Who would've improved Heavenly Sword?

Enslaved co-writer and The Beach, Sunshine and 28 Weeks Later scriptwriter Alex Garland would have improved early PlayStation 3-exclusive title Heavenly Sword had he worked on the game, developer Ninja Theory has said.

In 2007 Eurogamer gave Heavenly Sword 7/10.

"No amount of lavish technical polish and drama-filled cut scenes can disguise how it feels to play, and the fact that at its core, the combat doesn't quite cut it," Kristan Reed wrote.

"Yes, it would have been," Ninja Theory co-founder Tameem Antoniades replied when asked by Eurogamer whether Garland would have made Heavenly Sword a better game.

"He's got something that as game developers we don't have, which is this keen visual eye for storytelling. So undoubtedly, yes."

While most reckoned Heavenly Sword's problem was with the combat and not the storytelling, Antoniades insisted Garland's narrative influence would have made the game better to play.

"Not only does that kind of approach make the story hold up, it actually improves gameplay," he said.

"If you can hit the mark, the game stops being a collection of animations, gameplay moments and story moments, and it can transcend and become this experience that you just immerse yourself in. And that's the objective.

"Honestly I don't know if we're going to hit that - you never know when you're developing. But that's what we're trying our best to do."

Antoniades denied that Cambridge-based Ninja Theory is working harder on its next game, upcoming PS3 and Xbox 360 action adventure Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, due out 8th October, than it did on Heavenly Sword.

"No, I wouldn't do that.

"Actually, Heavenly Sword was really tough for a whole slew of reasons that weren't to do with creative - they were to do with technology, the whole PS3 announcement and things around that. This was comfortable development where the tough part was on the creative side, and that's a good place to be."