With the story's second part already scribed, fans of big-haired action epic Heavenly Sword have eagerly been awaiting confirmation of a sequel. Though it hasn't arrived just yet (possibly waylaid by disappointing sales of the original), developer Ninja Theory has revealed to Gamesindustry.biz that it's no longer entangled in Nariko's mess of red hair. A new intellectual property for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 is now being assembled, with some thought spared to a CGI movie tie-in.
"We're certainly targeting a triple-A blockbuster, with two and a half years in production – a big game that builds on our core strengths of story-telling, cinematics and combat," said Ninja Theory co-founder and chief developer, Nina Kristensen. "But we're actually looking at something in addition to that – we're considering opportunities in creating a CGI movie using the game engine alongside the game itself."
Kristensen went on to say that the company hopes to maintain its relationship with the world of film, which seems to imply that Ninja Theory's next game will boast the same high production values and cinematic flair seen in Heavenly Sword. Right, is this where we make a joke about running time?
Please, make the addiction stop! Civilization IV: Warlords, the first expansion for Civ IV, made my "Best of the Rest" last year and Beyond the Sword tops this year's list. The funny thing is I'm not a Civ fanboy, nor am I even that great of a player (Full Disclosure: I still play on Noble level), but Civ IV is a game I can come back to over and over again. Beyond the Sword added much-needed mechanics for culture-prone and passive-aggressive players, with enhancements in espionage and other concepts "beyond the sword." Oh, and just to keep last year's tradition going: Firaxis (2K, Take-Two), please get the rights to Alpha Centauri back from EA and give us a sequel!
If not worthy of a Top 10 spot, then certainly Pac-Man deserves Joystiq's 'Comeback Player of the Year' award. I covered Pac-Man CE'soverblown launch in early June, but it wasn't until I became a devoted player at home that I realized the sheer genius of the first true Pac-Man sequel since 'the Ms.' hit the maze in '82. Designer Toru Iwatani managed to scrape off a quarter-century of rust and fashion a remarkably relevant game that held me down during an otherwise punishing summer drought. Geometry Wars might be the most celebrated, but Pac-Man CE is Xbox Live Arcade's true star.
Gamasutra reports that Andy Serkis is to become a ringleader of sorts for a new game industry network in the East of England. The actor, best known for his motion-captured portrayal of Gollum in Lord of the Rings and Bohan in the PlayStation 3's Heavenly Sword, will kick off "Games Eden" in the hopes of encouraging and supporting game development within the region. The endeavor aims to keep industry members in touch through an international website and a series of networking events, with the envisioned result being the growth of the economy within the region. Awfully nice of him, really.
Funded by the East of England Development Agency (EEDA), East of England International (EEI), Screen East and FDMX, Games Eden will be guided by one of those committee things (we're told Princess Leia is a poor example of one) comprised of representatives from the likes of Sony, Zoonami and Ninja Theory. As gaming continues to grow larger and more lucrative, you can likely expect similar initiatives to take root in industry hot spots around the world.
It's a little early for Christmas, but it's always the right time for dancing video game characters! Jan3D has put together a super-short video as an early holiday gift to his/her fellow gamers. And to think that you weren't planning on getting him/her anything.
Today's additions to the PlayStation Store may not incite frenzy, but with the entire video game world talking about a certain spartan, maybe Sony thought it was to retain their big guns for another week where they could garner more press.
For US PS3 owners, in addition to an assortment of free trailers, we have demos for Clive Barker's Jericho (which also came out today on the Xbox 360 and PC) and NBA 2K8, a new vehicle for Motorstorm dubbed the Castro Capitano ($0.99) and Speed Master feature for Ninja Gaiden Sigma.
European gamers today got some Warhawk and Heavenly Sword wallpaper, a quartet of new Motorstorm vehicles (£1.49 for each pair), the Ninja Gaiden SIgma Speed Master pack a demos for Sega Rally and Folklore (this is a different demo than the one previously released).
Sony has confirmed that the French will be getting a new "Starter Pack" for their PlayStation 3s starting Sept. 19 which will include Heavenly Sword and F1 Championship Edition. The rest of Europe can still take their Motorstorm, along with Resistance, and like it too! Speaking with GI.biz, Sony said, "The choice of which titles to include in the Starter Pack, and the freedom to change the titles is up to the individual markets based on their unique market conditions."
Sony went on to confirm that this new pack will be introduced in France for the time being and will be available for the Heavenly Sword launch. Actually, it would be hilarious if Sony America ever introduced the Starter Pack in the States and started offering games to "individual markets based on their unique market conditions." One state gets Motorstorm, while another gets Heavenly Sword. We'd love to see how those determinations would be made.
In this episode of the Heavenly Sword animated series we discover that the return of the Heavenly Warrior is met with disbelief as it turns out the baby has a va-jay-jay. Yup, she's born a -- wait for it -- "worthless girl." Ouch, the clan initially decides to kill her, but they seem to settle on letting her live as an outcast.
