Ahh, Andy Serkis, how awesome you are. Seriously, Andy Serkis should get a medal for his work here, if I knew him, I'd buy a round in his honour. Indeed, all the voice actors....I'm getting ahead of my self.

Heavenly Sword is a game I'm pretty sure almost everyone knows about. To some it's considered a flop, others it's a masterpiece. For me it's somewhere between. If you've read the Gamespot review, you should know it's pretty damn accurate. I did love this game, there's just so much about it to love, but yes, it has that one major flaw; the length.
Anyway, here's the pros and cons.

Cons:
1) The length. This is the storage power of Bluray? 6 hours? Ok, there's a little replayability to it, if you care enough. I did, because Kai's missions are a fu/ckin' blast. There's seriously no joy greater joy than guiding an arrow into some enemy's face or groin. But, yeah, the length is a problem. You start it and an afternoon later you get to the final boss (granted it took me a bit of time killing the final boss, because of my initial failure to counter) and get the ending, unlock hard mode and watch and look at the unlocked special features and then....you're done. Perhaps Rhianna Pratchett could have written a longer story? If she had to she could even ask her father to make it longer (Terry Pratchett is her father, lucky cow). Maybe it was another factor that stunted the story's length, but being a guy who was raised on RPG's, a 6 hour game feels really annoying. Luckily, I received the game for my brithday as a gift, so I didn't pay for it, but if I had, I would be sorely aggrivated for having spent full price on such a short game with little replayability.

2) I'm not sure if it was my screen (I use a PC Monitor to play my PS3. Not a TV) that had a problem or what, but I'm pretty sure I saw some screen tearing in there. Very minor, but I noticed it.

Pros:
1) Graphics. Oh my. This game is beauty in game form. Everything about it is just so deliciously pretty. There's nothing left to say. It's gorgeous.

2) Voice acting is brilliant. Best ever in a video game. The cast are all amazing and do just the best job. Also, the Motion Capture work by the cast is stunning and Andy Serkis as director for these scenes is flawless.

3) Story and Characters. Say what you will about the legnth of the game and story, the ride may be over soon but good golly miss molly is it worth it. The story and dialogue is very well written by Rhianna Pratchett, and the characters are so much more engaging and enjoyable than Ninja Gaiden. Heavenly Sword's story and characters put Ninja Gaiden to shame. Kai. She's adorable. I want a game with her in the starring role. Also, it's genuinely refreshing to see a female lead and also one who doesn't have stupidly big breasts and wearing almost nothing except for a magical bikini. Yes, Nariko doesn't wear alot, even in the first level where it snows, but she's much better than goddamn Rachel from Ninja Gaiden.

4) Combat. It can be repetitive if you let it. There are plenty of combos and the three different stances really do mix it up, especially if you change from one stance mid-combo.

5) Sixaxis. Yes, yes, Lair was bad. But, evidently it was not the Sixaxis' fault, because Ninja Theory have employed the Sixaxis rather well. It's a little odd at first, but you get used to it and it bcomes genuinely fun to play with. Like I said, you will at least go back to play as Kai, simply because it is so fun to hear her say "Heehee, right between the eyes!"

Overall, Heavenly Sword is a very good game. I enjoyed it thoroughly and if it was double it's own legnth it would certainly have reached a 9 here on Gamespot. I give it an 8.5, because despite the length, almost everything about it was so well done. In fact if all games had writing and voice acting as good as HS, everybody would benefit. One little note though, I think it would be somewhat amusing to have an online multiplayer featuering sixaxis minigames...or something. Would be pretty interesting to have sniping matches with arrows flying eveywhere and changing trajectory. Yeah, that be sweet.

Bring on the (longer) sequel!

Now, I haven't played the original trilogy of Ninja Gaiden games on the Nes/Snes, so I'm not really familiar with the games' history and storyline, but for a game called Ninja Gaiden, it seemed a lot more like a Devil May Cry than a Ninja game. What with all the fiends and demons and whatnot, I expected to play the game fighting ninjas and samurai in 1605 japan, more like Tenchu. Ok, so I was a little decieved and apart from that minor letdown it's a pretty solid game. But, for reviews sake, here are the pros and cons. Cons first:

1) The con I mentioned above; I wanted and expected a game about ninjas. Instead I'm playing Devil May Cry with a ninja instead of Dante. You spend most of the time fighting fiends and humans in a medievil european town/castle/dungeon/caves/egyptian tomb. But, that can easily be explained with the games' world and storyline, so apart from a personal preference, this con is mostly moot. Still, worth noting I feel.

2) Biggest problem with this game is Rachel. Oh my god. Who the **** designed her? A 13 year old boy? Were all the past females in this franchise so badly designed? I know video games are often guilty of giving females magical metal bikinis that magically protect the girl from death, but when you give a female character, who is a devil hunter, black-borderline-bondage gear, stupidly giant breasts and high heels, it goes just too far. Also, Itagaki, the head developer for this game who also worked on Dead or Alive, should go study real breasts and how they move. Rachel's breasts bounce and jiggle like beachballs submerged in syrup when she does even the most mundane of things. It looks silly and I refuse to believe that the devolpment team managed to create this game without laughing like idiots. I know Rachel has some sort of demon blood in her, making her strong enough to wield that hammer of hers, but would she really go about wearing that? I know this all sounds a bit trivial, but when you're playing a character that looks like a whore with perfect hair and makeup, it just takes you right out of the game when you get a cutscene and her breasts are so unrealistically big and bouncing all over the place. Game developers need to get out more. And pay a real artist to design female characters, not 13 year olds.

3) Ok, now that's over with, next con. The difficulty. I had heard this game was hard. And for most of the game I managed to get through it on Normal without too much trouble. But then there were times when I would have to try again and again and again and some more another ten times, just to be beat a boss, and it's often because I've used my elixirs already and to buy more i need more money, but to do that i need to kill more enemys, but i end up losing health when i do that and it would be like this a number of times. Not to mention upgrading your weapons. This game is unforgiving. The final boss (the giant emperor) is also WAAAAY overpowered. A few hits and you're dead. All this on Normal? I don't think I have ever played a harder, unforgiving game. Want to play it on easy? ok, but first the game berates you for it, basically rubbing it's difficulty in your face, saying "can't beat me? awwww ok, you can have your easy mode, you pathetic excuse for a gamer, pffft, can't even beat the final boss, you suck." It's not really like that, but try it, die three times, and you'll see. I like a challenge. It makes victory over a boss that much sweeter, but when you have to keep retrying and retrying, I just don't have the patience for that. Also, trial and error, no game should have it. Ever. It isn't fun and never will be. All games should avoid trial and error. Last level escaping the lava filled room, I'm looking at you.

4) Story and characters aren't really all that engaging or interesting. But maybe you'd need to play the previous games or something. Just didn't click with me.

Pros:

1) It's very pretty. Graphics are top notch and framerate is solid, never noticed a single hiccup.

2) Combat is a double edged sword here. Know how to use the weapons, their combos and blocking and dodging and you can be a master at most of this game. If you can't master the combat then this game will suck for you. The better I got at the combat, the easier most of this game was. But the Pro about the combat is that it's slick, fast, responsive and it looks cool and stylish...well, with Ryu anyway. Playing with Rachel is a chore.

3) Certainly worth the money. There's a lot of replayability here, and if you want you can find a ton of stuff to do and collect in the game. That's IF you can become a master at the combat.

I'm probably forgetting a lot of what I intended to write but I can't think of much else now, so out of ten I give Ninja Gaiden Sigma an 8.5 out of 10. A great solid game let down by personal preference problems of story, character design and an arrogant difficulty.