So Close... but yet So Far

In less than 12 hours, I should have MGS4 in my hands. Jesus... I can't stand to wait any longer. I've already cleared my schedule so hopefully I can get through the game by Friday night and maybe even have a review up by Saturday.

I'm also going to the midnight launch at Gamestop tomorrow and it seems they might be having some festivities. I'll bring my camera and see if there's anything worth documenting.

Finally, Kotaku had a MGS stache contest and I threw a little something together. Maybe I stand a chance... if they like Arrested Development... keep your fingers crossed.

Excerpt from "Anatomy of Violence," an Escapist article

The article says, using psychological research, basically that videogames have torn down instinctual restraints against killing, but does not necessarily predispose a gamer to murder.

From the article: Anatomy of Violence by Robert Marks:

"It was thought up until the end of World War II that if you fielded an army of 100,000 riflemen, you would have 100,000 combatants. In practice, however, there were some discrepancies suggesting this wasn't quite the case. This led General S.L.A. Marshall to publish a book in 1947 titled Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command, where he revealed that in combat only 15 percent of soldiers unsupervised by an officer had fired their weapons.


The theory goes: In extreme stress, the logical part of your brain shuts down, relinquishing control to your middle brain, or what Grossman wryly calls the "puppy brain." The middle brain is not at all logical - it relies on instinct - and by forgoing the process of rational thought, it can react faster to situations in which a moment of hesitation could be deadly. In around 85 percent of trained soldiers up to the end of the World War II, there was a part of their middle brain that recognized that the enemy was another human being, and refused to kill him. This social consciousness even under extreme duress is normal - we are born this way. The natural reaction to "fight or flight" is usually flight, making violence a "universal phobia," as Grossman states.

This new understanding led to the realization that if you could train soldiers to override the part of their brain that wouldn't allow them to kill, you would have more effective combatants and, therefore, a more deadly and efficient army. Training for the armed forces slowly began to incorporate measures to "dehumanize" enemy combatants. First, they replaced the circular targets at firing ranges with human-shaped silhouettes. The result was dramatic - in the Korean War, around 50 to 55 percent of soldiers would fire their weapons at the enemy. The army then changed the targets again. Instead of silhouettes, they now looked like human beings, had faces, and were rigged to fall down once they had been shot. During the Vietnam War, the percentage of soldiers who would fire their weapons at the enemy rose to more than 90 percent.

This training reached into the middle brain and flipped a switch. The part of the mammalian brain that wouldn't allow a person to kill another human being was reset, making soldiers more capable of doing their jobs, routing the enemy faster and, in the end, saving lives.


Unintentionally, this training regimen has migrated from the firing range to the living room. Take Counter-Strike or Crysis, for example. Players fire a weapon at a human target that falls down when it is "killed." It's the same type of training used to raise the firing rate of the army from 15 percent to more than 90 percent. With many tech-savvy kids and adults growing up playing first person shooters, this means an entire generation has unwittingly undergone this military conditioning.

But have we become killers?

***

People who raise the point that violent videogame players have received military combat conditioning often equate it with committing acts of violence, but correlation is not causation. It has never followed that going through this conditioning means that one is guaranteed to employ it.

This has to do with the part of the brain in which the conditioning occurs. What stops a normal, unconditioned person from killing another human being in combat is the mammalian brain, which is pure instinct - the higher, rational brain has nothing to do with it. An unconditioned person can want to kill someone, only to be rendered unable as his middle brain takes over during the moment of crisis.

It takes a high level of stress - whether out of anger, fear or any other source of adrenaline - for this transition to occur. If that stress does not exist, your higher, more rational brain remains in control of your actions. Even under the most stressful circumstances, there has to be the right context.

To demonstrate the importance of context, Grossman offers the case of a police officer who had his family and friends hold a fake gun so that he could practice disarming criminals. Each time his disarmed his subject, he would hand it back so that they could repeat the process. Later, when he found himself in a store as an armed robbery began, he struck out at the criminal and took away the handgun. Then, just as he had practiced hundreds of times, he handed it back. His middle brain did exactly what he had trained it to do, regardless of how irrational it was under the circumstances.

