Soul Calibur IV

I have played Soul Calibur 1-4. This is a great fighting game, but mainly for multiplayer action. The story itself is way too short and I wished it would have been longer and more meaningful. Actually I would not consider this a story, it is almost like SC3 but with a new boss.

Challenges are great when you fight multiple character's(1 at a time) before you can progress.

A highly improved character creation and weapons upgrade, far exceeding SC3. Each piece of costume and acessories has it's pros and cons of adding it to your character, so you must balance your characer the best you can.

The tower is the most challenging part of this game, it can get very difficult as you progress.

I recommend buying this game for any Soul Calibur fan out there. It may not be the original many have loved on the Dreamcast, but it is still something you will enjoy on the PS3

Newcomers to the Soul Calibur franchise may not feel up to par with this game, but its a definate rental for you guys.

this game is the best out so far! until tekken 6 this is amazing!! online and against your friends! Visuals are amazing and gameplay is nice! Darth vader and yoda are great additions also the apprentace! But cervantes is still my favorate! PSN= Cannibal35

I have all the games from Soul Calibur but the story modes were better in the other games. All in all its still fun I would recommend this game.

Soul Calibur, in its heyday, was one of the most respected fighting series. However, after Soul Calibur II, the series seems to have lost its way and lost focus. Soul Calibur IV is in many ways a victim of that lost focus.

The core mechanics remain roughly the same. Each character has a different weapon, ranging from axes to swords to staves. Each character has different moves that are based on a combination of vertical and horizontal-based attacks. There's also a system of parrying and dodging, as well as traditional guarding. In previous games, the system was fun and balanced, allowing for fast-paced but highly technical fights. However, in Soul Calibur IV, while the basic system has been carried over, in a lot of places it feels much less technical and much more like "hit them with the same attacks that you know work". One specific example of this is Mitsurugi's standard one-two vertical combo, which hits fast enough that if you catch someone in it, they won't be able to counter with any move because it hits so fast that it interrupts any move they try. I have literally been part of a battle online that consisted of my opponent and me (both Mitsurugi) either attacking with that move or guarding against it and hoping for a lucky parry so that it would be our turn to attack with that move. It's also possible to get a "Ring Out" by knocking the enemy out of the arena, but in SC4 this option feels really cheap - what's supposed to be a detailed swordfight quickly becomes "who can throw the opponent out first" due to SC4's poorly handled physics. In one team match, I won consecutive battles by simply standing near the edge and using the same throw any time a new challenger appeared on screen.

The major new game mechanic introduced for SC4 is the "Critical Finish" mode. Both fighters in a match have a "soul gauge" that increases when they hit their opponent and decreases when they guard against enemy attacks. When a character's soul gauge decreases enough, they go through a "soul crush", which is a short window for the other player to perform a Critical Finish. The Critical Finish is an instant-kill attack; however, the shortness of the life bars and the rarity of finding someone who guards enough to actually lose their soul gauge means that it's not an over-spammed attack that gets used all the time, but rather a way to finish off a long and difficult battle with a tide-turning attack. In most cases, it's usually easier to just kill an opponent than to try to hit them while they guard enough times to cause them to lose their soul gauge. In addition to the Critical Finish, the other new game mechanic is breakable armor. Each character has three "segments" - high, middle, and low. Repeated attacks to an area will break off the upper layer of armor on that area (leaving undergarments intact, of course) and make that area more vulnerable. It doesn't really add much to the game, and as a game mechanic feels kind of useless.

There are a few new characters in the game. Hilde is the only real "new" Soul Calibur character; she's a female knight with a neat fighting style that uses both a sword and a spear, and she's fun to play as. Raphael's adopted daughter Amy returns from SC3, where she was a guest character; she uses a style similar to the Rapier style from SC3. There are also 2 guest characters from Star Wars in each game - both game modes have The Apprentice from the upcoming "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed", the PS3 version has Darth Vader, and the XBOX 360 version has Master Yoda. Vader and Yoda are both decent characters, but The Apprentice is ridiculously overpowered, possessing one of the highest speeds in the game as well as high damage and force powers. When encountered in arcade mode, he is far more difficult to defeat than any other character in the game, and it's even worse when someone picks him in online mode. Finally, there are five characters guest-designed by prominent Japanese artists. None of these have a unique style; each simply takes the style of an established character and uses their own unique weapons. These include a dual-sword Samurai woman, a club-wielding ogre girl, and a bizarre moon person. None of them are particularly well-designed, though, and they're not even that fun to play. They don't even have the unique styles of the Star Wars characters to make up for it. All in all, the new characters for this game, other than Hilde, feel like wastes of time and space.

