Multiplayer

Of course, that Yoda stuff is only a worry if you've got some friends to play with - if you don't then you can be content to buttonmash against the CPU 'til your thumbs fall off like overstuffed leeches. The good news though is that if you don't have any pals to go up against in Soul Calibur IV then you don't need to worry since online play has been introduced for the first time in the series – unbelievable though that is.

There are no clever games like Capture the Flag here, the online game is just an extension of the offline two-player Versus matches. Games can be ranked or unranked, with or without special weapons and upgrades. That's all the control you have, other than usual things like the number of rounds and so on.

You can play with up to three other players, although unfortunately two of those players will be left looking at the lobby while the other two fight it out in the arena. The winner of each match stays in the arena while the next player joins the fight.

I can't help but think that perhaps Namco has missed a trick here – it would have been useful for other players to watch the match to try and get some clue as to their opponents' skill. Anything has got to be more exciting than watching the lobby screen for five or ten minutes at a time. After all, we don't have a Playstation Home to relax in yet.


That niggle aside, the online experience feels very polished. Joining matches is a doddle, and the whole experience is surprisingly glitch free. I have experienced the odd dropout, but they're short enough not to affect the gameplay in any way.

Conclusion

Fighting games seem to have gone out of fashion over the last couple of years. Most games are variations on the FPS or racing genre, but it's good to see that the fighting genre still has a place on the gaming shelf.

It's true that Soul Calibur IV doesn't bring much new stuff to the table, but then you could argue that it's difficult to improve on something that was pretty near perfect in the first place.

Sure, there are some flies in the ointment. There are only a few environments to fight in, and they're all fairly static affairs. Given the power of current gen consoles, you'd expect more going on in the arenas, with destructible environments and props to use. Given the use of Havok physics in the game engine, I'd also have expected fewer pre-generated animations and more physics-based animations.

The introduction of Star Wars characters into the line-up is an odd choice at best. Their backstories are a strange combination of Star Wars and Japanese fantasy that don't really fit together properly. What's worse is that Darth Vader is not as much fun to play as you'd imagine. He's not as fast as some of the other characters in the game, and his special moves aren't as satisfying as you'd hope. There's always a feeling that the Star Wars characters are there just as gimmicks, and aren't as well thought through as the more traditional Soul Calibur characters. Still, there are thirty-odd other characters to play and unlock, so nobody's forcing you to use Vader or Yoda.


While arcade and story singleplayer modes will get boring quickly, the Tower of Lost Souls mode is a welcome addition to the game. It's impressive that you can't just blast through the whole tower using the same characters: you're forced to stop and think and choose characters based on their skills, or upgrade custom characters specifically to get you through a particular section of the tower.

Any niggles with the game are just nitpicking, really. What we have with Soul Calibur IV is a franchise that knows when to change things that need improving, and when to leave things alone when they're working just fine. The game is perfectly suited to button mashers and combo collectors alike, although button mashers will only progress so far through the game before they're forced to start using tactics and combos.

Soul Calibur IV is a perfect example of a game that's fun to play – and at the end of the day, that's why we play games. There's nothing more fun than getting a few friends around for a round or two, or firing up the online game and going a few rounds with an online friend (or a complete stranger, for that matter) – and there's an argument that says that too much innovation can ruin that sense of fun.

Namco have a hit on their hands – literally – and there's enough here to keep newcomers and fans of the previous games happy for many hours to come. Now all I need to do is find my skimpy bikini and nunchuks and I'll be ready to join in.