SoulCalibur IV - PS3

Soulcalibur IV continues the endlessly retold story of souls and swords, once again telling the tale of the swords Soul Edge and Soul Calibur and those who wish to possess or destroy them. The swords are on the fast track to reviving an ancient king, and only the player can stop him from unleashing his conflicted evil upon the world.

Soulcalibur IV continues the series' 3D blade-fighting gameplay with a number of improvements. The ability to break through an opponent's guard from the first game finally returns in the form of destructible armour. In line with the game's high, mid and low attacks, armour in these areas weakens the more you defend against attacks, until it eventually breaks. Also new is a soul gauge, which measures from green to red how much a player has been defending. If the gauge is pushed past red, a Soul Crush occurs, giving the opponent the chance to perform a character-specific one-shot kill known as a "Critical Finish".

Most of the regular cast returns for this fight, and several new characters have been added. The most notable of these are Yoda on Xbox 360, Darth Vader on PlayStation 3, and Darth Vader's Apprentice on both consoles. All three characters have Force powers that use an additional power gauge, which limits how often the powers can be used. Using them beyond the gauge instead causes the character's health to be depleted. Also new is Hilde, an armoured woman who defends her homeland with a long polearm and a short sword against the forces of Soul Edge. The final boss Algol is also a playable character, wielding Soul Edge in one hand and Soul Calibur in the other, wreaking havoc with his teleportation chair. In addition, five "bonus" characters are included, each specifically designed by a Japanese artist, reusing the movesets of the A-list characters.

The regular Story, Arcade, Training and Versus modes remain, but Soulcalibur III's Chronicles of the Sword is replaced by a new endurance-style campaign called Tower of Lost Souls. Players climb the tower and then descend again by fighting waves of enemies, unlocking new items along the way by meeting certain conditions, such as taking no ring-outs or no damage. Versus mode is available in both regular and special variants, with the former enforcing only base characters, while the latter allows the use of individual skills and equipment. New to the series are online modes, which let you play with other players over the internet. Both ranked and unranked matches are available in the same regular and special modes as Versus mode.

New characters and items are unlocked by spending gold earned in online or single-player mode. Some characters are only unlocked by defeating them in single-player mode. Gold can also be spent in the museum to unlock artwork.

Soulcalibur III's character creation feature also returns, allowing you to create your own fighter, usable across all game modes. The selection of character parts was significantly expanded starting with Soulcalibur III, and it's now also possible to customise the equipment of the standard characters, with the exception of the Force users, final boss Algol, and the five "bonus" characters. Unlike in the previous game, equipment is now more than just cosmetic, granting boosts or penalties to HP, defence, attack and various skill points. Skill points can be used to equip new skills, offering abilities such as auto-counter, anti-ring-out, and stat improvements when the soul gauge is low.

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