There are a couple different modes for single-player. The basic story mode consists of going through five fights against various opponents. The new mode used in most of SC4's single player game types is a tag-team mode, where if you have multiple characters on your team, you can swap them out in the middle of a battle and let the swapped-out character regenerate health. In story mode, you're usually fighting teams of 3 enemies, and depending on the character you play as, you may get allies of your own. The story mode is much shorter due to the fact that there are multiple enemies in each fight. In addition to story mode, there's also a more traditional arcade mode where you fight eight single enemies in a row; this more resembles the single-player mode of previous Soul Calibur games. The other new single-player mode is the Tower of Lost Souls. This is a mode where you go through floors of a tower, two or three at a time. Each set of floors has a different "gimmick" and a different boss; for example, one set of floors has a "clown" or "harlequin" gimmick, while another has a "knight" gimmick. There is a secret goal on each floor that is hinted at when you start the floor; completing this objective unlocks a new piece of clothing for use in creating characters.

The multiplayer modes in this game took the largest hit. In previous SC games, there were a wide variety of match styles and gameplay styles that could be used for multiplayer. In SC4, the two styles are limited to a regular match, with or without bonuses provided by equipping different weapons and items. The team-based system used for single player does not get used for multiplayer, despite its prominence in the single-player mode. The new addition for multiplayer is online mode, which functions the same as regular versus mode in that it only has two modes. The online mechanics are, at least, smooth and relatively problem-free, if a bit simple. There are levels in online play, but unlike games like Halo 3 and Metal Gear Online, it's not an average of how good a player you are, but rather a tally of how many times you've won (like an RPG). It's possible to look for a player within your level range, but it doesn't really matter that much, since levels have nothing to do with ability. The game plays smoothly if your connection is four or five bars, but starts to lag insufferably at 3 bars and lower.

Create-a-Character is in many ways the heart of this game's unlockable content. Creating a character has been simplified and improved in many ways. The unique Create-a-Character styles from SC3 have been removed, so every CaC now uses a regular fighter's style (however, you don't have to go unlocking styles like you did in SC3, either). Another addition in creating a character is physique customization. It's possible to determine how muscular a character is and how much physique they have. For men, a high physique means that they are bulky and wide-chested, while a low physique means they are thin and scrawny. For women, a high physique means that they are busty and curvy, and a low physique means that they are thin and flat. The difference between the extremes is clear and easy to see (something that's fairly rare for this type of "sliding bar adjustment"), and it's neat that they let you change it. There's a variety of faces and voices, but it seems like there's too many "extremes" (really young faces and voices, really old faces and voices) and not enough average stuff. There's 8 faces for males and 8 for females, but two of each are really young and two of each are really old, which really means there's 4 average faces for males and 4 average faces for females. The same goes for voices, as well, except that the personalities of each voice are also very different. The hairstyles, at least, are relatively diverse and cover a wide range of styles, short and long. Supposedly, there's an alignment system in SC4 that changes how good/evil your character is (or, at least, there's different endings in story mode where a custom character will either claim Soul Calibur, Soul Edge, or both, depending on his or her alignment), but unlike SC3 it's not visible, and the voices don't change either. I had a character who had a kindly voice and only said kind things, but who still claimed Soul Edge (the evil sword) in the end.

The clothes for Create a Character deserve special mention. The only nice-looking clothes in the game is the armor, which is all intricately designed and looks really fantastic. However, a lot of basic clothes that would make sense in the game - for example, a set of tights that covers the whole body, so that the armor isn't just sitting on bare skin - aren't actually in the game. It seems like the costume creators spread themselves too thin; while there's only a few armor sets for female characters, there are at least four uniforms that are just there to be goofy - a maid uniform, a waitress uniform, a stewardess uniform, and a nurse uniform. None of these make sense in the game's context; they're just there so you can play dress-up. Furthermore, there are only two ways to unlock new clothes - either by going through the Tower of Souls (and unlocking only a single piece of clothing per floor) or by getting "honors", SCIV's version of achievements, which range from simple tasks like "beat story mode" to more complex ones like "land 10,000 total attacks on an opponent". In SC3, it was enough to go through the strategy-like sub-mode to unlock new clothes; in SC4, it feels a lot more limited, and since Create-a-Character is one of the most emphasized modes in the game, it feels really unusual.