Violent videogames may have made us capable of killing - under a very specific set of circumstances - but they haven't conditioned us to be killers. It would be more accurate to say we have been psychologically enabled to use deadly force in a combat situation, whereas before we were not."

I guess for the sake of friendly exchange

In response to the previous critique of Persona 3, I'd like to start with I can easily see why people wouldn't like the game. It caters towards a specific audience and in all honestly has an overall most watered down game mechanics out of most SMT games that I have played. I guess to make this easier to defend it I'll just try to respond to each point made against the game in the order they were introduced.

The Persona line of games have always been about tying the universe of Shin Megami Tensei into everyday life. The first, Revelations: Persona started out at a highschool. The protagonist and his friends from high school get sucked into their mystical adventure, meet Philemon who gives them the Persona ability and on goes the story of crazy demon fighting in the real world. The story in both Persona 2 installments begin at a high school as well, again Philemon does a little storytelling and gets you on your adventure way. I have not personally played the first Persona or Innocent Sin but I have played through Eternal Punishment and a lot is upheld in the third entry into the series, but even more is changed.

As we can see, since the cultural experience of high school in Japan is so universal for kids there then I can see why they would choose that to be a major anchor into "real life" for the vast majority of gaming culture in Japan. This has been a recurring theme throughout the series and honestly the fact that a high-school-sim-like-game even made it across the pond to US shores makes me glad that Atlus brings over such off-the-wall and different games. The Anime sequences in P3 aren't the best, but honestly I enjoy any number of Anime sequences in a game, the voice acting in P3 is top notch and hilarious in actually making the kids human, and driving home the fact that they are just a couple kids in high school. Kaneko Kazuma's art-style, as always, excels when brought to life through polygonal cel-shading. While I enjoyed the sprites in P2, ever since Nocturne the presentation has reached an almost seamless transition from Kazuma's actual concept art. When it comes to production values, aside from the Anime cutscenes which seemed pretty rushed (the cut scenes for the new chapter in FES are much better), everything is highly polished and you couldn't really ask for more except for having the Japanese VAs if you were so inclined.

A lot of the critiques LBJ had with the game I honestly had myself, but it didn't bother me as much since the overall experience to me outweighed it. I poured 150 hours into the game and beat it, the overall story is nothing new or different. What is most enjoyable is the level of detail in your interactions in either the social links or just with your fellow SEES members. Like I said before, you really get to know your teammates because the VAing is very well done. The contract you sign is presented to you later in the game. I enjoyed the fact that the Protagonist this time around is for the most part "you" the player and just an anomaly placed into the story and the story revolves around you. You aren't given the reigns over a guy named "Flame!" who already has a personality and inclinations towards particular decisions and you're just along for the ride.

My issues with the game are somewhat similar, the battle system is meh. I enjoyed it a lot better than the standard ATB or turn based affair, I didn't really mind controlling only 1 person since it was similar to Star Ocean without being able to switch. What I do take problems with is that you can't change the persona of fellow teammates like you can in previous games. Yes persona being tied to cards was in the previous games, it isn't a fad tagging along with recent CCGs and at least Tarot cards factor in reasonably a lot more with the occult than a random card mechanic. The fact it's a dungeon crawler is a big turn off to a lot of people, the previous titles were not dungeon crawlers but I still enjoyed it. I definitely did not like the fact that there was no dialogue/talk mechanic and the creatures you fight are not normal SMT demons, instead they are mostly shadows made up specifically for the game. The stat growth and customization occurs with the persona, your character's parameters change with the persona you have equipped. If your persona is more heavily magic oriented then you yourself are that, I find this flexibility very nice and it presents the player with whatever play style they want. You can increase persona stats with items. The growth in commands you can give your party members, the intelligent AI, the ever expanding options you have for fusion and side quests are amazing. The random-stats of items is also a nice touch for the most control-freak-inclined.

