With ocean-deep combat, a sharp sense of style and epic sense of scale, Heavenly Sword rises above the tedious hack-and-slash action critics feared would be the sum-total of its charms, instead emerging as one of the PS3s strongest titles since the consoles lacklustre launch.
A delirious brawler in the God Of War mould, Legendary Sword sees the sexy heroine slicing her way through a blitzkrieg of bloodthirsty enemies; but while theres nothing new in this familiar routine, the option to swap between three combat stances and use different attacks to target specific threats makes the swordplay feel smarter and more visceral, also giving players more to do than mindlessly hammering the buttons.
Intelligent rivals wholl use advanced attack patterns to get the drop on you, and two wildly different characters to control as you progress through the adventure, also help Heavenly Sword rise above lesser brawlers, and the movie scenes and characters brought to life by Lord Of The Rings Andy Serkis invest the game with the epic drama of a big budget Hollywood swashbucker.