Soul Calibur IV - Xbox 360

Yeah, i know, it may be a bit too late to review this, but i just started playing it last week... Difficulty: Just right. In normal or hard mode, against the computer or another player, nothing is ever a sure thing. In the very moment you think "Yes! i have this one!", your opponent uses a skill and recovers his health, or makes a quick counter and starts a rush of unblockable attacks. That way of handling the fight makes you always be on guard and keeps the excitement to the max. Controls: Soul Calibur has made a perfect adapting of the Xbox 360 remote, using the A,B,Y and X for the basics while the triggers and upper buttons have loaded combinations that are of great use to perform some of the most difficult combos. Also the game responds beautifully quick to the commands, even noting the slightest dfference. Still, that sometimes works as a double edged sword, ironically, since you don't achieve the combo you want because of pressing the button a milisecond early or late. Graphics: Simply awesome. Every small piece of cloth, armor, metal, leather, skin, hair and eyes are beautifully crafted and lighted just like in reality. There are SOME issues when you're creating a character and one piece of clothing or armor gets in the way of another one, but i call it a common issue. We have to remember how old this game is already... Fun: Maybe the story mode isn't as creative as it was in Soul Calibur III, where you had a text explanation after every fight and you were able to make choices that affected the next battle, but the game totally makes up for it by having other good modes. You can get lost in the tower of lost souls fighting everyone while you struggle to get the last pieces of equipment, or compete between your friends to create the best fighter. It will be a long time before you start to get bored. Overall: After 2 years of being released, it's still awesome!

The one on one fighting system now features critical finishing moves,allowing you to initiate devastating,cinematic finishers to weakened opponents.Characters also wear destructible armor,which can shatter during combat to expose vulnerable areas.Play modes include Arcade,Story,Training,and Active Matching Battle,an endurance-type match that challenges you to defeat as many enemies as possible.Custom fighters can be created and taken online for versus matches,and new equipment and other items can be earned by completing objectives in the mysterious"Tower if Lost Souls."

If you've played any of the other Soul Calibur games, this game plays pretty much the same way. The reason this series is so much better than the other series out there I feel is the ability to, blow-to-blow, attack your opponent with series of attacks that do not involve memorizing a long string of commands like in the Tekken series. That said, this game is basically Soul Calibur III plus some small enhancements (outside of HD graphics) that I personally don't notice that much. This is a really simple fighting game to pick up for first-timers, and there is almost always a character and a fighting style to suit your desire. Really, the only two very similar characters in the game are Siegfried and Nightmare, apparently for a good reason if you know a bit about the forgettable story. Some specific notes: Gameplay: Single player - A- ; Multiplayer (local + online) - A First off, I don't believe games like these aren't really meant to be bought for single player. Clearly, you'd expect to practice your game in your time so that you can lay down the law against your friends on multiplayer modes. AI is reasonably intelligent in this game, outside of being very simple in the earlier levels on the Normal difficulty setting. Higher up in difficulty, the AI plays defense very well, and this can get really frustrating, sometimes even forcing you to abandon normal attacks and to go for grapples, which for some reason the AI is pretty bad at countering. Otherwise, when playing your friends, this is not exactly one of those fighting games that you can button-mash and expect to win. Definitely some skill and practice is involved, and the smoothness of the fights and the transitions from blow to blow make this THE fighting game to get. Online gameplay is smooth and overall as good as the local multiplayer experience. I have not experienced any issues with lag or skippy gameplay. My only complaint here is how selecting "Quick Match" in ranked has the tendency to just match you with someone who has an open game. As a game creator, you can select the level of players you intend to play against. As a level 1 trying out the online game, I got put into too many matches against level 60+ and got slaughtered. ----- Story: C This is the the only reason I am giving this game four stars. For a game that seems to promote its story about the struggle between an evil sword and a cleansing sword (assuming I even understand it right), especially from the moment the trailers hit TV screens nationwide, this game does a terrible job of incorporating the story into the game. This said, most fighting games that even have storylines do terrible jobs at integrating the story into the game as well. If you are looking for a fighting game with a pretty nicely integrated storyline, the best that I can think of are the WWE Smackdown series. In this game, the story consists of short cutscenes between fights that hint at the location of the next fight, and maybe short snide remarks that the characters say at each other right as the fight is about to begin (that in most cases don't even seem to make any logical sense together). ----- Overall, this is a great fighting game to have. It's purely that and nothing more. Expect to play single player mode quite a bit in order to unlock characters and items. The real fun of this game really comes from multiplayer modes. I think that fronting $60 may be a stretch for this game unless you're really into this series.