Customizing a character also adds stat bonuses and skills. For this reason, you can customize regular characters with Create-a-Character, too. You can either add items and change weapons for their default costumes (to give them stat increases) or you can give them their own costume made up from Create-a-Character parts, though for whatever reason you can't use their "normal" hairstyle and have to use their 2P hairstyle (or any of the other create-a-character hairstyles) if you want to customize them. Different clothes in the game provide different bonuses, either to stats (attack, defense, and health) or to skill points. Skill points are used to assign skills of various categories, ranging from things like "automatic guard impact" or "automatic unblockable attack" that will randomly aid you in battle, to "health drain" that sucks health out of enemies and gives it to you, to skills that increase your stats when fighting enemies of a certain gender or alignment. The skills and stats are kind of neat, but they also affect the character-creation process, when you feel like you have to buy stuff that gives good stats, instead of just getting stuff that looks neat. Thankfully, in versus mode (regular and online) there is an option to play the game without any stat modifiers or skills, which means that you can just have fights between characters without worrying about that stuff.

The graphics in this game are really good - as mentioned, the armor in particular looks really nice. The costumes for the main characters have gotten a bit more ridiculous in most cases, but the new character, Hilde, has a really neat set of armor, and the create-a-character option allow for a lot of good armor choices as well. While the other clothes look okay, only the armor and the weapons really show off the game's graphics, with their reflective properties and intricate detailing. The game's backgrounds are pretty good, as well, but nothing particularly noteworthy or epic like some of the stages from SC2 and SC3. The audio is decent, but there's nothing really worth pointing out in terms of music or voicing.

As a whole, Soul Calibur 4 is a disappointment that can be fun, but for the most part isn't. SC4 took all the complaints about SC3 and made them worse, and lost most of the things that made the series fun in SC1 and SC2. A lot of the systems and gameplay modes are really poorly handled. The only really fun thing in the game is messing with create-a-character, but despite the physique customization options, the incredibly limited number of faces, voices, and clothing sets kind of puts a damper on the whole experience. Really, it feels like SC4 is trying to do too many things at once, and isn't accomplishing any of them. If the game consisted wholly of a more fleshed-out character maker and a multiplayer game with some more game types, it might be better. As it is, though, Soul Calibur 4 only deserves a 7/10.

I must say that my first impression after purchasing this game was "Am I missing something here?" I chose Darth Vader in arcade mode and the credits were rolling within ten minutes of fighting a few different characters. I tried fighting online, but couldn't ever get into a match due to heavy usage. Needless to say, I was disappointed.

A few days later I practiced using many of the different characters and the hundreds of moves that come with them and I realized that this isn't just a regular button mashing fighting game. The controls are VERY precise and pressure sensitive. There's a lot to learn here.

In my opinion this game really shines when you go online. After a week or so of buying this game it got a whole lot easier to find available matches. I love the fact that you can fight opponents online with the same precise controls as in the single player game. Matches rarely go past ten minutes making this a perfect online multiplayer game if you don't have a long time to devote to it. (I hate getting stuck in COD4 if you have something that you need to get done all of the sudden.)

Anyhow, I highly recommend this game if you like fighting games with precise movements and quick combos. If you have this game, but don't like it, give it another try. You might be pleasantly surprised. I would have given it two stars the day I bought it, but now I shooting for five.

Great Game. Not a lot of differences from SC3 but i loved 3 so that's fine. mainly got it to be Darth Vader. He is the man and the apprentice is also very good. This is a must have two player versus game.

Now here's a game that is very clean in it's programming. I give it 5 stars because the level of detail and thought put into this game is substantial. There are many characters to choose from. Online play is definitely great. If you like fighting games, then this will definitely hold you over for a while. I recommend buying.

Its a nice game. Still, I was expecting more from a PS3 game. Anyways, it is the best game there is in stock!

Somehow I thought this game would be funner. I guess I didn't know enough about the franchise. If you like endless sword fights getting harder and harder then this is the game for you, if you get bored fighting the same fights over and over look somewhere else.

The best fighting game out of any other fighting game series. Most of the modes and characters from the Soul Calibur series are here. And new modes and characters such as Online and Tower of Souls. The new characters are Algol, Darth Vader, and Vader's Secret Apprentice from the game Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Character Creation is more detailed. The new armor and weapon only improves the game due to the better graphics. But the only downside is the online. Most matches either fails to connect, lag like crazy, disconnects during a match, or doesn't find a match. But, none of these online problems take away from the game. Other then that this game is perfect and you should buy it right away.

