I’ve got an update on Heavenly Sword after we all got to see a little bit more of the tasty looking game at E3. For anyone not in the know, you play Nariko, an athletic warrior who’d punch Lara Croft’s lights out no questions asked. She’s on a quest for vengeance against a king and his invading army. When the king, played by Andy Serkis, destroys the warrior clan that protects the Heavenly Sword, the clan’s leader nariko takes up arms to kick some serious butt.
The good news is that this very good looking game isn’t as repetitive as we once thought. I was a bit worried it would just be lots of arena battles but it looks like there’s much more variety. Levels demoed were Nariko defending a castle as men in flaming barrels rolled towards her and also a side-scrolling scene where she has to knock as many enemies to their doom as possible.
There’s also a some cool looking context-sensitive bits to battles similar to God of War where the game goes into a mini cut scene and you do things that look spectacular by pressing buttons at the right time.
Another big surprise is a new playable character called Kai. She doesn’t have any melee weapons, instead she has a crossbow and you aim by tilting the Sixaxis controller.
Oh, and it’s also worth mentioning there’s a cool motion-capture movie which shows the superb facial animation that went into making the game.
