Pre-E3 heavenly sword coverage from GameDaily. Play as noriko who weilds the heavenly sword to try and stop a king that took over her land. The game starts off overlooking a ancient city. And Noriko leaps on a rope and slides down to the enemies and the game begins.

Ninja Theory encourages gamers to mix all three combat styles. Nariko bounces around the environment, expertly swinging her arms and killing anything unfortunate enough to get in her way. The game degenerates into a mindless button masher that yields great results depending on the amount of mayhem caused. Gamers don't need to memorize combos. L1, R1, X and Circle do most of the work.

To achieve the game's lifelike animations, Ninja Theory hired Andy Serkis, the actor who played Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Serkis directed six weeks of shooting and so far it seems like time well spent when watching characters move realistically around the screne.

All of this eye candy notwithstanding, Heavenly Sword still needs a lot of work. The game stutters when too many characters appear onscreen, ruining the otherwise gratifying experience.

Sayyed via gamedaily.com »