New Heavenly Sword Info (screens included)

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deepbrown said:
Well all the comments from Tam I've heard was 12-15hours. It was Lair that was said to be 10-12 hours. SO i don't believe 6hours in the least.
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I did a play though on the day (and before) we sent the version which became the US master to format.

It took me 9.5 hours on normal only getting about half the glyphs and I can (almost) literally do the army portions of the game with my eyes shut (and have been working on it for 3.5 years so might have picked up a few hints to the rest of the game as well ;-) )

So if your my level of expertise (i'd admit to not be being the best gamer) I'd be surprised if you can do it under 10 hours.

Hell mode would take considerable longer, I'm not sure I could do it.
 
From the Making of video, it seems they spent a fair amount of money on voice acting and doing the detailed facial motion capture and so forth.

Does that kind of production values cost more than say producing art assets and technology for more levels?
 
DeanoC said:
I did a play though on the day (and before) we sent the version which became the US master to format.

It took me 9.5 hours on normal only getting about half the glyphs and I can (almost) literally do the army portions of the game with my eyes shut (and have been working on it for 3.5 years so might have picked up a few hints to the rest of the game as well ;-) )

So if your my level of expertise (i'd admit to not be being the best gamer) I'd be surprised if you can do it under 10 hours.

Hell mode would take considerable longer, I'm not sure I could do it.
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Thanks for the input Deano ! Now that you have acquired industry leading PS3 development skills. I hope Sony put you guys to more good use.

I am ok with the score. I have a feeling I will take longer than 6-7 hours to finish the game anyway. I replayed the demo about 5 times and with every session, I understand the combat system better. My goal is to get Nariko to perform the stunts exactly when and where I want it. Right now, it's still a little unpredictable for me. :)
 
It seems that despite the developers' great efforts this game will be another example of highly underrated title

:???:
 
patsu said:
Yap ! Too short :(

... still a day one purchase for me for the production values. Better make it up with free patches soon. *hint* *hint*
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Isnt there a multi-player element coming?

To be honest I agree, the production values look amazing, and its said to have good replay value becasue of the depth in the figthing mechanics, so I'm getting it on day one aswell.
 
wco81 said:
From the Making of video, it seems they spent a fair amount of money on voice acting and doing the detailed facial motion capture and so forth.

Does that kind of production values cost more than say producing art assets and technology for more levels?
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Usually games have a lot less complex cinematics; shorter, without celebrity talent (cheaper to hire), or even hand animated instead of mocap.

Of course there are notable exeptions. The MGS series are using a lot of custom mocap animations for a lot of cinematics as well, and Blizzard usually spends money enough for AA games on the CG alone.

Now the thing is, the extra money spent on such content wouldn't neccessarily add significantly more levels, enemies or such to the game itself. The problem is that as you increase the size of the dev team, their efficiency starts to drop. And by a very large and increasing margin.
Art directors, lead programmers, lead designers can only keep up with so much employees, and after a certain point they just can't hold stuff together. More levels require a lot more testing and balancing work, and will produce more data that may not fit on a single disc (or even 2 DVDs for the Xbox).

Better cinematics, music, voice acting, on the other hand, won't usually increase the core team's workload, so it's free in this way. And it can make the game more desirable for the average gamer who might get bored twice the gameplay and even skip the sequel for this...
 
Laa-Yosh said:
Usually games have a lot less complex cinematics; shorter, without celebrity talent (cheaper to hire), or even hand animated instead of mocap.

Of course there are notable exeptions. The MGS series are using a lot of custom mocap animations for a lot of cinematics as well, and Blizzard usually spends money enough for AA games on the CG alone.

Now the thing is, the extra money spent on such content wouldn't neccessarily add significantly more levels, enemies or such to the game itself. The problem is that as you increase the size of the dev team, their efficiency starts to drop. And by a very large and increasing margin.
Art directors, lead programmers, lead designers can only keep up with so much employees, and after a certain point they just can't hold stuff together. More levels require a lot more testing and balancing work, and will produce more data that may not fit on a single disc (or even 2 DVDs for the Xbox).

Better cinematics, music, voice acting, on the other hand, won't usually increase the core team's workload, so it's free in this way. And it can make the game more desirable for the average gamer who might get bored twice the gameplay and even skip the sequel for this...
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Well done for replying

Thanks Deano for the response - I trust ya, and we're not game reviewers with a limited time - and someone who dislikes the gameplay before we've started (the guy didn't like doing the combat one bit...come of us have played the demo on loop and kept finding more depth)
 
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It was not, IMHO... I also agree that HS has as exeptionally high budget, and now that some people report the game to be a bit short, it's quite natural to wonder about how the money was spent.

And again, I think that leaving out the actors and mocap wouldn't have made the game two times as long or any better.
 
Laa-Yosh said:
It was not, IMHO... I also agree that HS has as exeptionally high budget, and now that some people report the game to be a bit short, it's quite natural to wonder about how the money was spent.

And again, I think that leaving out the actors and mocap wouldn't have made the game two times as long or any better.
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ok, seemed like an absurd question to me.
 
I wasn't thinking in terms of a larger development staff so much as more development time to create more game content versus cinematic content.

Of course, the longer the development time, the longer you have to pay the staff, right?

Are you sure most gamers would get bored of more levels or prefer a mixture of cinematics than having more levels?

Remember some of the earlier accusations that the only developers who want Blu-Ray are those who'd fill it up with FMV?
 
wco81 said:
Remember some of the earlier accusations that the only developers who want Blu-Ray are those who'd fill it up with FMV?
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no, people expected game series with lots of CG would stick with CG for next-gen and use 720P-1080P CG which pretty much only BD could fit. there doesn't seem to be many next-gen games that use CG at all but I'm sure final fantasy will.
 
Laa-Yosh said:
It was not, IMHO... I also agree that HS has as exeptionally high budget, and now that some people report the game to be a bit short, it's quite natural to wonder about how the money was spent.

And again, I think that leaving out the actors and mocap wouldn't have made the game two times as long or any better.
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Depends on your perspective. I do think it can greatly help immersion and emotional investment, which is important for me. An other added benefit is that if the story is compelling enough and pleasing to watch, it increases the chance that I can play it while my wife is watching along, which is worth a lot to me. ;)
 
LOL said:
Edge magazine gave HS a 6 and these guys usually overrate U.K-made games so that's pretty bad.
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No, they don't.

What they do, is overrate original games and underrate unoriginal games. HS being considered pretty much a GoW clone, the game won't get a big rating. Perhaps you get the feeling that U.K. made games are usually overrated, when in fact on average they may just be a little more original. ;)

However, it would of course still be interesting to read their comments, obviously.
 
LOL said:
Edge magazine gave HS a 6 and these guys usually overrate U.K-made games so that's pretty bad.
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he joined just to say that! lol. Anyway they gave GOW2 a 7....they gave Bioshock an 8...so I'll add a couple of points thank you very much.
 
LOL said:
Edge magazine gave HS a 6.
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Despite the suspect messanger the news are, quite allarming... Of course a 6 from Edge might be an 8 from other reviewers...
Perhaps by lowering my expectations, I'll enjoy the game more...

Too bad that I just can't do that, I really want to like that game...
:cry:
 
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