Soul Calibur IV lives up to expectations, and even blows them away. The colors and graphics make the cost of the PS3 worth it when you see this game. The sounds are great also. I especially like the loud thunderous sounds before each match.

The cast of characters is large and varied. I can't say that I found Darth Vader adding any value though. I am not much of a Star Wars fan, so take that with a grain of salt. The Star Wars level is space looks out of place too. In fact, it doesn't even look like a PS3 backdrop.

I created my own character and have had fun playing as him...Stone Cold Steve Austin. The create-a-character system works well, although it has taken some criticism from some reviewers.

Its a great fighting game.

This game is a very good game however the story mode is very short and lame. A very solid fighting game though. Tons of characters and awesome moves. The one thing I was disappointed about though was the quest to go through and collect all the different swords and go through dungeons as in the previous games. I miss that. Other than that it is a great game and you can create your own character with its own fighting style and equipment. SWEET.

The game is really nice. The best feature is the character create mode that lets you create your very own fighter, you don't have as much variety among clothes and faces to choose from, but it adds a lot to the game.

The graphics are good, the textures and models are sweet, my only concern are the few jaggies that I had noticed.

The controls are just like the playstation prequels, you will feel a soul calibur game in your hands.

Online is a little laggy, but is playable. Single player is just to short, Soul Calibur II last more than this title in my opinion.

Soul Calibur is the 4th installment in the Soul Calibur series. New additions are the inclusion of new modes such as Tower of Souls and the create a character mode. Also new, is the inclusion of Star Wars characters, Yoda in the 360 version, and Darth Vader in the PS3 version. They are great, but not that much to make a big impact on which version you get. I would recommend the PS3 version however, especially because of the superior game pads. The game is extremely addictive and fun. Some claim that it gets boring after a while, but i still find it quite enjoyable. I would recommend it for any fan of the series, or fighting games in general.

Great Game if you are into the Soul Series. Online would be perfect if there aren't a lot of lag.

WOW! I'm so glad they did a good job on this game, because I love the series and was waiting for it to come to the Playstation 3 console.

Graphics/Sound
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The graphics and sound are beautifully rendered. Everything comes together wonderfully to create the story.. the only thing I don't care for is that 'narrator bit' at the beginning of every match.. that gets old..

Controls
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The controls are great. Responsive, and with practice the combos are great. Though it takes some work in this series to mesh the right moves together. It's not as easy to button mash in Soul Calibar as in other games, because not ending the right combos together leaves a pause where you are open to attack.

Game play
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Fighting games are notorious for short play, but with all the extra features in this game you should still have plenty to do. Their real value is in multi-player so if you are a loner it *may not* (Unless you play online!) be the best choice for you. But if you have room mates .. buy extra controllers. : )

People who don't have all day to play games will enjoy it, because rounds are short and can be played in the 5 minutes or so before you run out the door to a meeting, dinner, ect.

Extras
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The character creator is rich, and full of posibilites. If you don't think so.. try looking around the internet. There are some contests going on with people making some awesome characters! The only stellar improvement to this feature would be to let people download each other's fighters over the network.

There's plenty of costumes, characters, images, ect. to unlock in story mode too, and the guest character is awesome by the way! ; )

The Soul Calibur series has always been one of my favorite franchises and this game doesn't disappoint. If you have ever enjoyed a previous Soul Calibur game or fighting games in general this is a must have.

I have played all the past soul cailbur games and they always have really good modes like weapon master in two and many other modes in three but in four they removed all those modes and all they added was a tower mode that was alright and online which is alright. so i would recommend this game but you just have to know ahead of time that it is not as good as the other soul cailbur games.

It has been a couple of weeks since the release of soul calibur iv. Fans of the series and noobs to the series have come in line to pick up this amazing fighter by Namco. This franchise has been successful in its previous installments especially Soul Calibur II.
Basically, those of you who are into fighting games should know that this is a 3D-weapon based fighting game. They have everything from Tonfas, Daggers, Samurai swords, Axes, spears, extra large two-handed swords and much more.
This latest installment of the series is delivers high and intense action that will have you play hours and hours with your friends or take it online for more challenges, where people can challenge anyone around the world, and you never know; you just might fight one of the developers and end up beating them.
There are a few modes; story mode, arcade, verses, training, character creation and tower of lost souls.
story mode takes you through the story of the character picked with only one major cut-scene that deals with the character and his/her story. There is arcade mode that features 8 continuous matches against opponents. verses is a one on one with a friend and there are two types of verses mode regular and special. special is with the created characters that have been customized and made in character creation mode. training mode allows you practice and tone your skills in soul calibur iv.
character creation is used for of course as the name implies to create a character with the standard character's fighting styles, each equipment has status effects to it, such as healing, immune to ring outs, speed up character, strength and defense enhancements and much more. Finally, the tower of lost souls makes you ascend or descend and each floor has special requirements that need to be met to clear the floor.
The music in the game fits everything perfectly with the extra starwars character (the starwars battle stage) added to the game, for the PS3 Darth Vader and the Apprentice, and the XBOX 360 gets Yoda and the Apprentice.

