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[gofreak]

Looks like Sony has picked up the rights to Ninja Theory's ( formerly Just Add Monsters) next generation "Heavenly Sword" title. one at Beyond3D (http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=21917) found this:

Word Mark HEAVENLY SWORD
Goods and Services IC 009. US 021 023 026 036 038. G & S: Computer hardware; computer and video game apparatus; computer game consoles; computer and video games; computer video game programs; computer software; computer peripherals; audio and video tapes; cassettes; magnetic data media; compact discs; video discs; DVD's; audio and video recordings; cinematographic films; electronic apparatus and instruments all for use in computer and video gaming; optical apparatus and instruments; cameras; films; television programs audio and video apparatus; sunglasses; spectacles; sunglasses and spectacle frames; parts and accessories for all the aforesaid goods

IC 028. US 022 023 038 050. G & S: Toys, games and playthings; hand-held electronic games

IC 041. US 100 101 107. G & S: Provision of on-line entertainment; provision of computer and video games and computer and video game programs from a computer database or via the Internet
Standard Characters Claimed
Mark Drawing Code (4) STANDARD CHARACTER MARK
Serial Number 78578039
Filing Date March 2, 2005
Current Filing Basis 1B
Original Filing Basis 1B
Owner (APPLICANT) Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Limited CORPORATION UNITED KINGDOM 30 Golden Square London UNITED KINGDOM W1F 9LD
Attorney of Record Angelo Notaro
Type of Mark TRADEMARK. SERVICE MARK
Register PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator LIVE

IIRC, the title was looking for a publisher, and many strongly expected it to end up on Xenon. It was one of the more followed "publisher-less" next-gen titles, has its own diary in Edge magazine etc., and presumably it was looking pretty good if Sony have decided to fund it themselves. That it was always and only a next-gen title means it's got to be on PS3 now..

Here are some old screenies from its prototype, to refresh your memory:

The title itself aside, it's reassuring to see Sony persue exclusive western content from smaller developers so early this generation..when PS2 first took a bow, the content we saw on it was overwhelmingly Japanese. While I still expect to see Sony's key Japanese partners dominate the early PS3 showings, more content from Western developers at these events would also be welcome.

Oh, and Panajev should love this. DeanoC at B3D should hopefully provide as many PS3-related hints and teases now as he did with Xenon previously

 

[Doom_Bringer]

this game looks average for next gen

 

[Chrono]

You can probably gather from the materials I showed at the talk that the core gameplay is all about ultra-stylish combat against overwhelming odds. The combat is already surpassing the likes of Ninja Gaiden in terms of depth, style and variety and we still have a long way to go. Think Half-life with swords against obscene amounts of enemies.

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=56503

So would it be safe to assume this game has to be pretty good to be picked up by sony? Maybe not ninja gaiden level but an A title?

 

[Midas]

I guess it looks okay, one year old screens though.

 

[pcostabel]

this game looks average for next gen

Agree. Not a good way to hype PS3, if you ask me.

 

[gofreak]

this game looks average for next gen

From "ugly" to "average"?

MS Damage Control Get!

Seriously though, a) I wouldn't call it ugly - very little is shown to make any kind of judgement, these just seem like concept screens tbh - and b) this media is old and based off of high-end PC hardware that existed long before PS3 specs would be known, let alone before hardware was available. Hopefully we'll see something from Ninja Theory running off PS3 hardware at E3.

 

[human5892]

Agree. Not a good way to hype PS3, if you ask me.

Those screens are from a build that didn't have the PS3 in mind, though.

Let's wait until we see it on PS3 hardware.

 

[Doom_Bringer]

I remember watching the video for this, the frame rate was really low too.

Seriously though, a) I wouldn't call it ugly and b) this media is old and based off of high-end PC hardware that existed long before PS3 specs would be known, let alone before hardware was available. Hopefully we'll see something from Ninja Theory running off PS3 hardware at E3.

yes I agree

 

[Izzy]

Keep in mind these are more than a year old, in-development shots taken from the R300 based GPU. (9800 Pro) While they look solid, the screens in no way indicate the quality of the final build.

Nice find, gofreak. I've always thought it was a Xenon game.

 

[Doom_Bringer]

yes looks like it's for PS3

from the same forums

In March 2000 three former Sony Computer Entertainment professionals Tameem Antoniades, Mike Ball and Nina Kristensen founded Just Add Monsters Ltd (JAM)....

team is rather small though, don't have high hopes for this

 

[u_neek]

There's nothing spectacular about the movie but it looked pretty good
- the face demo video looked very good.

