Soul Calibur IV has been out a week and instead of rushing out a review I wanted to give an informed opinion about the title. To cut to the chase, Soul Calibur IV is Legendary. Go buy it today if you haven’t already lost precious hours of your time to this masterpiece.
Graphics: The game is beautiful. There are some of the best rendered and animated models seen to date in a fighter. Lighting effects and stages that are so lush, in the middle of the action you can barely appreciate the details around you. There are even subtle camera effects that occur during fight rounds that create even more kinesis and energy.
Sound: Excellent metal clashes, echoing battle cries and death wails. Sound track holds up to the epic scoring found in previous installments. No songs have yet to loop in my head as they actually have in the past but perhaps given more time some tracks will top surface.
Gameplay: The revolutionary system tweaked to near perfection this time around. Characters seem a bit more balanced since SC3. The past few games have added new combatants and have been balanced with old guard favorites. The new critical finishes and armor break elements add new dimension to the fundamental gameplay that’s a tried and true classic. Critique’s lie in that some of the mobility seems a bit stiffened. The 8-Way movement that seemed to perfect itself in Soul Calibur seems a bit clunkier this time around. Also, they include an amazing ‘character swapping’ tag-team element to the single player modes but none in the VS. or any form of co-op implementation. At its, core SC is a game to play with others. Why introduce such an amazing feature and not put it in the modes it would be most appreciated?
Extras: Another crowning achievement. Custom character creation is incredibly deep. An unnecessary feature as the base roster is sufficient enough, you can create all types of combatants with skinny to muscular body types, faces, hairstyles and armor pieces. The color picker for everything looks like an Adobe Photoshop color picker. Any game with character creation need only look to Soul Calibur 4. My only critique in the extras department keeping the score from 100% is that past Namco fighters rewarded the player with rendered CG endings for every character. In this version, endings are adequate even though mostly rehashes of the same storyline per character. A small gripe considering how much work went into character creation, but enough to keep an arms length from perfect, which this game is dangerously close to.
Replayabilty: With an excellent interface that finally takes a PS3 fighter online I imagine many months of online battles with strangers and friends. The single player tower mode will keeps you busy as you unlock character items to adorn the regular cast and your custom fighters.
BatBuzz is all over the Net and it seems appropriate that Midway announced this weekend at Comic-Con that the Joker will be a playable character in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe. Since fatalities have been announced, it will interesting to see how the Joker plans on getting the last laugh.
The confirmed characters in the game so far include:
Batman
Superman
Flash
Green Lantern
Captain Marvel
Joker
Catwoman
Scorpion
Sub Zero
Liu Kang
Sonya
Kitana
Jax
Shang Tsung
Here is a bonus pic of another Bat-character, Catwoman
As promised, we’ve got some more Soul Calibur goodness here. It’s been Vader this and Yoda that. As much as I love those guys they could really be stripped out of the game completely and it would not diminish my excitement for the title. A feature in SC3 that people seemed to gloss over was the custom create-a-fighter. Sure there were some limitations but I thought it delivered in terms of variety compared to other custom character systems in the past seen in game genres like basketball, wrestling etc.
I myself had a great time with it and could only see the possibilities in future installments of the franchise. Check out the end product of these custom characters in Soul Calibur IV! As random as this pirate girl is duking it out with some barbarian guy, I can’t imagine how deep the unlockable content will go. I anticipate hours of playtime unlocking the goodies that Namco has developed in create-a-fighter. Not to mention mastering the classic fighters’ upgrades, new official roster characters, Yoda, Vader and his apprentice.
I mean, how can you not love the ability to make a fighting cat girl with a feather duster? That has win all over it.
I’ve never quite excelled in the Metal Gear franchise as I even remember constantly dying in the first 8-bit Nintendo version over and over again. Even back then the premise seemed super cool and original. I watched with an ex-armyman a more skilled video gamer go through the first Metal Gear Solid. We were both enthralled with the level of detail and the immersion the MGS world provided. Since then, I knew that Kojima had a high standard of quality to deliver with these games.
I didn’t follow the hype this week but apparently the talk is good with the return of Solid Snake in MGS4: Guns of the Patriots. With quotes like these from reviewers, its hard to keep a blind eye to what awesomeness this title must be.
“There’s just moments of absolute genius that make this game probably the best video game I’ve ever played”
~ consolemonster.com
“All in all, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots is easily the best game in the long-running Metal Gear franchise, the best game on the PS3 and, one could argue, the best game of this decade.”
~ bingegamer.net
If you’ve been keeping tabs on any Soul Calibur news be prepared to see an influx of Soul Calibur IV goodies here at PS3pub. Here’s an excellent video hyping the upcoming title that knows all too well what leads to anger, hate and suffering…
Grand Theft Auto IV trumps Pirates of the Caribbean 3 as the most successful entertainment launch of all time with a whopping $500 million gross in its first week of sale. Half of the discs pressed were sold on the first day. This isn’t just a huge victory for Rockstar Games, but for the gaming industry as a whole.