To bring everything to a conclusion, soul calibur iv is an amazing game, awesome selection of characters with different fighting styles and different speeds and strengths. If you are a fighting game fan then this is a fighting game that you must pick up. So let the SOUL KEEP BURNING AND FIGHT ON SOUL FANS.

Ultimately a disappointing title Soul Calibur IV does not up the ante for the series as it plays itself way to safe for its first new generation outing. The core gameplay found in the Dreamcast title Soul Calibur remains the same which isn't a bad thing per se. Soul Calibur after all perfected weapons based 3d combat to an sharp sheen. Dicing and slicing your foes with all kinds of cool martial arts hardly gets old especially now as you can fight players worldwide through the PSN. Matches remain pretty smooth and lag free and it remains a fairly exciting feature as you work your way up rankings. From the beautiful visuals, tried but true gameplay, and comical guests from the Star Wars franchise, Soul Calibur IV continues to burn the soul. It won't rock your world though as the game needs some serious overhaul in terms of gameplay features.

The wait for Soul Calibur IV is finally over. The renovated Character Creations(CAS)has been upgraded with many options available to create a unique soul that deems fit to your liking. Graphics has received an upgrade and is one of the best games out to date. Gameplay has also evolved from the past series. Soulcalibur IV features an all-new Critical Finish system that prevents opponents from blocking too much if they do not want to instantly lose. Overall Soul Calibur IV is a great game that will keep you entertained for years to come.

This is easily the best 3d fighting game out there. Balanced (for the most part) deep and engaging. Character creation mode is almost a game unto itself and the Tower of Souls game is challenging without being too much of a pain.

That said, the online play needs some work. Game matching is buggy and frustrating. If you're getting this to play online either pass or wait for an update to fix the issues.

I have been playing the Soul Caliber series since it first came out , This game is def. an upgrade from the previous ones with more in depth graphics , fighting and character creation. I would def. reccomend this game to anyone who is a fan of the series and while there is not to many next gen. fighting games around right now this is the one to def. own. Plus amazon got it to me quickly on the release date , so i have nothing bad to say...

Allow me to start by saying that this game is fun, but it is short lived fun. There are a vast number of characters in the game, including Darth Vader and his Apprentice (whom you have to defeat in Arcade mode using Darth in order to unlock for use). You can create your own character, or modify the characters that came with the game. You can play through all their stories, use them in arcade, try to assemble the right mix to conquer the Tower of Souls, or go online (the much touted new feature). But that's pretty much it. Unfortunately, the stories are very poorly written, often making no sense in English whatsoever. Arcade mode is relatively quick, the Tower is more difficult, with hidden goals to unlock treasures that are sometimes near impossible to achieve. Online is what you make of it, but it's never more than just fighting people that aren't sitting on the couch with you. One would have thought that with the vast capacity of a Blu-ray disc, the makers of Soul Calibur would have been able to include more features, possibly a return of the Chronicles of the Sword feature from SC3. The training mode was also unhelpful, essentially worthless. All in all, I'd reached the peak of pleasure from this game well within the time frame of a rental. Might I suggest renting this game before buying it, you may save yourself a lot of money.

well, its pretty fun if you play it with friends. Anything more than that is just repetitive.
recomend it as a stress relief.

The first Soul Calibur game I played was Soul Calibur 2. I didn't get to play Soul Calibur 3, so I'm not a total SC fan, but I enjoy the series more than other fighting games due to it's simple fighting system.

The Good:

The graphics are incredible. The character models look fantastic; Darth Vader never looked this good, and each character is incredibly detailed. Even Starkiller looks better in this game than he does in The Force Unleashed. And, as always the cutscenes look great.

The sound design is as good as you'll find in a fighting game, with nostalgic sounds of metal bashing against metal. The lightsaber effects are great as well. The dialogue and voice acting is cheesy, but that's become a staple in the series and it's pretty entertaining. Some characters have better voices than others.

