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Sweaty
palms and farting in public places should be punishable by death. *Rant
over.* After waiting in line for about thirty minutes I was finally
able to get my normal, non-sweaty palms on the PS3 controller to play
Ninja Theory's third person slash 'em up, Heavenly Sword.
First
let's talk about the feel of the controller and how it differs from the
regular Dual Shock. First, it's a lot lighter, I've heard some
criticism that alleges it makes the pad feel more like a cheapo gaming
peripheral, not true. There's a difference between cheapo plastic and
mui bueno plastic, thankfully Sony sprang for the latter. The next
thing you're likely to notice is that the L2 and R2 buttons have been
changed to triggers (good thing). The addition of trigger buttons
actually makes the pad easier to hold and a little more comfortable, I
do hope they increase the tension in the triggers as they're a little
soft at present. Unfortunately I wasn't able to try out the tilt
technology as that mechanic was unsupported in Heavenly Sword,
apparently the only development house to know of the technology was
Incog Inc. who built it into their Warhawk control scheme (more on
Warhawk and how well the tilt sensor works later). Come to think of it,
we porbably can't call it the Dual Shock any more can we?
  
The
segment we were allowed to play consisted of a one level demo set in
the familiar gladiatorial arena you've probably all seen in the various
screenshots and videos. Control was mapped to the Circle button for
grabs, triangle and square perform attacks with your sword, the “X”
button allowed you to grab items in the environment (barrels, plates
etc), you could then toss them at enemies and the camera would enter
first person mode following the path of the projectile and allowing you
to influence its flight... very cool. Lastly there as the option to
hold down the L2 button, this allowed you to swing your swords around
on chains creating sweeping scythes death. Not a very powerful attack
but useful if you're surrounded and in a tight spot.
  
If
you've played God of War you'll probably have a very good idea what to
expect from the gameplay. The combo system appeared quite similar and
at the end of the demo there was a final boss that you had to finish
off using a timed button pressing mechanic similar to what's seen in
God of War and Resident Evil 4.
  
Visually
the game looked stunning despite the fact that it's far from complete,
beautiful faux HDR drenched the characters in white hot sunlight, every
surface was mapped with beautiful textures and impressive shaders that
accentuated the game's unique art style. The animation was awe
inspiring, characters reeled in pain and struck with deadly force in a
manner that was just beautiful to watch. A quick chat with the
developer revealed that this demo displayed only combat on a small
scale, eventually they're looking to put 2-3,000 characters on screen
at once (eek!)
Stay tuned to QJ as we'll be getting back to
you with more videos, more pics and some hands on impressions of
Resistance: Fall Of Man and Warhawk both for PS3, we'll also have the
skinny on Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters and Killzone Liberation for
the PSP. (Yeah, I know how lucky we are!)
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Titles
