The game has been out for a while now and as such deserves a review. Story mode for the game is surprisingly short and disappointing. But the different characters and gameplay makes up for it.
The majority of the characters on Soulcalibur IV’s roster will also be familiar if you’re a fan of the series, though only around half of the 30-plus combatants are available at the outset, including Yoda on the Xbox 360 and Darth Vader on the PlayStation 3. Others are unlocked by defeating them in the single-player Story and Arcade modes, and by purchasing them with the gold that you’re awarded for winning fights. There’s more than enough variety on the roster to ensure that you can enjoy playing as at least a handful of different characters, and a robust customization system gives you the freedom both to edit their appearances and to create your own fighters from scratch.
Regardless of who you play as, Soulcalibur IV is accessible enough that even first-time players will have no trouble performing some powerful and great-looking moves. Rather than memorizing lengthy combo attacks and knowing how to attack your opponent, the challenge here comes from knowing when to attack, when to block, and when to sidestep around the arena. That’s not to say that the combatants in Soulcalibur IV don’t have impressively large repertoires of moves, because they do, it’s just that very few of them are tough to pull off.
Your goal in Soulcalibur IV, of course, is to defeat your opponent by depleting his or her health bar. Alternately, you can win by knocking your opponent out of the “ring,” which is possible in almost all of the game’s beautifully realized arenas. New to the series–though reminiscent of a feature in 1997’s Soul Blade–is the soul-gauge system, which appears alongside the health bar and changes color if you spend too much of your time blocking attacks and not retaliating with your own. When the gauge turns red and your health bar starts flashing, you’re just an attack or two away from entering a defenseless “soul crush” state, at which point your opponent can perform a one-hit-kill critical-finish move. It takes a long time for that to happen, so the soul gauge isn’t always an effective deterrent as far as overly defensive players are concerned, but it at least discourages online players from trying to score cheap victories simply by landing a couple of blows and then blocking until the time runs out.
Ubisoft has been doing very well lately, with the successes of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Assassin’s Creed, and Rayman Raving Rabbids 2. However, they have also announced that the next installment of Splinter Cell is only coming out in March 31, 2010.
As mentioned, Ubisoft also said today that it has raised its guidance for its fiscal full-year sales. Previously pegged at €1 billion ($1.56 billion), the publisher now believes that sales will hit €1.02 billion ($1.59 billion), thanks to gaming-industry market conditions, its first-quarter performance, and the reception of its upcoming games that the publisher received during this year’s E3 Media & Business Summit.
One game that will not be contributing to that growth will be the oft-delayed Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction. As part of its financial report, the publisher noted that Sam Fischer’s next excursion has once again stalled. Ubisoft now expects the game to arrive during its 2009-2010 fiscal year, which runs from April 1, 2009 to March 31, 2010.
We were playing Devil May Cry 4 and thought it was quite good. Firstly the graphics were impressive and the characters flawless. Almost too flawless but isn’t all anime characters. Ladies with big boobs, men with flawless skin and asian features with blue eyes and blond hair. They are like the better version of harajuku girls and boys, or should say, they are the inspiration for the j-fashion culture.
The game started with a story and a beautiful female protagonist singing in a church-like establishment for a ceremony while the main character, Nero is seen running against time to catch her show. No doubt there is a romantic link between the two, the good girl + the bad boy, cliche but always a winner. The usual boy fancies girl but is too proud to show is extended throughout the movie – I personally dislike the whole courting theory but I may be a minority. So the game starts with the assassination of the master of ceremony, an old crusty guy in a vatican-like gear and a tall hat resembling the KKK, by an assassin who looks a lot like an older version of Nero. You will learn your skills here as the game integrates you into this moves.
At first, you are thrilled that you can hack and whack Cirque Du Soleil type of demons with wooden stilt legs, some are equipped with blades for a left/right foot. You can also shoot them with a gun. It almost never kills them unless you do your sword combos with. The good thing about the gun is that if you kill those demons with it, you will get green orbs that gives sustenance to your life and the red orbs which you can use to increase your skill. The graphics were excellent, the monuments and clips in between your games to tell the story is as real as Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within movie.
My only gripe with DMC 4 is that I find the battles to be a tad repetitive. And combat mode to be a little messy when you’re hacking more than 3 monsters/demons at the same time. Otherwise, it’s a pretty good game simply because you want to know its ending.
Of course, it is the ONLY reason why they would have more sales. Metal Gear Solid 4 is a great game and PS peeps are smart enough to make it platform exclusive for themselves because otherwise, they have no edge against other consoles.
With the launch of Rockstar Games’ multiplatform Grand Theft Auto IV in April, many industry watchers expected both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 to experience a significant boost in hardware sales. However, that expectation proved to be unfounded. Although GTAIV floored critics and went on to log a record-breaking $500 million in first-week sales, neither console was impacted in a meaningful way by the release. With Sony releasing the equally lauded console-exclusive Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots in June, the latest NPD Group sales figures reveal the importance of exclusive games in the console-sales race.
According to NPD’s sales statistics for the month of June, Sony’s PlayStation 3 benefitted substantially from the release of Konami and Kojima Production’s top-rated action adventure, logging 405,500 units for the month. That’s nearly double the number of consoles that Sony sold in May, and a far cry from June Xbox 360 sales, which stood at 219,800 units, despite the release of Tecmo’s console-exclusive Ninja Gaiden II.
“Platform-exclusive content usually fuels hardware-system purchases, and PS3 sales certainly reflect the impact of Metal Gear Solid 4,” said NPD analyst Anita Frazier. “PS3 unit sales were the highest of any month outside of that recorded during previous November/December holiday time frames.”