Overall I wish they kept the talking/dialogue from P2, the control over 4 people, the combos between different persona on separate people, and the larger compendium of enemies(not just palette switches) are what's on my mind currently. For the most part though LBJ's complaints of the game to me seem like he wouldn't be inclined to play a high-school sim-game, so not the right target audience. I personally found the mechanics of the game overall watered down compared to previous Persona/SMT offerings but I still liked the polished experience. From what it sounds like if he was willing to invest some time into it then he may change his mind, then again it may not. The game overall is a slow start because it slowly introduces each mechanic to the player. Also the first time I played an SMT game there was a great deal of game play details that I did not pick up on until I either beat the game or a very long time after. Aside from that it's just a matter of opinion, people will love it and people will hate it.

In closing what I can say is that I love it. It reminds me of the original Valkyrie Profile for playstation in that there really is nothing else like it available on the market which adds a uniqueness to it (on the market in the US at least). I personally haven't played FFXII though, I'm not too strongly inclined to because of it's MMORPG-like interface...FF X was a bad enough experience for me that i never want to return to. I'll stick to Atlus' odd RPGs, Square's (not Enix) forays into RPGs in the era of the PS2 have totally turned me off and I've been pleased with the other options there are (Shadow Hearts, NIS games, Atlus, Enix's franchises).

What the fuck happened? - JRPGs, but mostly Persona 3

I remember back in the day reading about Persona 3, and how great it was given that the characters were so cute but shoving guns to their heads to release their inner demons.
You play a introverted high-school student, whose main attribute in the opening sequence is your fancy, name-brand headphones, and your stylish high-school attire. Obviously this is you, right? The target audience? Shy, Japanese Otaku who thinks about deep things like, "Memento mori: remember you die."
Persona 3 is pretty bad.
This isn't a "not my sort of game" thing, it's bad. After playing an hour, I had one really un-interesting battle ("Ooh, I had to attack four times in order to kill those two indiscriminate blob things that seem ripped off of Spirited Away's No-face. Oh joy! This is real good gaming!"). Most of the time spent in the game was watching time pass and several characters I know or care nothing (i was given no incentive!) about go to an over-hyped place I despise: High School. A part of the game is even giving your friend answers to the questions in class.
Why is this a game? It seems like an anime disguised as a game. The video sequences are even in anime, and could be pulled from Noir, Blood +, or even Persona 2. Persona 2 was prettier, and it was a PSX game!
Oh, he's a dude with a mysterious past, or he's a regular dude with a hidden power, or ughhh....and they have to fight "The Shadows" who give people the Apathy Syndrome (you know, it's called something goofy because the Japanese are using an English word where they would usually use Japanese, so why can't the voice-acting just be in Japanese with subtitles? It'd be so much more pleasant to listen to. They respect voice-actors there.) The premise is just uninteresting as shit. It's been done so many times before.
Whatever happened to "it's a world where magic has been sealed away for generations, and an evil empire is now using the last remaining capable magic user to destroy a small town and capture a magical spirit, but the rebellion has removed the crown controlling her, and recruited her to save the world from the empire?"
Whatever happened to the mysterious stranger signing up to save the world by blowing up energy reactors run by an evil corporation killing the planet (and that was mostly just that one town. From town to town, people led very different lives), and another mysterious stranger attacking that corporation but with unknown objectives carrying a strange alien creature?
Both of these were premises exposed in the first hour (or so) that made for amazing plots and really fun experiences as the game went on.
But I've realized other questions arose in the plodding storytelling of Persona 3...like what fucking contract did you sign? Why does the opening sequence tell you that your character may only have a year to live? Is that why your character is so willing to "shoot" himself to evoke his persona? This is how I tricked myself into playing FFXII for so long, the whole time going, "Obviously, there's some higher level of depth here, right?" Whether Persona 3 is even worth that time is not clear.

