Of the PS3 titles shown at Sony's press conference, Heavenly Sword was by far the most impressive. This extremely intense and gorgeous hack and slash adventure looks outstanding and is genuinely fun to play, in part because it's old school to the core, yet at the same time, it feels very similar to David Jaffe's God of War. However, given how much we love that game, this is definitely a good thing.

In the game you play as a young and sexy female by the name of Nariko who's thrown all caution to the wind by electing to wield the Heavenly Sword, a sacred blade that kills anyone who touches it. But Nariko doesn't really give a damn, as she's much more concerned with dishing out heavy amounts of revenge on a host of bad guys just itchin' for a brutal ass beating, and that's basically all you'll do in this game; beat the crap out of everyone. Not that we're complaining, mind you, as the demo is quite impressive.

It begins in what appears to be some sort of town square, what with the tables and boxes lying about. Looking down into it are a host of enemies, and small groups jump down and take turns attempting to kill Nariko. But what's really cool, and similar to God of War, is how easy it is to tear through these NPCs. With just a couple button presses Nariko unleashes a sick barrage of special moves, thanks in part to the ever morphing Heavenly Sword, which comes in three different forms. There's a Speed Stance, in which it splits into dual blades, the Power Stance, where it's just one solid weapon, and then the very God of War-esque Range Stance in which Nariko can swing these long chains around. And all of this can be changed on the fly in one seamless process.

There are also quick time events, though we were only able to taste one of them. In this particular scene, various face buttons appear (Square, for example), and when we pressed them we were treated to a cool cut scene in which Nariko tosses the enemy into the air and basically kills him well before his body hits the ground. It was quite thrilling, but the game in general is very adrenaline-charged. The camera usually zooms in real close whenever someone's catching a beat down, making Heavenly Sword the most intense PS3 title that we've scene.

Then there's the environmental interaction. All of those tables and boxes can be annihilated, and Nariko can actually pick up objects and fling them at her opponents, and in some cases, the camera will transition to a first person perspective where it's fixed on top of the projectile, so you'll get a great scene of it hitting multiple people.

Visually, the game's pretty damn sweet. It's definitely not as good looking as the trailer that was shown at last year's Sony press con, but it's extraordinarily detailed. The environments are well-modeled and feature impressive texturing, the character models look fantastic, and Nariko's hair is pretty cool, but just in the way that it flows. The developers didn't go out of their way to model individual strands or anything.

As for the frame rate, the demo runs without a hitch and we hope that it remains consistent throughout the entire adventure, but at this point, there are still a lot of unanswered questions about Heavenly Sword. Take bosses, for instance. We know that there will be boss fights, and according to one of the developers they'll be as frantic as the ones in the film Kung Fu Hustle, but for now that remains to be seen. It's also not a PS3 launch title, but it's supposedly being released shortly after the system's November debut, but that could be first quarter 2006. But we're very intrigued by this game and we definitely want to see more. It's one of the few games that may convince us to actually purchase the system.