It is one of the best games ever. Life like and the physics of this game is rather impeccable. I really like the graphics and the two assistants that follows me on my back, they do shoot and cover for me :P Unlike some other games where they are just there for show.
PLay it, watch the trailer and then play it on your XBOX.
Rumour has it that XBox has a Wii-mote style remote coming out. It looks like a light sabre to appeal to all geeks and goonies.
Motus Games’ Darwin was officially unveiled this morning on their website, the light saber-esque controller snaps in two uses a number of sensors to track where it is. It does this, according to the company, without the use of the IR receiver that the Wii uses. Motus claims it is far more accurate than the Wii Remote. The device may also work on the Playstation 3, though the developers are being deliberately vague about that.
There’s still a lot more we don’t know about the device than we do know about it. According to the site, which makes no mention of working with Microsoft, the Darwin isn’t ready for sale yet bit is “currently making its way into the hands of developers and publishers” and they’re expecting it will hit stores in less than a year.
Civilization Revolution is similar to the PC titles in the Civilization series. It is a turn based strategy game in which the player can take 16 different civilizations, each with special abilities, from prehistory to modern times and recent future. For the console version, the gameplay has been streamlined and simplified to make the game easier to play for newcomers to the series. A victory can be achieved in four ways: Domination (Capture all enemy capitals using battle methods), Technological (Win the space race to colonize Alpha Centauri by creating a spacecraft), Cultural (Build the United Nations), or Economic (Build the World bank). All of these have different requirements, such as a player controlling all of his or her respective opponents’ capital cities or gaining a large amount of resources. Many things affect what happens with your civilization and other civilizations like the terrain you built your cities on and that effects how successful your city becomes.
Civilization Revolution (full title: Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution, abbreviated title: Civ Rev) is a new iteration of Civilization being developed by Firaxis with Sid Meier as designer for Nintendo DS, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. A Wii version was originally expected but was put on indefinite hold. The lack of a PlayStation Portable version was attributed to a lack of development manpower.
There are 16 civilization leaders you can choose from, from cleopatra to queen elizabeth to mao zedong. Who would would you be?
When the first 2 Diablos came out, I remember my friends staying up till 4am playing that game and we had an 8am exam. It is a game of addiction, because it is SO much fun. There is nothing like slicing demons and fighting all blood and gore. Hell, I can see why they would stay up till 4am for this game. I stayed up till 4am because I was mugging my books, for those who were interested.
Anyway, Diablo 3 is finally out and fans are roaring; it is taking the gaming world, PC, by storm. Check out the awesome trailer and let me know why you love Diablo 3 so much.
Rumour has it, and confirmed by Ubisoft, that Prince of Persia will be swinging to the Wii afterall. There will be several versions for different consoles and Wii not excluded.
According to Ubisoft’s announcement in April, the Prince and his newly stylized digs would appear on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC, with an entirely separate version also swinging to the Nintendo DS. The multiple versions seemed to resolve the discrepancy between recently retired industry tipster Surfer Girl’s leaked title–Ghosts of the Past–and an application to trademark for Prince of Persia Prodigy, filed by series creator Jordan Mechner with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. However, conspicuously absent from Ubisoft’s official reveal was a Wii version of the game, which Surfer Girl said in October was also on the way.
Despite the omission, it now appears as if Ubisoft is hammering away on a Wii version after all. French industry site LiveWii is reporting today that while their writer on hand at Ubidays failed to secure producer and onetime TV presenter Jade Raymond’s digits, he did get confirmation of Prince of Persia for the Wii. The site does not indicate the source of their reporter’s information. As for the details, LiveWii only states that the game was announced as a spin-off to the aforementioned recently announced Prince of Persia titles.
That a new Prince of Persia would not be coming to the Wii is a far more difficult pill to swallow than vice versa. Ubisoft has provided ample support to Nintendo’s console–including just announced new installments in the off-kilter Rayman Raving Rabbids series and the all-new Shaun White Snowboarding–and it makes sense that the publisher would add one of its top franchises to the hot-commodity Wii.
You can start swinging your Wii and exercise with your favorite Prince now.
Did you hear that Jake Gayllenhal will be the cast for Prince of Persia the movie? I get the eyes and all but he is so NOT the right person for it. Does anything Jake look agile to you like the prince? Come on. If they were making a romantic version of Prince of Persia where he got married and have babies maybe Jake will fit in then. Then, you can get me first class seats to its premier.
Well, maybe it’s not the first but heck, it’s rare that a respectable gaming site would give perfect 10 to a game. So Grand Theft Auto IV started off with wobbly last years’ graphics and had loads of potty mouth running around shooting and ramming things over in town. It’s a story about a gangster and it’s gangs, whaddaya expect? The game let you have up to 16 players at a time, what is not to love?
This paragraph alone makes me want to go out and get the game:
One of the many things that set GTAIV apart from its predecessors is Liberty City, which is more convincing as a living, breathing urban environment than anything that you’ve seen in a game before, and bears little resemblance to its namesake in 2001’s GTAIII. Liberty’s diverse population believably attempts to go about its daily business, seemingly unaware that several criminal factions are at war in the city. Niko has no such luck. He’s compelled to start working for one of the factions shortly after arriving, when he learns that his cousin Roman has some potentially fatal gambling debts. Niko’s military experience makes him a useful freelancer for employers in the business of killing each other, and though his reluctance to carry out their orders is often apparent, he does whatever is asked of him in the hope that completing missions for other people will ultimately give him the means to complete his own
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