The battle system is not bad. You have basic attacks, skills, and you order your other teammates to act in a certain way (act freely, kill this guy, use this skill). What's nice is taking advantage of an opponent's weakpoint gives you a boost (called One More) where you can attack another time. Unfortunately, then the support party member will tell you the obvious "Hey! You took advantage of that enemy!" I know, bitch! It felt good! Maybe right now I can take a Lynny J signature flow break to point out how little it adds to have voice-acting in an RPG, especially in this RPG where all you really get to see of the characters besides the poorly-shot, jumpy-as-hell anime sequences is their sprites running around a hotel, school, or the dungeon or their set drawing of various facial expressions. Voice-acting without being able to pick up the characters' non-verbal and facial cues is worthless to me. Plus, there's only a handful of American voice-actors anyway. I mean, I get happy every time I hear Spike (from Cowboy Bebop) doing a voice, but I'd rather remember him as Spike than every grizzled character in an Anime or videogame (Rogue Galaxy). Spike's voice as Mugen was incredible though.
Back to the battle system, take advantage of all the enemies in the battle, and you get the opportunity to do an all-out attack where your whole teammates bum-rush the enemies. The battle system's not bad not because it's particularly interesting, but because chaining these attacks together makes battles not overly time-consuming (which is how I got through Lunar 2: Eternal Blue, kill all the enemies in one turn, and battles become more strategically interesting and short!). This is bad considering that the battle system is the biggest action or gameplay element of an RPG, and it's especially bad in this RPG because...
Because...
Because the fucking thing is dungeon-based. Not, ooh, interesting-new-environments-based, but oh-same-basic-concept-repeated-ad-nauseam-based (reminds me of .hack).

Side note: My favorite parts of .hack were the e-mails to your party members, trading up for better weapons from other players, and the tactics system that gave extreme benefits to high-level coordination on opponent's weaknesses from all party members.
Umm...since Persona 3 has you mostly acting alone, you don't really get that level of co-ordination, but you do get a social-link system where you answer questions based on what kind of Persona card (Oh, God. Every single RPG and anime has some sort of weird card game these days, all to sell extra merchandise) you think the answers would give. Collecting cards of a certain type lets you fuse more powerful Personas from cards you gain in randomized post-battle 3-card monty sequences (Super Mario 3 or lame, anyone?). Gaining levels gives you no chance to customize your characters. All stat increases are already set in stone...so...the only real chance for customization is the Persona thing, which I already mentioned is kind of lame. I mean there's like a fusion or alchemy or some other sort of item-combination patooey in like every RPG.

I...

I...

I...continue to play this game under what I assume are false pretenses. If anybody knows why this game is this way and sells and gets good reviews...please tell me so that I might generate some other more interesting reasons to continue to play. Otherwise, this is FFXII to me, and I hated XII something fierce despite how many other people found it to be the best-tasting cock they ever lick-lick-lick-licked like a lollipop.

aheM...Shorty says she mi(g)ht want to lick the rapper, B, after you "get it juicy for [her]"

-Lynny Jo,
but you can call me "Nny"

P.S. "Call me, so I can get it juicy for you?" WTF? Do rappers actually talk to women? Do they say these things and actually get laid? Don't answer. I don't really want to know.

Zero Puncutation

This man and I agree on many things, but some others we really don't like that Uncharted is racist because it stars an Brown-haired Aryan who digs on killing minorities. This is the same argument against RE5. I don't buy it completely. It feels hyper-sensitive.

I dunno how to embed videos anymore, but take a look if you're interested:
Uncharted Review
Assasin's Creed Review

He also did a great number on Brawl and fighting games:
Super Smash Bros Brawl Review

And found big fault with GTA4:
GTA4 Review

He also praised Bioshock and Psychonauts with a grain of salt, and slammed Mass Effect for repetition...hmmm...

