The best PS3 exclusive thus far... but that's really not saying a whole lot. In the end, it's just "okay".
GRAPHICS: The graphics in this game are pretty good, but the video sometimes suffers noticeably choppy moments here and there; however, most of the time it's never really a problem. Though, I do often feel that the camera stands too far away to really allow the player to appreciate what's on the screen. Though, it's obvious a lot of love went into making this game look great.
SOUND: For the most part, the sound is good. The soundtrack has a few all right tracks, but nothing unique enough to remember. There is a problem though with the sound, most of the time only happening during the special attacks when you hit the [circle] button, the sound gets noticeably waaay louder when the villains go "ouch", and that gets annoying.
GAMEPLAY: The combat isn't the greatest. It's somewhere between a button masher like God of War and a kind of zen counter-attack combat game like Genji. Learning to counter is important, but sometimes can prove difficult when getting attacked by changes of speed/heavy attacks (though, you can mostly anticipate countering speed attacks). Attacking enemies turn blue when they attempt a speed attack, letting you know to hit the [triangle] button to perform a counter. When they turn orange, that's a heavy attack, and you must switch to a heavy stance or take damage. To block, you simply need not attack. Killing enemies can be done by countering attacks at key moments, resulting in instant kills. Other times, you must run up onto enemies while they're on the ground and kill them while they're down by attacking while your above them. Sometimes this gets confusing when you first start to play as you don't know who is down for good and who is down just temporarily (because both squirm about; but I learned the best trick is to try to see who is still carrying a sword, as dead people drop their swords). This game lacks the kind of time sensitive moments that really made God of War and God of War 2 really great, though, they're in there. Also, one cool thing is you can pick up items in the game and throw them, and by holding down the throw button you can guide where the item you tossed goes by using the SIXAXIS (this can also be optioned to using the analogs). There's some moments in the game that break from the typical combat, which are often just you shooting at things with either shields, arrows, or a cannon; these are welcome additions, in my opinion. Also, in these modes, you can use the SIXAXIS to guide the projectiles by holding down the fire button.
STORY: there's a story here, but I don't care to talk about it. Some of the best parts in the cutscenes are watching the characters themselves. They were developed enough to be fit for Hollywood. Though, I often thought that Kai (the main character's sister) was made too much to remind me of Gollum with the way she acted, down on her knees moving about like a cat, and her reluctance to refer to herself in the first person singular. MY TILT: This game is fun, but nothing that makes you go "wow". There's some frustrating combat control issues, such as relying to heavely on the counter combat system but not being able to really master it. I think this game is more about reflexes than combat, and I think those expectations of the players are a bit high on the reflex issue (though, they also seem to be expecting less of players during the time sensitive simon-says moments). Plus, a game made to look so real just seems like a joke when you man a cannon and find it fires a good shot every 3 or 4 seconds, so within 2 minutes you can easily kill about 700 enemy soldiers, and you ask yourself "so how the hell are these people on the run with technology like that". Still, the game is fun, and you get scored on each level with the ability to go back to any level and try to reach a top score; so there's some replay value there. Still, I was expecting more for a game that everyone was saying to wait for so that all Wii60 owners would cry their eyes out, but this was not it. This is not even a good reason to buy a PS3 if you were thinking abou it. Once I'm done with this, I'm going back to playing Metroid Prime 3 until Halo3 comes out. This game didn't live up to the hype, is not a great game by it's own merit, but it's still an okay game.