Soul Calibur IV Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I am a huge fan of the Soul series. I remember sinking quarters into the arcade over a decade ago. When Soul Calibur first came out on the home consoles, it was like a dream come true. Many hours were spent playing that game instead of working on papers in college. Soul Calibur 3 was definitely my favorite. I even had the chance to work on the artwork for the UFS card game based on SC3. I think my huge involvement and love of Soul Calibur, especially the SC3, is what ultimately led to some of my disappointment with Soul Calibur 4...
The good:
-- The graphics are incredible! The animations are smooth and the characters move with a beautiful fluidity. The faces in particular look much better with each iteration, and SC4 definitely made leaps and bounds in the character models.
-- Online play at last! Not once did I experience lag. It's fun to practice on the CPU, but far more fun to take on complete strangers. Even if you lose, you get to see how other people play and you start improving so when your friends come over, you can summarily embarrass them.
-- Best character-creation mode EVER. Sure SC4 did not reward you non-stop with character-creation items the way SC3 did, but the depth of the new system is something you have to experience to appreciate. I love the amount of customization you're allowed, though I miss the CC-unique fighting styles.
-- Tower of Lost Souls. They call it that because you will sink hours of your life there.
-- A cool tag-team dynamic that lets you switch characters in the middle of a fight. Definitely useful when you need a variety of styles.
-- Critical Finishes are cool when conditions are right and you can pull them off. I'd rather be beaten with one of those than a Ring Out any day.
The bad:
-- Yoda is cheap. You can't even grab him. In fact, the Star Wars characters seem FAR out of place, but this isn't the first time SC has done crossovers. What bugged me the most is that the Character Creation didn't allow you to make Jedi characters. How utterly unfair to add the license but not allow customized lightsaber wielders.
-- No Team Versus battles. I can't understand why they would remove this, maybe Namco believed if you wanted to play against another human, it's better to do so online in standard/special vs mode?
-- The storyline seems extremely thin, and the character endings are pretty lacking compared to SC3. There's no interactivity in the cutscenes or endings and some of the hidden characters don't even get animated endings.
-- There are no shop girls from SC3!
-- Chronicles of the Sword is gone. It was one of my favorite modes from Soul Calibur 3. It contributes to my overall feeling of a lack of story in this game.
I love most of the additions to the game, including the game modes and some of the new characters. I can't understand why Namco chose to remove some of the modes from the previous game though. They really need to release more downloadable content too. On its own, this is a fantastic game. It has great graphics, a balanced fighting system and enough features to keep you busy for a while. The character creation is something all fighting games should learn from. But ultimately, if compared to past games of the series, you get a sense that this game seems a bit rushed in the substance department. I hope this isn't really supposed to be the last of the Soul Calibur series, because it didn't really tie up a lot of the characters stories in my opinion.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Soul Calibur IV

The world's premier weapon based fighting game franchise returns to deliver a true next generation fighting experience. Set to finally reveal the origins of the Soulcalibur saga, Soulcalibur IV features both new and familiar faces from across the galaxy, seeking the rival swords for vengeance, honor and salvation. In a monumental alliance, legendary Star Wars icons, Darth Vader and Yoda invade the Soulcalibur IV continues the series' tradition of reinventing, enhancing and breaking new boundaries. Now the world's favorite fighting game redefines the entire genre for the next generation of both new, and fiercely loyal Soulcalibur fans.

Get 42% OFF

Click here for more information about Soul Calibur IV

Read More...

Street Fighter II Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I play this game against my husband for fun when we are at home. it is a bonding and childish experience.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Street Fighter II

GREAT ITEM. FOR SUPER NINTENDO. WORKS GREAT. LOTS OF SUPER FUN. GREAT FOR COLLECTORS.The original Street Fighter II is a famous fighting game. Players select from one of eight characters: Ryu, Ken, Blanka, E. Honda, Zangief, Chun Li, Guile and Dhalsim to do battle with. They must then use their combat strengths to defeat the other seven fighters followed by four boss characters: M. Bison, Vega, Sagat and Balrog. Each character represents a certain country and has their own reasons for wanting to win against the others.Each character contains his own selection of basic fighting techniques based on three styles of punches and three styles of kicks. The effect of each of these changes depending on the characters orientation (ducking, airborne or standing still). Street Fighter 2 made famous the "button combination" style of gameplay used to unleash powerful moves specific to each character. These include the ability to project fireballs, channel electricity or capture the opponent in a tight suplex.Street Fighter 2 is one of the most cloned fighting games and its effects on gameplay and fighting games specifically can not be understated. Street Fighter 2 is responsible for making popular several different elements.