Gameplay, Environment,...Cliches - Condemned 2

Abstract: Condemned does a really good job of connecting its levels together, revealing an evil, over-arching organization in parts, and is a really enjoyable experience in its combat but suffers in its cliches and shallow character development

One of the most compelling things about videogames is that you create a world entirely from scratch. The story, the environment, and the way the player is supposed to interact with said environment (or in other words lead the player's life) all come from human ingenuity.
Well...more or less...a lot of videogames rely on cliches but not in all elements. I have not played the original Condemned, but I find the combat in this game amazingly innovative. It is not usual in videogames to use a first-person perspective in a game that relies mostly on melee. Escape from Butcher Bay did it, and F.E.A.R. (I just learned that the same stuido made F.E.A.R and Alien Vs. Predator 2 as well. They seem to make freaky games) had melee options that were really cool like sliding kick tackles, but Condemned relies on it and combat is hard because of it. When you hit your opponent, just like you, he or she will only be momentarily stunned, and then hit right back, so a lot of time in combat is spent trying to figure out how to counter the opponent's incoming attack with a punch or parry the attack while simultaneously linking up your attacks in a specific order to do a devastating combo attack so that you can build up power to use even more powerful chain attacks that slam an opponent down, break his or her legs and arms (which they then fix in front of you if you leave them alone!), or straight off snap an opponent's neck after slamming them to the ground. Weapons come from everywhere (OH MY GOD! I've always wanted that!) and include such notables as Baseball Bats, gumball machines, foozeball rods, and Blow-Up Dolls, and no that's not the dirty kind. Guns are also available, and actually really really helpfully decrease the difficulty, but ammo is very limited. The ammo in the gun is all you get. You can replace bullets in the clip if other people are using the same gun, but if you can't find that, you better conserve. Shots also hurt like a bitch (until you get a flak jacket upgrade), so one of the tensest moments in the game for me was intermittently popping out from cover, trying to kill a man armed with a shotgun while I only had bricks to throw. Killing him rewarded me with a large badass to fight...big, bad motherfucking badass.

In addition to combat, you also are responsible for choosing the most correct answer to several multiple-choice questions based off crime scenes and presented information. Example: So you've found a dead person. What kind of dead person is it? Look around, see a nice ass, and you can correctly identify the dead person as a female. They use this "Study Evidence" system for most things that are not combat, even defusing a bomb, and its use often requires looking at things you didn't want to see in the first place like a torture cage constantly shocking the head of a homeless person or the hollowed-out corpse of your character's friend.
So, the environment is pretty dark, made worse by the fact that everyone is out to get each other. For some reason, the entire city has gone mad, turning everyday salary men into vicious street fighters, but strangely they seem to be directed in certain areas...
The levels are amazing, and I never felt bored with where I was. Environments range from a hunting lodge in the woods (where you are periodically attacked by a large animal) to a trash dump to a hotel to the crazed hallucinations of your character's alcoholic mind.
So, Condemned 2 delivers in a whole bunch of ways. I was often scared. I was often disgusted. I was often hooked, but despite Condemned 2 delivering in the most important ways for overall playability and enjoyment, it suffers from cliches and shallow character development in its story, minus the serial killer, WHO SCARES THE FUCK OUT OF ME because his sadism looks sane, and the final boss for his inability to provide closure. The voice-actor for the main character blows and there's little to him besides his alcoholism and predilection to violence. Anger and vengeance primarily motivate his actions, and he grows out of his alcoholism by the end of the game, but circumstance puts him in the position to save the world rather than some noble need to protect the world. His helper, Rosa, has little to no personality. Her motivations are completely absent.
By creating an over-arching chaos scenario, you paint yourself in the corner somewhat. Condemned 2's total breakdown of society requires a large event such as a character's total break from reality (Silent Hill 2...whoops...retroactive spoiler alert!); a harrowing outside event that completely changes the norms of society (like the nuclear holocaust of Fallout 2), some supernatural event, or some other organization's directed plan to re-arrange society.
Despite several supernatural elements, Condemned 2 chooses an organization that has high-up connections in society to cause its chaos, and this is good for them because it gives them lease to make another game, and I would definitely like to play a third game because I am drawn to the serial killer character and curious to see how you would take down such an organization (presumed to involve the president) using only your fists and forensic evidence.
Zero Punctuation forgot to mention that he's a bitter, old coot, and that this game is goddamn great if you take the story with a grain of salt.

i personally would like to see a world where consuMerist ociety began to drive people crazy, which haS kinda been done, or just a world where the increased interconnectedness of people due to (g)lobalization caused the human' collective unconscious to Break and we lost everything, even language. That would be fun.