For the politicians that plead so fervently for their own votes while simultaneously holding contempt towards the gaming industry, people have voted with their dollar in support of the franchise that’s been such an easy target for the political figures to exploit.
In addition, GTA4 is a victory for quality, mature-rated products as well. The reason video games aren’t “Just for Kids”, is because the 20-30 some year old work force are the same little boys and girls that played their 8-bit Nintendo in the ’80’s. They wake up and go to work, pay mortgages, watch rated-R movies, and use disposable income to make a mature-rated video game the most lucrative entertainment launch in the history of entertainment.
PS3pub is housed by our network of sites that are comprised of multi-platform gaming news sites. While watching the video department capture some GTA4 gameplay, it was easy to see what the excitement is all about. It isn’t just the controversial subject matter that’s the focus, it’s the attention to detail and deep gameplay that’s been evolved since previous installments. Next-gen sequels tend to upgrade games simply on an aesthetic level but GTA4 ups the ante in just about every regard be it graphics, animation, story and most importantly: game mechanics. But don’t just take my limited perspective on it, check out what these esteemed gaming sources had to say:
Editor’s Choice: Perfect 10
“Grand Theft Auto IV is a game that you simply have to play.”
~ Gamespot
10: Masterful
“Grand Theft Auto IV is the best game since Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time”
~IGN
5 Stars: Outstanding
“Rockstar’s magnum opus is a modern-day masterpiece that could change the way the world views videogames.”
~Gamespy
When I heard that Mortal Kombatants were going to be pitched against the DC Universe I about had a cardiac. Even more shocking than the official news was the amount of internet backlash towards the idea of Mortal Kombat vs. DC. I kept reading, “It doesn’t make sense”, “Midway’s out of ideas”, “Superman would beat everyone”. So much fanboy hate with 100% unsubstantiated claims and opinions.
Since fighting games became a viable genre there’s always been Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter 2. Midway and Capcom ushered in a new era of video gaming and allowed the likes of Virtua Fighter, Tekken and Soul Calibur to become a worldwide phenomenon. Capcom integrated many other properties for their Vs. titles that all started with X-Men vs. Street Fighter, which pitted characters from the Marvel Comics universe with Capcom’s. If you look at it analogously, Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe makes not just good sense, but perfect sense, since it faces rival fighting game property against rival comic book property. Midway’s not out of ideas, they’re just fulfilling a fighting game imperative over ten years in the making.
How could Superman be defeated in a fighting game? A quick Superman 101 class would educate that Superman’s powers are solar based drawn from our yellow sun and his weakness, as everyone knows, is kryptonite rock emitting a radioactive energy from his home world: Very scientific powers and weaknesses. DC Comics continue to publish stories where Supes is vulnerable to a significant number of magic-based attacks, attacks where science claims no dominion and thus render Superman attackable and yes, able to be beaten. Outworld is a completely mystical war realm engulfed in dark magic, so it’s not a stretch to believe its inhabitants and their powers couldn’t stand toe to toe with DC’s finest.
Admittedly I know more about Mortal Kombat and DC comic book lore than any one person probably should, but facts are facts. Haters can keep hatin’ but unbiased, objective true fighter fans will be on PS3 and 360 this Fall experiencing the most righteous thing to happen to Mortal Kombat to date.
Tyris Flare. One my many childhood girlfriends is coming back this year. Countless hours have been spent in my 1980s playing Sega Genesis with Tyris and company riding beasts and doing that double sword slash, double sword hilt skull crack, kick combo. And if you were feeling particularly cheeky you’d pick them up and bodyslam them into the dirt. Not only that but you could kick little gnomes around and they’d drop magical potions that you’d collect to unleash your super elemental attack of destruction. Really. Be it lightning, earthquakes or my personal favorite: Tyris Flare’s dragon summon that set all in view into an incinerating pyre.
The joys of my youth return this year in next-gen bliss with Golden Axe: Beast Rider. You can have your Halos and your Marios and your GTAs. Dibs on Tyris. The horrendous internet rumor that claimed that Beast Rider was a 360 exclusive was thankfully debunked and the official website even sports a Playstation 3 logo found here. Tyris is looking a little more hardcore this time around. I think they updated her look to keep her from appearing too Red Sonja. Now it seems they’ve injected her with a little God of War in playstyle and aesthetics, which sounds like a good thing to me. Tyris, you’ve come a long way, baby.
Tyris Flare circa 1989
The title is going to rock some M-Rated content with plenty of politician provoking sexploitation and ultra-violence. As any good barbarian themed entertainment piece should. I began to see what direction they were going to take the game when I saw the following screenshot. There is like, a person fountain standing there missing half of their body parts. I am thoroughly and decidedly stoked.
Images are pouring in along with a look at tons of extras for Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots scheduled to launch June 12, 2008. Last week Konami announced that some key features had to be removed because the game could not fit on a 50gig Blu-ray disc. This week was the annoucement of a special Limited Edition ‘Steel Green’ PlayStation 3 and matching Dualshock 3 control. There is no SIXAXIS standard controller in this package. So it’s clear to say that MSG 4 will be full rumbling goodness.
