Heavenly Sword

Heavenly Sword is a video game developed by Ninja Theory exclusively for the PlayStation 3 console and published by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. The game was released in 2007.

Gameplay

The gameplay of Heavenly Sword resembles a martial arts title focused on melee combat while featuring opportunities for ranged attacks. The main character, Nariko, uses a weapon called the "Heavenly Sword" which changes into one of three forms depending on what attack stance the player uses as part of a unique fighting style. Speed Stance provides an even balance between damage and speed, where the sword takes the form of two separate blades. Range Stance allows fast, long-range, but weaker attacks, with the sword being two blades chained together. Power Stance is the most powerful, but slowest style, where attacks are made with the Sword in the shape of one large, two-handed blade.

For exploration and certain battles, the game also makes use of "quick time events" (QTE). During a QTE, a symbol for a certain button or for an action such as moving the analog stick to the right or left appears on screen and the player must match what is shown to successfully complete the scene.

Jin Yong

Louis Cha Leung-yung (Zha Liangyong), GBM, OBE (born 6 February 1924), better known by his pen name Jin Yong, is a modern Chinese-language novelist. Having co-founded the Hong Kong daily Ming Pao in 1959, he was the paper's first editor-in-chief.

Cha's fiction, which is of the wuxia ("martial arts and chivalry") genre, has a widespread following in Chinese-speaking areas, including Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, and the United States. His 15 works written between 1955 and 1972 earned him a reputation as one of the finest wuxia writers ever. He is currently the best-selling Chinese author alive; over 100 million copies of his works have been sold worldwide (not including unknown numbers of bootleg copies).

Cha's works have been translated into English, French, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, Burmese, Malay and Indonesian. He has many fans abroad as well, owing to the numerous adaptations of his works into films, television series, manhua (comics) and video games.

Asteroid 10930 Jinyong (1998 CR₂) is named after him.

Condor Trilogy

The Condor Trilogy (射鵰三部曲) is a series of three wuxia novels written by Hong Kong-based Chinese writer Jin Yong (Louis Cha). The series are generally considered the magnum opus of Jin Yong's works.

The novels in the trilogy are:

Historical background

The first novel, The Legend of the Condor Heroes, is set against a backdrop of a series of wars fought between the Han Chinese-dominated Southern Song dynasty and the Jurchen-led Jin dynasty. In the meantime, Mongol tribes led by Temüjin (Genghis Khan) emerge as a rising power in the north. The second novel, The Return of the Condor Heroes, is set in the period when the Mongols attack the Southern Song dynasty after having conquered the Jin dynasty. The historical Battle of Xiangyang is also featured as one of the key events in the novel. The third and last novel, The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber, is set in the late Yuan dynasty (founded by the Mongols). Towards the end of the novel, the Yuan dynasty is overthrown by rebel forces and the Ming dynasty is established.

Dragon Saber

Dragon Saber (ドラゴンセイバー, Doragon Seibā), complete name: Dragon Saber: After Story of Dragon Spirit is a vertical scrolling shooter arcade game, released by Namco in 1990; it runs on Namco System 2 hardware, and as its complete title suggests, it is the sequel to Dragon Spirit which had been released three years earlier.

Gameplay

As in the original Dragon Spirit, players must take control of a prince transformed into a dragon by a flash of lightning: the first controls "Huey" (blue) and the second player controls "Siria" (red), which means that two players can now play simultaneously; Huey also looks like an 8192-colour version of Prince Amul from the original game, and both players can now press and hold their Firing Buttons to make their dragons spit flames continuously (and, if they wait for a few seconds without pressing them, charge their shots). Several new enemies and powerups have also been introduced - and, much like in Phelios, Huey and Siria can take up to four hits before dying (depending on what the arcade operators set the "LIFE" option to), which means that if they have set it to "1" they will die immediately when they get hit. Also (for the US version), if the arcade operators have set the "LEFT" option to "S", the amount of lives the players start out with depends on how many coins they insert into the cabinet (one coin for one life, and two coins for three); the game's title screen will also display this information below its name (instead of the game's full title) as a result of this setting being in effect.

The Return

The Return may refer to:

Books

Films