LyBoJo

Sadism- Condemned 2

Over time, I've come to accept that I am somewhat of a sadist when it comes to videogames. Although I'm not so good at being evil, when given the chance to be a "good" sadist I try to milk it for what it's worth. For example, Jedi Knight 2 gave great chances to pick a guy up, throw your lightsaber at him, and then drop him into a smelter, something Luke would look down on for sure, but Luke's a fucking pussy.
Still there are those moments when I realize I am nothing to other sadists. In God of War 2, when timed button presses destroyed King Thesus, laying him down on a doorway where he again tried to stop Kratos only to have his head violently smashed into a door frame, JohFu and I flipped out. It was such a collective shock I cannot remember who was actually playing. It left a deep impression on both of us.
In Condemned 2, you often slam people head's into doors. In Condemned 2, when you make a headshot, you are rewarded with your enemies' exploding head, not to mention the fact that if you drink alcohol before taking the shot, your character's delirium tremors subside and he's much more able to take such gory headshots. In Condemned 2, the ultimate special attack has you throw a man to the floor, hit him twice and then break his neck, and, most recently, I put a boss' head (a ballerina who used a large lollipop saw as a weapon) into a printing press and held it there until it burst under pressure.
It makes sense. In this world where everything is falling apart and everyone gives in to their base violent desires, your character, the most fucked up one, must be the most violent, debased man in order to survive.
Condemned 2 is not Hostel or Wrong Turn or some other gore-porn videogame. Condemned 2 is a frightening experience that for whatever reason feels real, feels believable. Maybe this is just because I like playing it late at night or when I wake up and am dazed, but when forensically investigating a decapitated woman still kneeling or going over the coroner's report on a man whose vocal chords and ribcage have been completely removed, my feeling of horror is not weakened by an inability to suspend my disbelief, I am shocked by what life could be and sickened by what should be on the inside of a human turned out. In a movie, the camera wouldn't be allowed to remain on the body that long. Video games be different. I'm curious about Manhunt 2 now...but I found the first games sadism out of my league as well. Also, I hate stealth.

More on Condemned 2 later as I disagree with some of Zero Punctuation's assessments.

My'S ali(g)nment is neutral good, But i like to play chaotic

MGS IS Z BEST

Metal Gear Solid is my favorite game of all time. Don't agree with me? Maybe you should go back and play through the end of the game... hell go back and play through the entire game. It is a masterpiece throughout and one of the reasons I care so much about gaming. It even made me appreciate other art forms such as film (I never cared about cinematography up until that point). And despite some bizarre (but very lovable) twists and turns, the entire series has followed in the originals' footsteps. The influence the Metal Gear series has had on gaming is enormous and its creator Hideo Kojima is a a brilliant, twisted, genius. Truly one of the greatest experiences in all of gaming... period.

With about a week left until the fourth installment comes out (I will be at the midnight launch to pick up my Collector's Edition), I just felt the need to go back and relive various parts of the series. Now I am even more excited and don't know if I can wait 7 long days. Expect a full review soon after it's in my hands (nocturnal gaming here I come).