Fighting is as fluid and simple as always. Casual players will find it accessible enough to button mash and get by, while hardcore players will find some depth with it and get rewarded for mastering it. It's well balanced. New features have been added, such as armor breaking and the critical finish. There's a large chance that you will never use critical finishes due to the requirements you need to pull one off, and most of them aren't worth the trouble.

The Bad:

Single player is absolutely pathetic compared to the previous installments, with only three modes, not counting training mode. The story mode is terrible and short, with re-used cutscenes and only FIVE stages. Tower of Lost Souls is too hard for the casual players, and only appeals to the hardcore players who can handle plenty of punishment, or players who want to collect every item in the game. Arcade mode is fairly lengthy and is the only enjoyable part of the single player. But even that can't save it.

Character customization provides a few hours of fun, but it loses it's excitement after a while. You can choose the gender, alignment (Good, Evil, Neutral), hair style, voice and voice pitch, facial features, armor, weapon skills, etc. And while there's tons of equipment to unlock and equip, and plenty of weapon skills, much of it seems like it's more for style than usefulness.

Finally, the online play is a welcomed addition, but is very laggy. Lag can be anywhere from a nuisance to controller smashing frustration. Cheap shots and hit-and-run techniques are much more useful than trying to pull off more advanced combos, if you are even able to pull them off with the lag.

This is a great game. Great graphics and control.
I find it a little bit easy even in hard mode but it keeps you interested because it has a lot of unlockable items.

The only bad thing... DarkVader has a fake ligth saber... He gets his but kick all the time.

Great game.

I'm not much of a video game reviewer, and I'm certainly not a "serious gamer" but I do enjoy blowing off an hour or two every once in a while playing games. Up until we rented this on gamefly I had never played a Soul Caliber game before. I enjoy fighting games provided there are some speedy characters involved. My Hubby and I enjoyed this game enough to pay the extra loot to "keep the game" so we are now the proud owners of Soul Caliber IV.

What I liked:
1) I didn't have to hit 40 sequential buttons to get the character to do something cool, in fact my inner button masher was quite happy with the moves that I was able to do right off just by smashing in patterns.

2) The graphics are good, the surrounding areas are cool to look at and you can smash up your surroundings, which is always fun. The playable characters come in a wide variety and all look fairly good (some of the women are ridiculously proportioned but whatever). They have a variety of weapons that are quite fun and all look great.

3) The characters level, meaning the more you play with one, the more options you get with them.

4) The online option is interesting, but for some reason the pairing doesn't seem up to snuff, I mean why would the computer match up a level 1 with a level 41? It seems that it should be a bit more balanced as to who it sets up against who.

5) The tower is a blast, and it's HARD! basically you have to fight different groups of baddies on each level of the tower to ascend to the next one... we're on level 20 or so now and it's no walk in the park! The good thing is that each level has a way for you to unlock another article of clothing to use in your character creation.

6) Character creation, this can be quite fun, and I'm really bad at it. My hubby can spend over an hour tweeking his dude... I just slap some clothes on them and go.

7) The other options are your standard Arcade mode and the story mode, both of which allow you to unlock different playable characters.

What I don't care for:
1) When you are either beating the tar out of someone or they are laying the smack down on you, armor can break... effectively leaving your character almost completely in the nude. Now I'm not sure who gets their jollies from video game semi-naked people, but I'm not one of them.

2) It would be great if the female characters weren't trapsing about with their boobs hanging out wearing thongs... and the closeups of the boobs and booties gets to be rather tiresome... men wonder why more women don't play video games... this is one of the reasons.

3) The commercial showed Darth Vader fighting Yoda... um... you only get Vader on the PS3 version, apparently Yoda is on the Xbox version. It would have been nice to have had both.

4) The loading times from fight to fight get a bit tiresome, especially in the tower when you just got your derrier handed to you and you have to re-fight the same guy for the 15th time and there you are; waiting for 2 minutes or more to reload the battle.

5) In the character creation I should be able to pick some better undergarments for my people just in case all of their clothes get busted off so that they aren't standing there in a bra and thong.

Still, I love the game, it's an absolute blast and well worth a purchase (especially used)

Soul Calibur IV for the PS3 is a fun, quick play in campaign mode. The visuals are good and there are a lot of characters (plus a character creator) to use. Different skills and fighting styles keep the play fresh. There is an update for the PS3 version which is detected and installed from the PlayStation Network when the game disk is first inserted. With the update I found the load time to be very quick, and if you fail a level and then retry, the load time is very quick. There are a lot of options to keep game play interesting, for a fighting game.