Click here for more information about Street Fighter II

Read More...

Soul Calibur IV Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)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.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Soul Calibur IV

The world's premier weapon based fighting game franchise returns to deliver a true next generation fighting experience. Set to finally reveal the origins of the Soulcalibur saga, Soulcalibur IV features both new and familiar faces from across the galaxy, seeking the rival swords for vengeance, honor and salvation. In a monumental alliance, legendary Star Wars icons, Darth Vader and Yoda invade the Soulcalibur IV continues the series' tradition of reinventing, enhancing and breaking new boundaries. Now the world's favorite fighting game redefines the entire genre for the next generation of both new, and fiercely loyal Soulcalibur fans.

Get 32% OFF

Click here for more information about Soul Calibur IV

Read More...

War of the Monsters Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)It's like they took everything that I loved about the monster game genre (King Of The Monsters, Rampage), used it and improved it! So, yes you can feel the king of the monsters feel in it. But, it does it's own thing which is a lot bigger. The single player is very enjoyable and with solid A.I. and absolutely packed with features. You also have options of easy or normal, easy being challenging and normal being hard!. So far I've used Magmo and Ultra. You can really feel the differences. Magmo is super slow, but strong. He's just amazing to watch in action.
Ultra V will probably be everyones favorite. He's like using a transformer or samurai mech toy you had as a kid. Lazer eyes (Complete with the 'bzap bzap' sound effects), a plasma samurai sword and turbo boosters. Every monster I have seen so far is impressive. And, the intro is one of the best I have seen in a game in a long, long time.
The control system becomes 2nd nature within a few minutes of play and the camera is almost flawless. Playing the game with the mechs is an absolute blast. And it feels different then playing with the other monsters. It's hard to explian. Definitely, my favorite character is Ultra V. A Samurai Mech who knows Kung Fu, shoots lazers froms his eyes, has a grappling hookfor the classic 'Get Over Here' move', and a plasma sword. The sound effects of his jet boost are classic, and the metal impact his strikes and landings make are nothing short of spectacular. His Gundam voice has to be mentioned also. My friend has fallen in love with using Robo 47, the American Mech. A very cool robot if I do say so myself. Other cool ones are of course the lava monster, Magmo. Ultra powerful. The rock monster, Agamo who has the best voice in the game. His sound effects are amazing, youcan hear the rock against metal, or whatever surface he is hitting landing on.
The destruction of the city is amazing, eveything is destructible and it visually implemented to perfection. Smooth framrate throught the entire game, for both single and multiplayer modes. It's about as much fun as I have had with a game, maybe ever. It's hard to say whether it will go down as one of my all time faves, because I can't test it's staying power like that yet, but it's a blasr.
It feels like a monster movie come to life. I feel like a little kid playing it. As do my friends. Togera (the Godzilla/Beast from 20,000 feet below) has got to be one of the coolest looking monsters I have ever seen. Especially his Mecha-Togera outfit. His green fire breathe is cool as hell, a great special. I can say the same about all the monsters really. They are straight out of some great campy 50's Horror flic. The designers really captured that great work those old movies did, it makes your imagination feel great while you play. It's like a really great toy come to life. My friend I just got done playing a MARATHON session. We went at it tooth and nail late one night as his Ultra V took on my Robo-47 in an epic 'best of three' fight that took nearly an hour to complete. We unlocked a few secrets. The best being this (Not about Sweet Tooth, who is a secret character in the game!)....is that you can unlock skins! It's become apparent to me that the 4th version is either an entirely new design or an amazing offshoot to the original. This is a very cool treat in my opinion. Unlocking the 4th of each monster is almost like getting a new character. These aren't just skins, but new designs! Kudos to Incognito for including something so cool. And multiplayer, wow. Whereas bouts in most fighting games are over in a few minutes, you can make a single fight last for over 20 minutes. As you learn the levels, you start to understand how to best use the items, and can really keep things challenging. Health and energy icons spawn in specific locations to help make the fights about more than just beating on each other so their is endless replay value. This is some of the most fun I have had with a 'new' game in a long time.

Click Here to see more reviews about: War of the Monsters

War Of The Monsters is an all-out 3D action game where you get to beat up on everyone and everything around you -- you're a hundred-foot monster destroying cities to prove your supremacy!Multiple game modes, great graphics and a fun sci-fi story -- all that plus massive destruction as you try to win the War Of The Monsters!

Click here for more information about War of the Monsters

Read More...