Soul Calibur IV Review

Way back in 1996 I got a chance to play an all new arcade game at my local Laser Quest. With quite a large group of people gathered around it I knew it had to be something good. Had they finally got the brand new shiny Tekken 2 that I wanted to play, or even better the much anticipated Virtua Fighter 3? Alas the answer was no. It ended up being a little game called Soul Edge, or as we called it Tekken with swords. And with the game coming from the same team as Tekken it was easy to see why the comparison was made, and being compared to such a classic wasn't a bad thing. The graphics were great and the game played fantastic, even better shortly after playing the game I found out it was due for release on the PlayStation. My love affair with the Soul series had its first seeds planted.

Fast forward to sometime in 1999. I was bored of fighting games now and just started to swap between different gaming genres. The fighting games around just seemed to be updates with a few extra characters and very little changing from one title to the next. This all changed though when I decided to pick up Soul Calibur for my Dreamcast after going round a friend's house and being stunned by what I saw. The game I had forgotten about long ago now had a new name, and looked so much better while playing like a dream. Even the roster had now been changed with the inclusion of Yoshimitsu from the Tekken series and several other new faces. I had found a reason to play fighting games again and that reason was Soul Calibur, a game that is still considered one of the best fighting games of all time. With the inclusion of Mission Mode, gamers finally had a reason to keep on playing the game after beating the Arcade Mode, aside from pulling it off the shelf when your mate popped round to get his ass kicked.

Since then I have played each of the Soul Calibur games in the series even going as far as to buy all 3 versions of Soul Calibur II just so I could play as each one of the unique characters released on each system the game was released on. (Gamecube got Link from Zelda; The PlayStation 2 got Heiachi from Tekken and the Xbox got McFarlane's creation Spawn)



So when Soul Calibur IV was announced it was with little surprise that I was excited to play the game. Even more excited than that fateful morning I woke up early and sat around in my underpants waiting to download Soul Calibur on the XBLA, only to realize that it was 6am and I still had hours left to wait before I could get my hands on it. Yes, the same Soul Calibur game that has sat 10 feet away from me on a shelf for the Dreamcast that I haven't been interested in playing for so long.

So when Soul Calibur IV popped through the letterbox of the Console Heroes UK offices, it was with very little hesitation that I switched the phones off, drew the curtains, and grabbed some snacks before putting the disk in my 360. Who should I play as first, my old favorite Sueng Mina? Or should I go for Mitsurugi or maybe some random character? I ended up picking Yoda. Yes, the same little old green hermit from Star Wars. I will admit I was quite worried about how Yoda would fit in within the Soul Calibur world, and my worst fears were proved to be right. Everyone likes the little green guy, and with good reason as he is a great character in the Star Wars universe, however he should have stayed there and sent Obi-Wan Kenobi or some other hero instead. To say the character just doesn't fit in could be seen as harsh but its true, you will notice this more when you fight against him and all your attacks are sailing over his head, while your low attacks hardly seem to damage him. Heck, shove one of the guys from the films that lives for 2 seconds into the game instead as long as they aren't 2 feet tall and play like crap we won't mind. Sorry to say, but as guest stars in the Soul Calibur series go, this is probably the worst.

The good news is though that one bad Jedi doesn't have the power to ruin the game though even though you have to play through Arcade mode with them to get your hands on the real bad guy. That bad guy is Jacob Nion aka StarKiller, Darth Vader’s Sith Apprentice from the upcoming Star Wars: Force Unleashed game. Well as you all know Jacob is Vader’s secret apprentice, but you probably don't know how it all came about. We all remember the events of Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith when Order 66 was put in effect and the extermination of the Jedi began. During these events, Darth Vader traveled to the Wookie homeworld of Kashyyyk to seek out any Jedi taking refuge there. He hit the jackpot when he stumbled upon Kento Nion and a fight quickly broke out between the two, which resulted in Vader using the Force to choke Kento. Seeing this unfold, Jacob used the force to take Vader's lightsaber. Sensing the potential of the young boy he quickly finished off Kento and killed a group of Imperial Soldiers that had witnessed the events and whisked Jacob away to train in secret as his apprentice to carry out Order 66 and ultimately stand with him to kill Vader's master Darth Sidious.



But how does he play? The character may not be your usual Soul Calibur fighter, but he slots in okay as opposed to being another character just wedged in that isn't needed. Both Yoda and StarKiller both use Force powers in the game as well as the standard moves. The Force has a separate small bar underneath the screen, which depletes when the powers are used and refills over time as you'd expect. Some of StarKiller's really cool moves include a throw that if positioned on the edge of the ring facing the middle ends up with your opponent getting flung over the edge. You also have force pulls to drag your opponents closer and lightning to hurl from your fingertips while you’re in mid air. We all know that the inclusion of the Star Wars characters is nothing more than a marketing deal for both Soul Calibur IV and The Force Unleashed to get more attention, but it is great to see that at least with StarKiller they got it right and he fits right in with the Soul Calibur world.