For as much as Namco's Soul Calibur series has stayed the same, the more fun the weapons-based fighter has become. Soul Calibur IV is no different, offering up a plethora of fighters that bear familiar faces to fans of the series, as well as even offering Darth Vader (yes, Darth Vader) as a bonus fighter for the Playstation 3 version of the game (while XBox 360 gamers get Yoda), and stands as the best fighter to hit the PS3 yet. Like previous installments in the series, the fighting engine is surprisingly deep yet even more surprisingly accessible for those new to the series, and is rewarding as well. It should also be noted that Soul Calibur IV looks magnificent (especially on the PS3) and fully displays some brilliantly animated graphics that are vibrant and nicely detailed. Even better is the game's online play which is smooth, lag-free, and tons of fun. The only real downside to Soul Calibur IV is that the game's single player mode isn't hard to get through at all, and there's no team battle mode either, which is really disappointing. Despite that though, Soul Calibur IV is a wonderful and incredibly good installment of a great fighting series that deserves your attention, whether or not you're a veteran or newcomer to the Soul Calibur universe.

When the mechanics of a game franchise are fundamental to its success it is best not to tinker too much with how it controls and feels overall. The newest SC suffers from this slightly as it does feel like the same old game, but that is also its strength. There isn't anything new that takes away from the core enjoyment of this supreme fighter because other than the new SW characters everything is meshed together for a smooth experience. Ideally the game wants you to take everyone through its 5 chapter story mode offering but the hardcore restart elements of mission mode are redone in the somehow less fufilling TOWER mode(it is lacking the storyline text& map that made the original missions more fun.) Survival mode is redone as a backward crawl into the dungeon of the tower. Changes like these and the customizable skill and equipment set make SCIV VERY replayable. I know this my thumbs still burn especially after taking the unwieldy DARTH VADER through arcade mode which took me longer than I care to admit. Darth V. is tough to control as he should be with his mechanical legs, his forces powers and throws are tougher to use but with practice he can be worth the effort. The story text for each character is enjoyable, and the moves list accessible from the pause menu is still there. SCIV is tough in all the right places with an abundance of strategy and configurability, that plus its satisfying catalogue of fighters will have this disc running hot in my PS3 for awhile. BTW The install feature to hard drive doesn't shave as much off the load times as I was hoping for but I like having the option.

Overall I'm quite disspointed with this game.

Let's break it down though.

Graphics 5/5: As far my opinion goes, this is the most graphically superior fighting game there is at the moment, the scenes are beautifully rendered and the characters are rich in detail.

Controls 5/5: The controls never change and no exceptions here, the game is easy and can be jumped right into.

Character Creation 1/5: What a HUGE step back here...SC:III had so many innovative things here a "profession" made it feel unique and special. Now it's just "What character do you want to rip off?!" Which is extremely lame and lazy in my opinion. The different combos of clothings/faces are alright not as extravagant was SC:III was.

New Features 2/5: The "Tower" is quite bland and more like just a scenario mode nothing overly special about it.
The online mode I will admit I haven't tried yet but...I imagine it's no different then having someone sitting aside of you playing. I most certainly miss the strategy mode as it gave a real personal feeling to the game.

Main Guts of the Game 2/5: Let me start by saying the Star Wars characters compared to the rest of the group...are ridiculously overpowered. In Arcade mode you go from classic SC scenese to a...space ship? To fight "The Apprentice?" What the @#$@? The Apprentice is ridiculously over powered and if you're playing on medium expect hard diffuculty Hard expect Soul Edge...etc...The first time I went through I spent around 1 min. on each opponent and 9 min. on The Apprentice.

The story mode is VERY dissaspointing as it starts with about a 4-5 paragraph introduction then just like...arcade mode until the last fight. About a 1 minute clip a sentence or two pops up on the screen...that's it. Not a whole lotta point to "Story Mode" if you don't actually make the character have a FREAKIN' STORY!

Overall: I wish I would have rented this game instead of paying salty for it...It's just...not as good as any of it's previous bretheren. I'd be even willing to say a step BACK.

This game offers better graphics and less of everything else. There are fewer modes, characters, and gameplay. The controls are sluggish when compared side by side with Soul Calibur 3 - probably a result of the improved graphics. There are also very few stages. Overall the replay value is at about 0. Even the multiplayer is botched, constantly connecting you to full servers (only one game mode for online, vs.) I LOVE the Soul Calibur franchise and this was a big dissapointment. After buying the game I traded it in and got Metal Gear Solid 4 - a way better game. Save yourself the money and go buy a copy of Soul Calibur 3 or if you want the better graphics, Virtua Fighter 5. This is NOT a good game.