 

[gofreak]

I remember watching the video for this, the frame rate was really low too.

This is the one, I think:

http://xboxmovies.teamxbox.com/xbox/1169/Heavenly-Sword-Prototype-Footage

Yes, it's a little choppy and clippy and not very neat in places, but this is, as is stated, prototype footage. Also, I think it was running on a P4 and a X800, not a 9800 Pro. But either way, that's hardly a close approximation of the final hardware it'll run on.

Thinking about it realistically, it'd actually be surprising to see this so soon at E3. Unless Sony have tapped them to provide early game video or tech demos, I'm not sure how likely it is that Ninja Theory will have dev kits before E3. So maybe we'll be waiting a while before seeing it again.

The face demo was here, if anyone wants reminding: http://xboxmovies.teamxbox.com/xbox/1168/Heavenly-Sword-Facial-Animation-Test

team is rather small though, don't have high hopes for this

Do you know how many were working on this before? Of course, without a publisher, the team would necessarily be small, but now that they have solid funding, I'd think they'd be expanding (plus have access to the resources of SCEE)..

 

[Izzy]

Funny thing is, the development of this particular games started on 9800 Pro, then switched to GF6800. (for SM 3.0 research purposes) Devs were waiting on the R500 for the final build. :lol

 

[Izzy]

This is the one, I think:

http://xboxmovies.teamxbox.com/xbox/1169/Heavenly-Sword-Prototype-Footage

Yes, it's a little choppy and clippy and not very neat in places, but this is, as is stated, prototype footage. Also, I think it was running on a P4 and a X800, not a 9800 Pro. But either way, that's hardly a close approximation of the final hardware it'll run on.

Thinking about it realistically, it'd actually be surprising to see this so soon at E3. Unless Sony have tapped them to provide early game video or tech demos, I'm not sure how likely it is that Ninja Theory will have dev kits before E3. So maybe we'll be waiting a while before seeing it again.

The face demo was here, if anyone wants reminding: http://xboxmovies.teamxbox.com/xbox/1168/Heavenly-Sword-Facial-Animation-Test



Do you know how many were working on this before? Of course, without a publisher, the team would necessarily be small, but now that they have solid funding, I'd think they'd be expanding (plus have access to the resources of SCEE)..

If I remember correctly, they've never had the X800 - all the SM 3.0 research was done on 6800. But they were waiting on a R500.

 

[The Take Out Bandit]

Give me Dynasty Warriors 6 on PS3, OR GIVE KOEI DEATH DEATH DYING DIE DEATH!

 

[Rob]

I like it! It definitely has potential.

 

[MightyHedgehog]

I always thought that game, even in its very early dev state, looked really cool. Impressed that Sony would pick it up exclusively.

 

[ThirdEye]

TeamXbox kindly did free advertisement of a PS3 exclusive game... hope they won't suddenly pull off those screenshots and all :lol

 

[Newduck]

Looks fine to me, similar to Kessen 1 when it was first shown. I don't expect many games from random western developers who aren't even using the correct hardware to look that impressive anyway.

 

[Kleegamefan]

A guy over at the Beyond3D forums, DeanoC (Dean Cleaver) is actually working on this game and very recently it was being developed on a Xenon dev station so I HIGHLY doubt this is a PS3 only game....I would think it would also show up on Xbox 360 as some point...

 

[gofreak]

Here's some more recent info from a eurogamer interview:

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=56503

Seems they're building online play into it from the start....this struck me as a single player type of game, but they're talking here about squaring off against "lots of players" online. They also mention that a team of 22 brought it through the prototype stage and that they'd obviously be expanding once they got a publishing deal, which they now seem to have.

And yes, sites like teamxbox hyping publisher-less next-gen titles almost always ends up in hilarity like this In fairness to Ninja Theory, though, I don't think they ever attached themselves so specifically to the Xbox community as some other independents have been.

A guy over at the Beyond3D forums, DeanoC (Dean Cleaver) is actually working on this game and up till now it was being developed on a Xenon dev station so I HIGHLY doubt this is a PS3 only game....

All of this is true, but things change. I'm sure MS provided them with a kit without a publisher in the hopes that they'd get signed with someone who'd keep it on Xenon, but it now seems Sony have acquired the rights to it (they've registered the trademark, which is pretty telling), so I don't see them putting it on a MS console too I wonder if Deano will breathe a word on this..