Now that all the Star Wars stuff is out of the way we can get onto the real meat of the game. In this iteration of the game you get everything you would expect to see and a whole lot more. From the Menu screen you see there is a whole host of options to choose from. In the singleplayer tab we have the Story mode which will see your character fight over five stages as they try to get their hands on or destroy Soul Edge or Soul Blade, and also give you the chance to unlock some characters along the way.

Then we have Tower of Lost Souls, which will see you tearing your hair out as you fight to ascend to the top of the tower, unlocking items and weapons along the way. Essentially these are split into groups of 3 stages or so that will require you to meet certain conditions to unlock items and weapons taking breaks in between a set amount of floors to change characters or to just to take a break. Once you have completed the first twenty floors however, the Descend the Tower option will now be open to you. This is basically the survival mode; you get to pick 2 characters and battle your way through as many stages as possible with your health not replenishing. Tower Of Lost Souls is everything you would expect from the mission mode in a Soul Calibur game. In other words challenging, frustrating and fun all at the same time.

There is also the usual Arcade and Training modes, with Arcade seeing you pit your wits and test your reflexes in battle over 8 Stages in the best of two battles. Training is training, as you would expect to see in any other game. You can spend time in training to practice combos and get a better feel for each character against enemies who will perform only the actions you set them to. This can help a lot when you're trying to figure out which combos and attacks are best under specific circumstances.



Returning to the main menu, you'll see the usual Versus modes, where you can choose to compete in Standard or Special Versus, the difference being that Special includes Weapon and Equipment effects. Sadly there is no Team Battle mode which would have been a nice inclusion, but I guess we can't have everything, and you will probably only play this when someone turns up at your door for a game.

The same versus options are available in the Xbox Live section of the menu screen, with the only difference being able to play the games Ranked or in a Player Match. So how is the online side of things? Well depending on whom you ask it’s either really laggy or its fine. I have had mixed experiences with it. My first game against some guy in China was a bit laggy for one round, then it was fine for the next two. The next game I played against someone in America was nearly unplayable and suffered from terrible lag, yet the American I played after that suffered no lag at all. To combat this you should just play with people that have good connections. The best way to find out how good their connection is is to look at the bars at the side of their names when you browse for games. If its a 4 you should have no trouble; even with 3 you will probably be ok. Just avoid the poor connections with 2 bars or lower and your gaming experience should be lag-free. You can also view the usual leaderboards as well and see how your mates are getting on with the game in Arcade and Online as well as viewing their Online fight history. The game will see the usual one move wonders though as all fighting games seem to get, where your opponent will just do the same move over and over again to get a cheap win. That’s not the game's fault though, it's down to the crap gamer you're playing against.

Next up is Character Creation, where you can purchase characters, give new weapons and items to the ones currently available, or create your own character. Your created characters do have to have one of the normal character's move sets so you can't mix your favorite moves. There is more than enough options to modify your character though to make them stand out from others you will see on Xbox Live, especially since different items have different effects on weapons, and you can also set up different skills to use in battle. The only way to get gold to pay for the items is to play the game, and lets face it that is what you got the game for in the first place, so if you don't have enough money for that eye patch you always wanted keep playing. One thing you can't do is customize Star Killer or Yoda apart from giving them a gem and a different Light Saber that looks exactly the same, this is a missed opportunity but Lucas Arts didn't want people making their own Jedi for some reason.

Next up we have Museum, and let me just start by saying that it's great to see how much work has gone into this. First up we have the Chain of Souls which contains Character Profiles, relationships between characters, and also who is after which sword. The character profiles are pretty detailed to say the least and a lot of thought has gone into them that you will want to read half of them at least.



Then we have the Art Gallery which contains everything from Illustrations, Character art, Promo Items and more. You can view any items you purchase in a slide show as well, but you will probably be saving all that gold for the Eye Patch mentioned earlier rather than dropping it on some concept art.

Next up is the Event Theater, which shows all the Opening and Ending movies for any character's story you have finished. Along with a few other bits and bats thrown in for good measure.

Lastly we have Battle Records, which is just a fancy way of saying "Achievements you have unlocked", as there is nothing more than that under this tab. It would have been nice to see a list of your wins and losses and a few other details but they are all missing unfortunately, but this was probably tacked on for the Playstation 3 players so they can compare what they have done with their 360 owning mates.

Well that’s all the boring crap out of the way, now its time to tell you how this thing plays. To put it simply, friggin' excellent. I put the game in and ended up just playing through the game until about 3am when I finally realized what time it was, while trying to avoid things like eating, bathroom breaks, and all the other things I should have been doing instead of playing this game. Some characters could do with a bit more balancing, as some are a lot stronger than they need to be, while others seem to have been slowed down a touch and had the damage they do reduced.