I've played the first and second Soul Caliburs plus the horrid Legends for Wii. I missed out on the original Soul Edge and Soul Calibur III. So those are my qualifications for reviewing a Soul Calibur game. I may not know everything about the SC series, but neither am I a complete newbie.

BUTTON MASHING VS. FINESSE: With Soul Calibur II, I never felt any incentive to get better and learn more than my button mashing roots. While I'm sure fighting purists would think finesse fighting is its own reward, there's little reason to bother when button mashing with Link got me past every character on every game mode of SCII. It's a rare balance to find a game where button mashing can work long enough to get you into the game, but then just by virtue of having played, you start to get some finesse and find out just how deep the control system really is. This is what SC IV does. It still rewards button mashing to a degree. I was able to get through the Arcade and Story modes before learning much about the character I was controlling. But I did have a hard time of it. You'll find that things get significantly easier for you if you learn just a little bit of finesse.

CHARACTER CREATION: You can altar any existing character to a degree. Mostly you can just upgrade their weapon, change out a single stat-altering quality and change some of their abilities. So no gold-plated Vader.

Having only used the Mortal Kombat Armageddon Kreate a Fighter tool before, I can only compare to that. It is nice to have fifty slots worth of character creation (including the altered main characters you've made) compared to MK's two slots (one if you have the Wii). Original character creations aren't quite as all encompassing as the MK fighter creation, however. Every one you make must be a human. No tails, horns, wings or faun legs. You also can't do anyone who's really fat or really skinny. Even the faces are chosen from several presets. You can't thin out a nose here, widen the spacing between the eyes there. You have the presets and that's it. Same goes for fighting styles. Where in MK you could have Scorpions spear mixed with Subzero's freeze, Raydan's teleport, Sony'a weapon, any mix of combo's, here you have the style of one fighter and one fighter only. No mix and matching. So basically, you're just making male/female clones of already existing characters. Most annoying of all is that your stats (attack, defense, guard) are dependant on what clothes and weapons you give your character. Thus you often have to choose between a great looking weak character or an odd looking uber character.

GAME MODES: Story Mode is great but short. This is how you would unlock character endings and some things to use in character creation. Tower of Lost Souls is the bulk of where you unlock content. But it's also an exhausting gauntlet that can be frustrating endurance trial that feels like trying to open a big steel door by banging your head into it. This is definitely where that finesse that I was talking about comes in handy. Arcade Mode is just like you'd think. Square off against opponents until you get to the end. But there's no ending as a reward. That comes from story mode. Also all the stats you worked so hard to boost in character creation don't mean anything in Arcade mode, only Story and Tower modes. So you're left to wonder why you would bother. Honestly, I'd stick with story mode.

ONLINE: Stay away from it at all costs. If you do a quick join, you'll more than likely find that all sessions are full. You can create your own, but in the off chance that you do find someone, the combination of your lag time and they're button-mashing spamming of moves can and will often end in your defeat before you can even make a move.

FINAL WORDS: This is a great game. While it may seem like I'm being highly critical of this game I wouldn't be credible if I didn't list a games short comings as well as it's high points. It has its faults. But at the end of the day, the graphics are great. The control is some of the best, most highly responsive controls you could ask for. Button mashing versus finesse is balanced better than most fighting games I could name. If you want a high quality, fun fighting game, this is one of the better ones.

Fighter graphics have improved, yet can't say the same thing about stages and background. They look and feel dull.

Vader certainly makes his presence felt. Nice addition to the line up.

I don't care for single player modes, I just use them to make gold to unlock stuff. Didn't enjoy it in other games, not enjoying it here. If I wanted to watch CGI, I would have bought MGS4.

Multiplayer is another story. With these graphics and fighters the game has no equal. Especially if you master Vader. I usually play offline with my friends. They love it, I love it, end of story.

If you liked it before, you will like it again. You can always try it before you buy it. Recommended, highly.

This game has been so much fun and I just got it. I love the graphics and the movement. They did make the game more sexual like dead or alive but its still worth playing; especially online. There arent many new things from the old games but it doesnt matter. I guess they felt, why fix it if it isnt broken. People want more more more and that is their main complaint. I'm happy with what I have in this game and will be playing it for quite some time.