 

[ThirdEye]

A guy over at the Beyond3D forums, DeanoC (Dean Cleaver) is actually working on this game and up till now it was being developed on a Xenon dev station so I HIGHLY doubt this is a PS3 only game....

Cell has a PowerPC core with VMX, so it'd not be a hard job to port it from Mac G5 to the PS3.

 

[speedpop]

Get rid of the plastic look please

 

[Jonnyram]

They should do what their studio name says. I'm sick of fighting a million people that all look the same.

 

[Lord Error]

DeanoC who posts a lot on B3D forums is one of the programmers of this game. He did mention several days ago that they found a publisher and that they sorted out many problems and glitches that are obvious in the gameplay video. I'm very reserved about it, just as with almost any early next gen game, though.

 

[The Bookerman]

Give me Dynasty Warriors 6 on PS3, OR GIVE KOEI DEATH DEATH DYING DIE DEATH!

Dude, it will be just a matter of time before you see Dynasty Warrior 6 hit the ps3....

Hell the psp launched with a dynasty warrior tittle.

 

[Panajev2001a]

this game looks average for next gen

On the basis of ?

?

 

[Doom_Bringer]

On the basis of ?

?

go watch the video again and then compare it to the Unreal 3 stuff.

VS

edit: this comparison is wrong

 

[Panajev2001a]

Is this technically average or bad ? What are we smoking people ?

As other said this was running on a Pentium 4 and a 6800 GPU (mind that the CPU is just a little bit slower), but can you count how many characters there are on screen, the detail present in each character, the lighting and the texturing ?

It ain't bad for a start fellas .

 

[Doom_Bringer]

Is this technically average or bad ? What are we smoking people ?

As other said this was running on a Pentium 4 and a 6800 GPU (mind that the CPU is just a little bit slower), but can you count how many characters there are on screen, the detail present in each character, the lighting and the texturing ?

It ain't bad for a start fellas .

at first I didn't know if it was prototype footage or not. I changed my mind after watching the vids again; I guess it looks damn good for prototype stuff.

I really don't have anything else to say. Let’s wait for some actual game pics running on PS3 hardware.

 

[Zaptruder]

It ain't bad for a start fellas .

It looks very nice... for a PC game...

unfortunately my friend, we're all expecting a bit more from the PS3 then 'top of the range PC graphics, circa 2005'.

 

[Panajev2001a]

go watch the video again and then compare it to the Unreal 3 stuff.

VS

I see one of the two might have already been targeted to RAM requirements of next-generation consoles and was reaching a not bad frame-rate: also, that video is older than the latest Unreal Engine 3 video you saw at GDC 2005 in San Jose, California.

SCEE is not run by technically incompetent morons: if they got the rights to this title and are helping them they have their reasons.

Before anyone starts the Killzone shit: the title technically is not bad for PlayStation 2 and I would wait for the sequel on PlayStation 2 to check how much polish they can put on a game.

Edit: whoops, I was a bit hot-tempered.

 

[Doom_Bringer]

It looks very nice... for a PC game...

unfortunately my friend, we're all expecting a bit more from the PS3 then 'top of the range PC graphics, circa 2005'.

*cough* ahem there is no PC game on the market that displays so many characters on screen.

Over the top camera style strategy games yes! 3d action games - no!

 

[Panajev2001a]

It looks very nice... for a PC game...

unfortunately my friend, we're all expecting a bit more from the PS3 then 'top of the range PC graphics, circa 2005'.

Then wait for screen-shots running on PlayStation 3 Hardware .

 

[Doom_Bringer]

I see one of the two might have already been targeted to RAM requirements of next-generation consoles and was reaching a not bad frame-rate: also, that video is older than the latest Unreal Engine 3 video you saw at GDC 2005 in San Jose, California.

nothing to argue about here

SCEE is not run by technically incompetent morons: if they got the rights to this title and are helping them they have their reasons.

ok...

Before you start the Killzone shit: the title technically is not bad for PlayStation 2 and I would wait for the sequel on PlayStation 2 to check how much polish they can put on a game.

When did I say anything bad about Killzone? I have never played the game.


Can't wait to see Heavenly Sword running on PS3 hardware. I was wrong about my "looks average for next gen" comment, I didn't know that it was running on 9800 Pro.