You should know just what to expect from this if you have played the past games, and rest assured SC4 lives up to it pedigree. It delivers pretty much everything you could hope for; fantastic graphics, perfect control, an epic musical score, and the excellent gameplay the series is known for. SC4 also introduces some new gameplay elements, such as armor breaking, and new types of Guard Impacts, and these work great and are awesome additions. The character roster is better then ever, and the game also has some fun RPG type elements that allow you to build up characters stats in various ways, which adds a lot of life to the single player aspect. As with past games, there is lots of stuff to collect, and SC4's take on the "adventure mode" comes in the form of the "Tower of Lost Souls" game, which offers a series of challenges similar to what was in SC1 & 2. This mode is fun, and is compelling enough to keep you playing and digging for the games many unlockable secrets. Of course, as everybody knows, Yoda is in the 360 version, and he is a bit unbalanced, as no one can throw him, nor can he perform throws, but this is a minor point, as you can just as well treat him as the novelty he is. The roster of "proper" characters is huge, and excellent, so there is no need to complain. This is a no-brainer purchase, go get it now!

I thought this was going to be another fancy Street Fighter 2 type of fighting game, and it's more than that. It's a beautiful fighter game in which you don't really have to memorize a bunch of button combinations to pull off punishing attacks. The soul gage is great to make opponents play fair (instead of blocking all the time). It's not for everyone. If you're tired of the Mortal Kombat/Street Fighter/Virtua Fighter type games, you will not enjoy this game. It's fast, combo-packed and very pleasing to the eyes graphics-wise. The story mode is pathetic and the CPU usually fights "cheaply" - but aside from that, using Yoda and The Apprentice adds beautiful Star Wars flavor to this game.

I have to agree with previous reviews on the star wars part. This game is fun with all the star wars involvement. This game would be great for someone who has played previous Soul Caliber games or someone who is just getting into it. It looks beauiful on an HD tv and plays really smooth. Story mode is a bit short, but the game makes up for it with all the arcade play and online play. The custom player option also makes for more involvement. Some of the controls are set-up a little funny but after a few plays its very easy. This is an all around great fighting game and one can play for a long time.

One of the best buy's i have made so far. The graphics pop on an HDTV and the game play and combos are smooth as ever. The makers were smart enough to know that Soul Calibur 2 was the best out of the series and took most of the gameplay out of it. you can get very side tracked by the Create a Character very easily. I can't even tell you how many Characters i have made. with a game like this their has to be a couple flaws though. Online is very laggy if your not the host of your match so be sure to make your own games. a second thing is if you do go online, all you'll really find are the over powered characters being spammed. ex: Kilik, Amy and Xianghua. other than that great buy for anyone who likes the series.

when i first saw that star wars characters were going to be in the game, i though great they are going to make my favorite movie charaters into anime freaks. this is not the case. they were given moves that you see in the movies ie lighting, and my personal favorite, darth vaders toss, which is very reminiscent of when he tosses the emperor into the pit. but the star wars characters do not steal all of the spotlight. the original characters are also pretty cool, and have some great moves of their own. with a great combo system, character custimization, and awesome graphics, this is one of the best fighting games out there!