The sword and armor effects work great, with some characters playing much better with the right set up, and can make a weaker player more balanced against an opponent on live or against the CPU. With over 30 characters to mess about with and customize, the only thing stopping you is the amount of items you have unlocked and the gold you have in the game. The characters for the most part play differently to each other with only a few being similar to each other. It would have been nice to see some of the old characters that were dropped from previous games make a return, but there is still a character for everyone to play as. From the speedy Sueng Mina, to the weird Voldo, to the brute power of Astaroth, there will be ones that you loathe and like, just as you would expect in any fighting game. It's all about finding which character is best for you and the most fun to play as.

The gameplay is tight, the controls are great, and this is what you expect and want to see in a Soul Calibur game. Heck it's what you want to see in any game. The story mode is pretty short with only 5 stages, but when you consider that you are sometimes fighting against 4 enemies per stage then you can understand why there are only 5 stages.

A lot of people in the past have said can you imagine what Mortal Kombat would be like if the game play was as good as the fatalities. Well imagine no longer as in Soul Calibur IV you get to see Namco’s take on fatalities called Critical Finishes. In this game you get to do something called a Soul Crush by repeatedly attacking and having your attack blocked. Sort of like the armor break system but on a more spiritual level. Eventually you will hear a crack sound which will leave your opponent open for a moment when this happens you just tap your LB button and you will initiate a Critical Finish. Unlike in Mortal Kombat you won't see any blood and guts but they are still pretty entertaining to say the least but without the 20 million button inputs.

So to wrap things up Yoda was a bad idea, but other than that the gameplay is everything you would expect. The graphics are as shiny as you would expect them to be, the sound is great and there is more than enough here to keep you entertained for quite sometime. Am I a bit biased towards Soul Calibur? Maybe, maybe not. I like good games and this is one of them, and it's worth a try at least even if you’re only a bit of a fighting game fan. Take the gamble, you will be glad you did.

Soul Calibur XBLA Review

Soul Blade/Edge was just Tekken with swords but still amazed quite a few people and they hoped that they would get to see a follow up. Shortly after Soul Calibur was announced and appeared in arcades worldwide, and people dreamed of a home version. What nobody expected was to see what appeared on the Dreamcast, the conversion was a work of art and turned out a lot better than anyone had hoped for, and is probably still one of the best Soul Calibur games in the series. So when I found out that I would be able to get my hands on the game today courtesy of the Xbox Live Arcade I was rubbing my hands with joy, heck I actually got up at 6.30am hoping that it may go on the marketplace early, Unfortunately it didn't appear until 9.30am, as soon as it did I was downloading straight away and staring at the download percentage willing it to go faster.



I first ventured into the arcade mode from the main menu and I was shocked by what I saw, each one of the unlockable characters were already unlocked including Inferno and the Edge Master. So I backed out of the character selection screen to the main menu and thought I must have missed something, upon checking what was still included and what had vanished my heart sank. The much loved mission mode had vanished, gone without even telling me. If you have never had the pleasure of the mission mode, it is basically how you unlock some of the characters, weapons and stages for the game as well as a few other things. When i finally regained my composure I was shocked again, no online play. So how the heck am I supposed to pwn some noob American called Docman88 at the game, he can't really pop round for the afternoon to play it can he.



Despite these two major faults though Soul Calibur is still a great game and probably one of the best fighting games on the 360, its just the only time you may play it is when a mate calls round and you fancy a game before Soul Calibur IV is released, or just to kill a quick 30 minutes here and there. Essentially this game is an Arcade version of the Dreamcast game with Time Attack, Survival And Extra Survival (You hit your enemy once to beat them and vice versa) added on to the normal Arcade mode. The controls are pretty good though and work well with the 360 pad, so you wont be moaning about them like everyone did with Street Fighter 2's dodgy controls. The graphics are very shiny and pretty awesome to look at when you consider this is just an XBLA game. One fault I did find though was playing on medium just seemed to easy, it feels like they dumbed down the difficulty level a bit, but thats easily fixed in the options menu.



Also the musuem mode now feels tacked on where before you had to earn the right to see stuff, not just complete the game with all characters. Talking about the characters Sueng Mina now seems to be a bit weaker than before, but that could just be me as I havent played the Dreamcast version in a while, Siegfried and Knightmare fans will be glad though as there is little change to them if any and they still inflict a major amount of damage with very little effort. Like all other fighting games there is a mix of good and crap characters, but enough choice for everyone.