 

[Zaptruder]

Then wait for screen-shots running on PlayStation 3 Hardware .

Well... they could just port those assets to the PS3... we wouldn't end up with much different!

 

[pcostabel]

Personally, I'm underwhelmed by the art style. And dozens of clones of the same character on screen don't exactly strike me as technically impressive.

 

[dark10x]

go watch the video again and then compare it to the Unreal 3 stuff.

VS

edit: this comparison is wrong

What are you trying to say with this comparison? Based on that Unreal 3 shot you've chosen, I'd say the top pic looks quite superior.

 

[Doom_Bringer]

What are you trying to say with this comparison? Based on that Unreal 3 shot you've chosen, I'd say the top pic looks quite superior.

read what I wrote below the screens

 

[Panajev2001a]

Personally, I'm underwhelmed by the art style. And dozens of clones of the same character on screen don't exactly strike me as technically impressive.

It shows good use of instancing at least and not slow shaders for each of them (while still lighting them well and all) if you want to have even identical (but separately animated) meshes displayed on the screen.

 

[Axsider]

Looks like Sony has picked up the rights to Ninja Theory's ( formerly Just Add Monsters) next generation "Heavenly Sword" title. one at Beyond3D (http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=21917) found this:



IIRC, the title was looking for a publisher, and many strongly expected it to end up on Xenon. It was one of the more followed "publisher-less" next-gen titles, has its own diary in Edge magazine etc., and presumably it was looking pretty good if Sony have decided to fund it themselves. That it was always and only a next-gen title means it's got to be on PS3 now..

Here are some old screenies from its prototype, to refresh your memory:

The title itself aside, it's reassuring to see Sony persue exclusive western content from smaller developers so early this generation..when PS2 first took a bow, the content we saw on it was overwhelmingly Japanese. While I still expect to see Sony's key Japanese partners dominate the early PS3 showings, more content from Western developers at these events would also be welcome.

Oh, and Panajev should love this. DeanoC at B3D should hopefully provide as many PS3-related hints and teases now as he did with Xenon previously

;-)

Before anyone starts the Killzone shit: the title technically is not bad for PlayStation 2 and I would wait for the sequel on PlayStation 2 to check how much polish they can put on a game.

....you have to see the first work and concepts of part 3, which they already started ;-)

 

[Panajev2001a]

Well... they could just port those assets to the PS3... we wouldn't end up with much different!

Oh dear Zap .

....you have to see the first work and concepts of part 3, which they already started ;-)

Part 2 must be pretty well into development for work to be at that stage on part 3.

Ok we can arrange for me getting a look at the first work of part 3: Panajev just spoke (ahem...cough... ).

 

[Atari2600]

this game looks average for next gen

Yeah, cause ya know, we've seen so many next gen games...

 

[Axsider]

Part 2 must be pretty well into development for work to be at that stage on part 3.

Don't forget one thing: They got two teams and new people! ;-)

 

[Borys]

*cough* ahem there is no PC game on the market that displays so many characters on screen.

Better check your glasses then.

Still HS has bumpmapping and shadowing system so it looks better than Rome. MUCH better but I doubt it will display 1000s of chars, maybe 100s (up to 500-800).

 

[Doom_Bringer]

Better check your glasses then.

Still HS has bumpmapping and shadowing system so it looks better than Rome.

that's a strategy game. Usually the camera is on the top and characters are tiny, show me a gameplay shot with the hud

 

[Nostromo]

Part 2 must be pretty well into development for work to be at that stage on part 3.

Ok we can arrange for me getting a look at the first work of part 3: Panajev just spoke (ahem...cough... ).

They're looking for a lead programmer (to work on KZ3 on PS3) now!

 

[Mr Gump]

that's a strategy game. Usually the camera is on the top and characters are tiny, show me a gameplay shot with the hud

They are gameplay shots. Lack of Hud doesnt mean shit. Its a full 3d camera.

 

[MassiveAttack]

Ninja Theory (formerly Just Add Monsters) is the only studio within the Argonaut group of companies to survive and is made up of former Sony Cambridge staff. While a number of major publishers evaluated HS, it was acquired by Sony Europe and is PS3 exclusive.

 

[Doom_Bringer]

They are gameplay shots. Lack of Hud doesnt mean shit. Its a full 3d camera.

look at the bottom left on this pic

http://img84.exs.cx/img84/5346/rome23zs.jpg

Not impressive at all.