Heavenly Sword - updated hands-on

Both boss fights ended when we'd worn them down enough for a blinking indicator to pop up onscreen, telling us to start a superstyle attack; doing so led to hit-the-buttons-on-cue quicktime events, which were a dramatic - if not altogether satisfying - way to cut our enemies down.

Even less satisfying was that the Whiptail fight was interrupted by a sequence in which Kai had to snipe at some bad guys in order to cover the escape of Nariko's wounded, staggering old father as he sluggishly made his way across an irksomely long bridge. Granted, playing through this sequence over and over again did give us a chance to master Kai's aftertouch arrow controls, but there was an awful lot of tedium and frustration until we did.

We've also caught a glimpse of one other boss: Roach, Bohan's hulking, developmentally disabled son. Essentially a huge fat man wearing insect-like armor, fighting him will be a matter of yanking off chunks of his carapace with Nariko's chainblades, pausing only to make fun of him in front of his dad.

Mikel Reparaz
After graduating from college in 2000 with a BA in journalism, I worked for five years as a copy editor, page designer and videogame-review columnist at a couple of mid-sized newspapers you've never heard of. My column eventually got me a freelancing gig with GMR magazine, which folded a few months later. I was hired on full-time by GamesRadar in late 2005, and have since been paid actual money to write silly articles about lovable blobs.