So should you buy Soul Calibur? I would have to say yes, when you consider some of the crap that costs 800 points on the marketplace then this is definetly worth it. What your getting is one of the best fighting games around for £5 or $10 depending on where you live, whats better that Bigmac meal that will last you 10 minute and make you feel hungry again 10 minutes later, or a gem of a game you can play every now and then for the same price. Face it your fat enough and could do with skipping a meal so get this instead.

Since this is not a full retail game my score is worked out for an arcade game.

The Bourne Conspiracy Review

Who doesn't like the Bourne series of films starring Matt Damon? When you mention the Bourne series everyone thinks Matt Damon, so why in the heck did he turn down the chance to be in the game? Your going to love this, apparently he turned down the role because of the violence in it, Yep that’s right he turned down the game because it was going to contain violence. The Bourne films that he starred in featured absolutely no violence at all in them, oh wait they did and that’s why people like the films as its not violence for the sake of violence its story driven violence that without it would make the films shit. Just like if your going to make a game of a film like the Bourne series and just have the lock picking and driving the car, Who the heck wants to just drive somewhere and pick a lock.



I was dreading playing this game after receiving a demo of the game in the post from Sierra along with a note saying this demo is not for review purposes, So don't review the game based on this. I made my mind up playing the demo that the game would be cack and not worth picking up to play. Well I don't know what they did between the demo and the final release but the game just seems so much better now than it did before. Heck I even enjoyed the game and I'm a miserable sod. The demo suffered from camera issues which have thankfully been improved, there are still some times that you will be annoyed by them, but its very rare now and as a result the game now feels a lot better for it.

One thing that I hated about the demo was the car driving level that sees you driving round the streets of Paris, it just seemed to be wedged in when it wasn't really needed. In the final version of the game I still don't like it, but the good news is that’s the only level in the game that sees you behind the wheel of the mini, and thankfully its pretty short as well.



So what is the game all about, the game is about Jason Bourne as you would expect, but rather than just following the films it also sees you taking up a couple more missions from his past just to pad the game out a bit more. One good thing is this isn't your usual game based on a movie dross, as it tends to lean towards the books, and as a result adds that bit more to the characters past.

The game starts off with you trying to kill another assassin called O'Conner who has been hired by the former African dictator Nykwana Wombosiafter after receiving a tip off that you are trying to assassinate him. So its with little surprise that you need to get your would be assassin before he gets you. There's just one problem he has his own men that are trying to stop you getting to him, so the chase is on through the streets of some town in France as you follow his trail to a back street then into a bar where you get to try your hand at some hand to hand combat.



The controls for hand to hand fighting are really simple to use, with X and Y being your attack buttons and A enabling you to block. So just three buttons then? Nope the B button gives you a special finishing move called a takedown that can see you using the objects around you to quickly defeat your enemy if you have enough adrenaline in your meter. (You get adrenaline by fighting and getting headshots with a weapon)That’s not all though, say you have 2 or 3 enemies around you and your adrenaline meter is full, a little tap of the B button starts a quick time event that will flash a button on the screen for you to press for each enemy, dispatching the lot of them in one go. Failure however will see you lose all the adrenaline you would have used to dispatch them.

The shooting in the games not to bad either with you also being able to get behind cover and pop up and shoot, one thing though is you can only see where your aiming when you aren't in cover so its not like Rainbow Six where you can aim a reticule before you pop out, its all down to guess work. One section later in the game will have you screaming at your TV because of it, but if you use the cover wisely and guess where your going to shoot before you pop from behind cover you wont really have any trouble. Again like in the hand-to-hand combat you can also use the adrenaline gauge to dispatch enemies with little fuss at all. The only difference is you will get a quick time event when dispatching a solo enemy when using the adrenaline shot.



One thing that I wasn't keen on was sometimes while fighting an enemy in hand to hand combat you would rarely get another enemy with a gun shooting you from distance, but you can just move backwards to fight round a corner so the bullets don't hit you. It is annoying none the less though and could have been fixed by the programmers so it doesn't happen before the game was actually released, like I said though its just a minor issue and a rare occurrence.

You also have something called the Bourne Instinct, which allows you to see things that are of interest to you, from guns and ammo crates, to enemies and passports. Why people have left passports stood up like birthday cards around the level is a bit strange, either way High Moon Studios put them in to collect for all the gamers that like to track everything in the game down. When you find them all on a level you unlock an extra which you can access from the start screen.



The game spans over 11 levels in total which will take you around 6-7 hours at a guess, which just seems to fit the game just right. (I played the game over 2 days so cant be exact sorry) So it was a nice surprise from the usual to short or to long that it bores you to tears annoyance that we sometimes see with games.

I would have to give the game a thumbs up though, its a good way to waste away a day or two, and worth a try at least. As game companies normally put that a demo may not match the finished article, this is certainly the case with this game. So if you have tried the demo and you have made your mind up about the game then that’s a shame, your missing out on a good game.

Rating Box Stolen from Console Heroes