The excitement of the new season is accentuated by the arrival of Soul Calibur IV in the office! Jason Bertrand kinda, um, loses it once he hears the news but in the aftermath he, Ryan O'Donnell, Richard Li, David Ellis, and a blast from Gamevideos past, Mikey rushes up from his new gig elsewhere in the Ziff Davis Media group to school us all on some Mitsurugi.
Itagaki leaving Tecmo (and suing them to boot!) may have had something to do with Ninja Gaiden II not quite being the revolution the fans in the office had hoped it would be. James Mielke, Nick Suttner, David Ellis (again), Richard Li (again), and Shane Bettenhausen argue over whether the game's much-vaunted difficulty is due to it's intense and fast-paced combat or some frustrating design choices.
And, yes, those heathens over at Penny Arcade have now expanded their beastly empire into game development with the release of the first episode of Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode 1. Sean Molloy and I are both suitable impressed with the debut.
Soul Calibur IV launched worldwide 15 years ago, bringing with it the best performance of the series to date.
Hell no. It was the start of the downfall (SCV) of the series. Huge downstep from the giant SCIII
Used to love this series, probably my favorite 3D fighter, perhaps together with the now also dead Dead or Alive (2-3-4), but as with so many games in the fighting genre, their short-term greed (season passes) has made me lose all interest, sadly …
Loved Number 2 and 3( loved all the solo modes like chronicle of the sword ) so was super hyped when 4 came out but the lack of single player content was disappointing. Still love soul calibur to this day though
2 was definitely the golden era of Soul Calibur for me. I was a bit conflicted about it at times because there were 3 different versions (I liked the PS2 version for controls, I liked playing as Spawn the most, and I thought the addition of Link was really awesome). Even so, the single player content was outstanding. Easily the most fun I've had with a fighting game, followed closely by Tekken 5's single player modes
Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 debuted in 2009; ahead of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty's launch, it's time to look back at one of Tecmo Koei's best titles.
From VG247: "Link suits the world of Soul Calibur. The elf-like little twink fit into the roster as well as any sword-wielding fantasy hero could – facing off against the likes of the machiavellian Frenchman Raphael, the inhuman hellspawn Astaroth, or the horny gimp Voldo, the Legend of Zelda guest character fits right in. Weaponry, aesthetic, move set… all of it gels with Soul Calibur’s camp high fantasy world – even when you’re pulling massive bombs out of God-knows-where and hurling them across the stage. It just fits.
You know what doesn’t fit, though? Lightsabers. No amount of sci-fi reasoning, magic, or blaming it on wizards can make Yoda, Darth Vader, and (eurgh) Starkiller fit in the war-torn European and Silk Road settings of Soul Calibur. It just doesn’t track. Why Bandai Namco decided to shoehorn the trio of characters into the fourth Soul Calibur game, then, remains a mystery; it’s damaging to both brands, it makes no sense canonically, and – more than anything else – it’s just all a bit tacky (or should that be Taki?)"
It's all about Soul Calibur 4 on the PS3.
Soul Charge is cool and I'm pretty sure they already have plans to add it to the 4th game.
Starting off with 4 characters might sound strange at first but if you played the series and your a veteran like I am then you know in order to collect all the achievements and get all the characters you would have to play with every character including the slower not so good ones.
To get guest characters you have to make it 5 matches without getting killed in order to unlock a bonus round which then you fight the guest character and kill that person in order to collect them.
The best way to play Soul Calibur is to get in close do as many slice attacks as you can and when the opponent is on the ground continue slashing or kick them.
Also when you get knocked down try to gain distance by rolling.
Lastly if your opponent is striking you either duck or do a kick move to get that person off guard then continue slashing until your opponent is dead.
Ninja Gaiden 2 is cool a little too similar to the first and I haven't really seen anything that has changed.
Same person fighting with weapons only now the story might be better.
Pros: Good combos, fighting skills are cool, story is good, it's a lot easier than the first which was really hard, etc.
Cons: Graphics are the same, Camera angle is still messed up and not on point.
-Lastly as far as competing with MGS4 don't hold your breath there won't be many games for a while that can compete w/ MGS at least until later this year when Sony releases it's other exclusives to the public.
Penny Arcade seems too last gen to me but the game play is decent.
Other than that this episode is good.