'By the Sword' is about fencing, a sport not often covered in the movies, and it handles it in an interesting way - although the surrounding plot is a little too neat and obvious to really carry the material.The film stars as Villard, a world-class fencing champion who now runs his own exclusive fencing school in New York City. Into his school one day walks Suba (F. Murray Abraham), who says he is a fencing teacher. He looks more like one of the homeless, and Villard takes mercy on him, giving him a job as a janitor and locker-room attendant.

But Suba can teach fencing. And he can fence. That gradually becomes clear to Villard, an arrogant man but not an unkind one, who eventually gives the man his chance. It turns out that Suba is, in fact, a great teacher - although not necessarily according to the methods established by Villard and his late, great father.The father, we learn, was killed in a fencing match many years ago. The match was apparently over an affair of the heart, and honor. His sword, now retired, rests in a glass case in the fencing academy.

If we are veteran moviegoers, the moment we learn this information little alarm bells start going off in the backs of our minds. Who killed Villard's father, all those years ago? Could it be - might it be - is it conceivable that it could be Suba, now finally out of prison?

Well, of course it is. The Law of Economy of Characters, in my Moviegoer's Glossary, teaches that there are no unnecessary characters in a movie, and so if Suba is there, and the story of the long-ago killer has been told, the rest is obvious. And starting from there, we can promise ourselves, as surely as God made little green apples, that sooner or later Suba and Villard will be facing each other with their swords in their hands.The movie adds some supporting characters in order to show us things about fencing that we didn't know, and things about romance that we have already learned in a thousand other movies. But 'By the Sword' is really about Villard and Suba, and as Eric Roberts and F. Murray Abraham play them, they create characters much more interesting and dimensional than this thin screenplay really requires.Roberts makes Villard a very precise man, filled with himself, smart - and too aware that he is smart. He is so mannered, we feel there must be a vulnerability there somewhere that he has long practiced to conceal. Abraham, who can certainly be mannered when he wants to (see '), is here a more ordinary man at first, so that we have to look to see the qualities underneath.

Zombie smasher free game. Then, as the full meaning of his appearance becomes clear, he seems to swell. Fencers seem to be patrician by their nature; the sports does not attract or reward humility.

I shall live and die at my post. I am the sword in the darkness. I am the watcher on the walls. I am the fire that burns against the cold, the light that brings the dawn, the horn that wakes the sleepers, the shield that guards the realms of men. Da capo 3 r. Nov 03, 2017  X-Men Die By the Sword was a 5-issue miniseries that wrapped up Chris Claremont's New Excalibur and the Exiles by mashing together the two teams and working in 25-year old plot lines from Alan Moore's run on Captain Britain. The result is a mess that.

By the end of the movie, what we are really seeing is a duel of two egos.

Back in 1998 when this game came out it had some pretty innovative mechanics. For example the amount of sword swinging combinations are infinite, the use of mouse in the VSIM mode also added a different view on hack and slash games overall. Personally i played the game in arcade style, using both pre programmed moves and the numpad VSIM. Its also so far the only game with a somewhat realistic damage model on living characters, for example if you cut someone's arm off they will still live and use whatever they got in the other hand, unless you cut both arms off then they wont be able to do any damage at all.

Since bleeding out isn't a feature you can get some funny situations where they try to run and hide or just hug you begging you to make them taste steel one last time. In the multi-player mode you can also cut both legs off (in single player only 1 leg works) making players or bots stand still in one spot not able to move, making them easy targets for a clean head chop. The story is the good ol girl gets kidnapped and hero kills bad guy and rescues the girl, but back in the days of the golden age of gaming not many cared about the story, they just wanted to play a game with good game mechanics. And thats exactly what this game gives you.

Still today this game stands alone at the top of the blood and gore hill, only touched slightly by Blade of Darkness (2001), Blood (1997) and Aliens versus Predator (1999). And even though its a tad bit outdated in both graphics and sound i still think its a game would recommend to anyone who likes a good game. I gave it 10/10 because thats what i gave it back in 1998 when it came out (damn i feel old).