The series is starting to wrap up in preparation for Heavenly Sword's Sept. 12 launch. We really do hope that the crumb of a demo isn't indicative of the whole experience. At this point, it's sad to think we'd prefer having three-minute animated shorts tell the story of the game each week than actually play the thing. We'll find out in a week.
It's a double feature with parts three and four of the Heavenly Sword animated series. Part three tells the tale of a son's betrayal and his desire to become a god. This animated series has been a great way to get exposition and background out of the way before the game releases Sept 12 -- we're still fence-sitting in angst after the PSN demo if these shorts will end up being cooler than the game.
Part four can be found after the break, in it the clan protecting the sword prepares for the rebirth of the Heavenly Warrior ... a boy savior. Then there's a shocking cliffhanger during the birth. Um, not to ruin anything, but most should be able to guess what the revelation was if you've been paying attention to Heavenly Sword at all.
Ninja Theory's Heavenly Sword has some beautiful music -- anyone with the demo can testify to that. An interview with lead audio Tom Colvin has quantified the developer's focus on aural satisfaction: 10 GB of sound data is included in the game, according to Develop.
That sizable number includes approximately three and a half hours of music, sound effects and 4,500 lines of dialog. "There's an hour and a half's worth of cut scenes in eleven languages," said SCEE's Garry Taylor.
A dual layer DVD disc has an 8.5 GB capacity; will Sony be touting that its competition couldn't even fit the audio onto their discs? We'd be surprised if they showed restraint.
In the second part of the Heavenly Sword animated series we discover that the sword wielded by the Heavenly Warrior in the first part became a burden on man. Eventually, to save the power obsessed people from themselves it ends up in the hands of a tribe that would protect it.
Yup, we're definitely enjoying these little shorts. At least we can respect this type of marketing, and the art behind it, compared to Nintendo's mind-numbing Smash Bros.info drip. Maybe Heavenly Sword will reveal Sonic as a secret character in Part III of the animated series?
Pastel-colored chickens are trapped in pastel-colored eggs and the only way to save them is to match four colored eggs and let the Magic of Physics handle the rest! Piyotama is available today on the US PlayStation Network for $2.99. European PS3 owners are not so lucky, having been denied egg-popping this week.
Two Heavenly Swordvideos -- the first part of a Behind-the-Scenes featurette and the first episode of the animated series -- are also out today for the low, low cost of nothing.
Was this Heavenly Sword cartoon originally conceived as a glorified commercial for the game? Sure it was. But so was the Star Wars: Clone Wars animated series on the Cartoon Network, and those things ended up being better than the movies. We won't be able to judge if the animated series is better than the game until Sept. 12, but so far we've been disappointed by neither.
In this first part of the animated series we learn the origins of the sword. Although eventually wielded by the Nariko, the sword actually belonged to ... well, watch the clip to find out. Oh, and we'll definitely take more of these animated series promoting games please. We're enjoying this and GameTap's Tomb Raider animated series very much.
Oh no he didn't news now, with Team Ninja's tough-talking Tomonobu Itagaki expressing his thoughts on Heavenly Sword, September's highly anticipated PS3 kill-em-up from Ninja Theory. It seems the interactive cutscenes and corresponding button prompts didn't sit too well with the drinking designer. "I've never played a good game where the developers put a big icon of the button you're supposed to press onscreen," he told EGM (via CVG). "I look at Heavenly Sword and it seems really half-assed, because it's asking you to do all these button-timing sequences but you are not getting much payoff from it."
Itagaki has every right to feel robbed -- if he's never played a good game like that, we can only conclude that he's never experienced Shenmue, Resident Evil 4, God of War or Tomb Raider: Anniversary. He's probably played Dragon's Lair though.
Not content with leaving the battle of "Ninja" developers without a fight, Heavenly Sword producer Kyle Shubel courteously defended the game's interactive events, noting that the feats accomplished in them would be frustrating to pull off on your own. "My response to Mr. Itagaki would be that the intent of the Hero sequences is to empower the player to experience events that would be nearly impossible to play in a natural platforming state... for example, making the player run down ropes, leaping from rope to rope as they're being cut from underneath you, all while dodging other objects - that would be a frustrating experience to 99 percent of our users if we were to force them to do that manually."
We'll find out next month if Heavenly Sword is a fully-assed answer to Itagaki's thrice-released Ninja Gaiden.
Sony's laying its exclusive bait early this year-end season, announcing a September 12th release date for Heavenly Sword. The crumb of a demo might be enough to whet the appetites of software-starved PlayStation 3 owners leading up to the full game release (really, what PS3 owner isn't gonna bite?), but the 5-minute tease hasn't generated the level of buzz that already surrounds two Xbox 360 console-exclusives, which sandwich Heavenly Sword's mid-September debut; that's BioShock (Aug 21st) and Halo 3 (Sept 25th). Of course, for those of us who devour games regardless of platform, it's time to loosen our belts -- let gluttony commence!
