot of marginalizing and foolishness from video games and plots... but Heavenly Sword seems, to me, the pinnacle of what I hate about female protagonists in games. Here we have the finest example of hyper-sexualizing women in games. A woman, barely 100 pounds, swinging weapons of ungodly size and weight and crushing countless minions. Does she cover herself in protective armor to shield herself from the damaging blows of foes? Of course not, she's a woman... she wears a couple bands of fabric covering her nipples and her crotch. She's petite, nimble, sexy and a total badass too... not to mention she has the flamboyant red hair of many female video game leads.
I know this is an ongoing trend... Oni, Lara Croft, Alyx Vance, Chick from Sin Episodes, Chick from No One lives forever, Every DoA Chick and a dozen other games with female characters (Even Samus has fallen into this pit). They're all petite and totally badass. They're blatantly one dimensional... even Alyx from Half Life is pretty shallow and a generic hot chick. Heavenly Sword just gets to me, it seems like the worst of the bunch... "Let's take God of War and make it star a red haired bombshell who will kill you and fuck you before you hit the floor." How can we demand more realistic female characters in video games (male too... but that's for a different rant)? Are we doomed to play games with shallow female leads because that's what we "want"?
For the record, while writing this rant, I was contemplating genuine female leads. Many were from LucasArts adventure games (The Dig, Fate of Atlantis) and other adventure games as well. I also thought of the original Alone in the Dark... I was around 10/11 when it was released and I started thinking about what a unique character Emily Hartwood was... just the niece of a suicidal lunatic trying to find out what happened, she's obviously feminine but not sexualized .
I think the full game will actually be very engaging but you wouldn't know it from this demo. Contrast with the God of War II demo that sees you fighting the Colossus of Rhodes and coming away completely wowed. Or the Ninja Gaiden Sigma demo that features an entire level and some bonus levels. They could have done a lot more. To be honest it sucks.
I still have hopes but the demo has dampened them considerably.
Did the judge think so too? He must have had a good lawyer!
Don't steal. The government hates competition.
Anyone who played the demo will tell you it's short. Kotaku published an opinion of it in where he timed himself at 7 minutes. That's with a death.
Most people put it at 5 minutes time range. If anything that's a red light. Now length of a demo has no bearing on the worth of the demo but the fact that you have a game of X length, and the most you're willing to show is 5 minutes should set off the warnings of anyone but the most die hard fans. What aren't they showing? The fact that 90 percent of the battles are the same? The fact there's little variety in the environment? What isn't shown here should be attracting our attentions.
Contrary to popular beliefs Demos are demonstrations of the game. We should be making value judgments off of them. They should be telling us "This game is worth your 60 dollars". The fact that this game is so short doesn't mean we are getting a small "taste". A great example is Just cause. The demo came out, it was a 15 minute stale piece of gaming. The full game came out. It was a longer piece of boring crusted gaming. Yet people were shouting during the demo "it's just a taste, buy the game before you make a judgment" This is wrong obviously.
The problem that just keeps coming up is that any game can be good for 5 minutes. Yet the fact that's all they are willing to show us when almost every other game seems to push for 15 minutes in a demo means that there's is likely some flaw that they arn't willing to show us.
Personally I'll be holding off on the game. I've been fooled once before by a "fake taste" demo and personally there's more than enough games this fall that we don't have to grasp at straws just to look good. Unless you only have a PS3 and then you might have to (Ratchet and clank looks solid, however Lair has been getting mix reactions from previews, and the rest of the crew isn't impressing). Personally I think we should be outraged at Sony for hyping a 5 minute demo so much that even slashdot publishes an article about it.
you obviously fail at trolling too.
No - he actually got you!
Even this is becoming less of a stereotype and more of a cliché. The one-on-one fighting game has suffered from this almost from day one: each game needs a female character, and oh, I know, let's make her physically weak but fast and nimble.
What I think a lot of game designers and game artists don't understand is that a woman doesn't have to be physically sexual to be a sex symbol. The first example that comes to my mind is Jo Dark, who was basically a James Bond (not surprisingly, considering Perfect Dark's roots) minus the need to chat up anything that moved. Jo was rarely visible on-screen, and wasn't disproportionately curvaceous or underdressed when she was, and yet, I consider her a sex symbol. She was crafty, intelligent and uncompromising, and she had a dry British wit. What's not to like?
Personally, I think it's more than just the domination of the game audience by young single males. It takes a certain amount of laziness on the part of the developers as well: it is a character, but it seldom has character. The only thing worse than that is the excuse that every developer makes for their female avatar: that girl gamers find it empowering that they can relate to her. Most of them have no idea whatsoever what women want from video games and never bothered to ask. This is the sort of denial that turns girls away from gaming, and gives us more Dead Or Alives and fewer Dead Or Alive Extreme Beach Volleyballs.
Attack its weak point for massive damage!
I think Beyond Good & Evil is another good example of a strong female lead that is not oversexed. And probably Trace Memory. And I think Eternal Darkness had some strong female characters, but I can't really remember too much. Zelda is often pretty well-developed and multi-layered. You're right, these are mostly adventure-style games... It's a pity that there aren't more well-developed female leads.
On the other hand, some bad examples are Ico and P.N.03, I'd say.
You can get quite a nice hdtv for less than a $1000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification