The blade is a low poly model inspired by Lightning's sword from FFXIII. The blade does indeed transform to a pulse (energy) gun. It is also made of five separate parts (the handle, blade, cylindrical blade holder, magazines, and pulse barrels). :)

3ds Max 8.0 (and up)

Tris: 2006
Polygons: 967

No special plug-ins or render engines required other than standard ones.

The files contains the following textures**:

6 x 1024 Diffuse maps (each represents a different color)
1 x 1024 Specular map
1 x 1024 Normals map

**note: the .3ds and .max file contain the animation as well as the complete object.
All other files (including normals, textures, etc.) are included in the .rar file.