I played X-blades the other day, what did you do? X-blades is a third-person perspective action title coming to PC and xbox 360 from Southpeak and Gaijin Entertainment. In X-blades you take on the role of Ayumi who is a butt-kicking, scantily-clad gunblade-wielding heroine with hordes or enemies and bosses to take out. But sometimes even the gunblades just aren’t enough and you need to start tossing some magic around, luckily you can do just that in X-blades.

The game also incorporates some exploration and collecting gameplay mechanics that will allow you to choose and learn new spells, combos and magic. The game also gives some performance bonuses so the better you do or the bigger the combo the more ’souls’ you will collect which means the faster you can increase your skills.

The control system was as on would expect and magic can either be mapped to the controller keys or you can cast them directly from the game menu. I found it best just to have them mapped because the action is fast-paced and furious and you definitely don’t want to be hopping in and out of a menu. I am not ashamed to say I died several times in the span of a few minutes. Of course I was learning the controls and it was a boss battle.

That magic you’re able to use is a necessity as well because you need to combine it with some tactics to finish the game. So not just hack-n-slash in this case. Additionally they have built in multiple endings depending on your gameplay style and each boss requires those aforementioned tactics. I was told that you will need to have an utilize at least 50% of the 30+ spells to finish the game. X-Blades will also feature 9 melee and shooting upgrades along with another 9 movement upgrades in addition to character buffs.

Telling the story are over 57 minutes of full motion video cut-scenes and the gameplay is expected to last 10-15 hours spanning 10 bosses, 13 different monsters each with 3 different variations. With three years in development now the title certainly looks like it will be ready for its projected Q4 08 launch on PS3, PC and Xbox 360.

Finally, some of you may be complaining about the short gameplay time but don’t worry 360 owners, there will be some downloadable content (DLC) in the future. This is to include new levels and skills. No word on DLC for the other platforms as of yet.