You'll finish this by the time you're done eating your Take Out.
Here’s a game I’ve had on my mind for awhile. I played up till the final boss, had a really hard time with him, then let it sit till my first PS3 died, lost my saves so I gotta do it again. But it’s good enough for me to wanna play through again, gotta go with a 7/10 on this one.
The Good – This is a hack-n-slash game in the style of God of War, you play as Nariko, a fiery redhead who wields the ‘Heavenly Sword’ and is able to pull off a ridiculous amount of attacks and combos with said sword and awesome acrobatics. The graphics are detailed and impressive sometimes showing hundreds of enemies on screen at once, the battles can feel quite epic at times. The story is in an old asian/kung fu movie style that is very entertaining, you gotta protect your land and clan from evil forces who want to take over and rule with the Heavenly Sword. It’s told through gorgeous in-game engine cutscenes with great voice acting. Motion captured facial expressions really add to the feeling of ‘buying’ what the characters are going through. The music really stands out and would fit well in a “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon” type of film. Sometimes the action is broken up in a different style with a secondary character who yields a bow and arrow. Some quick time events, which for the most part are easy and fun, and won’t always spell immediate death if you miss a command.
The Bad – The gameplay has a sort of auto blocking system to the fighting, which can be annoying to me since I’m used to pressing a button to block in these fighting/hack-n-slash games. The bosses have an old school quality, where you have to learn patterns in multiple stages of a fight, but some can be irritating when you die and have to do the whole process all over again more than once. While the graphics are gorgeous overall, sometimes there’s framerate issues and some ugly screen tearing as well. Some may not like the cheesy/hammy nature of some of the characters and bosses in the storyline. The game is short, I’m talking 5-7hrs short with really nothing else to do afterward.
The Ugly – Andy Serkis, of Lord of the Rings/Gollum fame, plays a few of the characters, notably the bosses….I wish this one, General Flying Fox, was real so I could punch him in the face for being ugly and annoying :-/