Metal gear Solid = (g)reatest Bestest thing a erf

SUCK SUCK SUCK SUCK - LAIR

Lair sucked. It's not my kind of game in the first place. I don't really like Fantasy shit (ITS ALL THE SAME PEOPLE! JESUS! How often can you buy the same crap?), and I especially never really liked these freespace shooters. Give me Descent over Star Wars: X Wing any day. Give me an actual tight level design, and I'll appreciate the situation and gameplay. The levels in Lair give no tight spaces to work through, just stupid enemies to chase after. There seems no real challenge to Lair except with the controls which suck even with the analog control option. I have no idea how I was supposed to smash my warcow into the other guy's dragon considering I was using the controls the way they told me to, but it wasn't responding. The Sixaxis can work much better. It has worked better in Super Rub-a-Dub, Heavenly Sword, Flow, etc.
In Lair, you go around spitting fire at people. Every once and a while you do takedowns which were really tame as far as button-pressing sequences go, and pretty un-interesting to watch. In battle, at least every ten seconds, there's a small video sequence which mostly feels awkward as shit. You kill enemies to go in a rage mode that triples your carnage score which unlocks combos but what do I care if fireballing an enemy is a really effective attack by itself. It's also unlimited and goes like a machine-gun. In contrast, swiping is slow as shit, and feeding? Oh man, so when you feed, it goes into this awkward cutscene that shows the whole dragon chomping on the little man instead of zooming in on the little man getting chomped. That's the cool part, not the poorly-rendered dragon.
THIS GAME IS UGLY. The environments are ugly. The dragons are ugly and choppy. The character models are ok, but rarely ever seen.
On top of that, the narrations were ridiculous, poorly written, and way too long. Also, people talk to you in combat a lot, but they tell you the same thing several times within a short time frame. Like, I know I have to kill the Ice Dragons. Fucking piss off for a bit, commander.
The game also has weird load times, opening the menu in-game for example is pretty slow.
It's just ugly. I really didn't want to play it anymore. I felt dirty. So I got Condemned 2, which Zero Punctuation said sucked for its over-the-top story.

it's like Maybe you juSt (g)et Bollocksed no matter what you play

LolBJ

Hindsight is 20-20 - Heavenly Sword

Several months ago, the PS3s two biggest exclusives were coming out: Lair and Heavenly Sword. Both had a lot of anticipation riding on them, and both were pretty much panned, and Sony may have lost some face for being too protective of Lair despite its shortcomings. Lair's next on my list of plays. Nowadays, thanks to winning the new format wars and several other really good titles, I think the PS3 has pretty much proven itself. Back then, Heavenly Sword was called repetitive for forcing a repetitive formula of get in a room, fight a bunch of guys, leave the room. It was also called short.
I fucking enjoyed the shit out of this game. I just read the IGN review, and they're full of shit. Heavenly Sword does a really good job of mixing up the combat from sequence to sequence with hella fun segments from the saddest, disturbed girl I've ever seen. The puzzles are simple, but due to supreme use of the SIXAXIS, actually pretty fun. The cannon is really fun. Sniping gets really fun.
Combat is also pretty fun. Really hard to master though, but, unfortunately, not that important to master. Button-mashing can get you far. IGN pointed out repeatedly tapping triangle can trigger many unexpected, helpful counters which are one of the most enjoyable parts of the game to me. Nothing more satisfying than a perfectly timed button push that sends the enemy to the floor.
Voice-acting and Motion Capture are amazing. The acting in this game is better than most movies, much better than Half-Life 2. The writing is a little lame in parts, but overall effective. Although IGN said the story was ho-hum, fuck them. Heavenly Sword is really good at what most video games suck at: Character development. Kai, in particular, grows into a functioning human being by the end of the story, and Bohan remains an evil, but clever fucker throughout.
I beat it in a day.
Is that a problem...? Well...there were definitely parts of the story that could have been fleshed out more. More about Kai's tribe, Whiptail, the other bosses, the Raven, all of these things could have made this longer than 10 hours without stretching the plot too thin. On the flipside, it wasn't too long. Uncharted was too long. I feel like Assassin's Creed had a good length in comparison. However, it does make buying the game fishy. Although I would jump at the chance to replay this game on Hell mode, I also was supposed to be doing research today, so I'm done with this game for now, but it's definitely a game I hope to pick up again in the future.
Heavenly Sword got panned because of the time it came out in, and 'cause IGN are dicks, and 'cause the demo they released sucked. In my opinion, it's way worth owning.

-Bohan: blah blah blah that chick's gonna kill me, she's evil, and she wants to "sink her teeth in my sacred genitals"

The Man'S testicles (g)ot Bit though...