Mike Bantick
Friday, 08 August 2008 09:08
Opinion and Analysis
Page 1 of 3
The above average fighting contained in Soul Calibur IV is somewhat soured by superfluous syllables, overlapping modes and Darth Vader!
Right from the start I will acknowledge that I am probably just not in on what the Soul Calibur series is all about. In fact I am not real sure how to spell it (Calibre?).
Soul Calibur IV
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Developer
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Bandai Namco
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Publisher
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EA
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Rating
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M
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Xbox 360, Reviewed on PS3
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Still, what is there really to know? It is a fighting game, and in this case only moves makes a marginal bump forward for the genre.
Substance wise, SCIV boasts a roster of over thirty characters, mostly human with the obligatory heaving breasted female stable with more variety being devoted to the male warriors.
Presentation is crisp and beautiful, with slashing swords, expertly integrated sound effects and even when the action hots up nothing becomes unclear or lost by the camera – an essential ingredient to the fighting milieu.
The backgrounds are suitably arena like and provide wonderful settings for the (somewhat less than blood thirsty - when compared to SCIV's contemporaries) action to occur. The bombastic introductions “Determination, Obsession, Hope !!!” lose something in the translation, as does the nice but samey orchestral music.
Fighting modes on offer range from a series of online match ups, multiplayer offline versus mode and a number of single player options.
Single player consists of three options, Arcade, Story and The Tower of Lost Souls.
The arcade romp, where your skills are rated at the end of eight rounds and you can choose to go in without skill or weapon effects, this is the simplest of the single player modes
