Soul Calibur IV

I recently received the latest and fourth installment from the good folks at Bandai Namco. I figured before we get to the review, I'd hook up the masses by bringing your video game wet dreams directly into your living rooms. Here's what you all came here and paid to see.....

BOOBIES

To bare witness to the evolution in boob physics is truly an honour and an accomplishment for the ages. Leave it up to the wonderful world of the wide old web to provide a nice comparison between the 360 and PS3 versions. Feel free to 'get in the mood' before you read on and enjoy this detailed and comprehensive account of the things that really matter.

Now that this has been addressed, let's get down to business. Soul Calibur first reared it's sexy head on the Saga Dream Cast and has made an appearance on practically every major game console since. The fourth installment is the first release for the current next gen (oxymoron?) systems bringing a few new features but keeping that same fighting style and game play that everyone's used to. This game always got to me especially when playing video game noobs. It had a button mashing appeal that would see me get destroyed time after time by girls who's favorite and only game is still Tetris.

The game does in fact offer a lot of strategy along with very nice combos and defensive maneuvers to keep you alive and kicking in the game. I just have some rotten, bitter memories of being kneed in the head about 6 times in a row and losing in such a disgraceful manner. Nothing worse then not being able to counter a mindless button mashing biotch. But I digress....

Soul Calibur IV comes packed with all the modes you're used to such as Story, Arcade, Training and Museum. A new mode by the name of Tower of Souls gives you the choice of either ascending or descending a 60 floor tower. The rewards are plenty when you choose to descend. Each battle presents unique obstacles while other things are manipulated to challenge the player to adapt in order to survive. You select two players that your stuck with that come in and out in a tag team fashion by pressing the right bumper(about time!). While you're playing a character, the others waiting off stage will slowly regain life so you're essentially going back and forth while moderating the duel life gauges of your selected characters.

Story mode presents a slight challenge but is short. Each character has their own unique story driven content but they're honestly over before you can break a sweat. Most story lines last about five rounds so you can plow through every character pretty fast. The rewards really aren't that great either. Small cut scenes and a usually longer ending cut scene is the majority of the gratification you'll receive from investing time into this game mode.

The graphics have been beefed up to match your high def expectations displaying in shinny sexy 1080p and running at a constantly smooth frame rate. The graphics you thought blew your mind back in the day just got a whole lot better. The detailing is very well done from costumes right down to the backgrounds. Background effects on the other hand or rather lacking. Lightning and fire effects are in full force and look very nice if you have the right kind of hardware to see them on.

The Custom Character mode is another well done feature of this game. You can create practically any type of character. Money is required to unlock certain wardrobe apparel along with features that increase certain aspects of your fighter. Examples of this include armour power ups and special abilities like having a higher chance of breaking a throw move from an opponent. The amount of customization is quite impressive. I've seen custom characters online that look exactly like characters from other games along with comic books and other fight games. You initially must chose an already existing character and he/she will be the base of your character. What that means is that you're assigned a fighting style and weapon. After that's taken care of, hop on that pottery wheel and start sculpting. I found that customer character designs play well online as they tend to have more of an advantage over the default ones.

With all that being said, Soul Calibur 4 doesn't exactly push the series beyond anything that it had to offer in it's previous installment. Sure things are a bit smoother and prettier to look at, but you can't help but feel like you're playing the exact same game is you did before. It's a fun game when going head-to-head with a buddy or online, but other than that you'll feel like you've been hit with a crazy case of deja vu playing the story mode. It gets old pretty quick, that's probably because it feels old. When I think of a titles first adaptation to a new and improved console, I want to blown away and not just googly eyed over a new polished look. Sure there are lots of unlockable characters to obtain and try out, but a lot of them are clones of the default characters with minor variations. More depth and diversity among unlockable characters would have been a nice treat and a reason to continue playing by yourself.

If you're a die hard SC fan, this should definitely be a part of your collection. It's a great game to pull off the shelf when you have company or just feel like getting into a scrap or two. You really can't go wrong. The game is easy to pick up so practically anyone can grab a controller and just start playing. If you're a casual fan of the series don't expect to be blown away. Everything has been left in tact, just the way you remember it without very much else to offer. I had high expectations for this game and it was a little let down.