SoulCalibur II (GameCube)

It doesn't differ much from a fighting set up, with no level based play, but to be honest, that would only hinder it, It's unique engine, with a not so difficult but tricky single player world to compete in, and many weapons, arenas, costumes, and special items to buy, you truly are satisified. The characters are terrific, with a largw variety, and the GC offering Link from Zelda as a guest (who truly isnt that bad as a fighter, though not my personal favourite).

However, where this game truly picks up marks for me is the fantastic multi player modes which you can unlock throughout single player. Once you have unlocked most weapons and arenas, you can have a great time with your friends, rivalling muliti players such as Night Fire and Smash Brothers Melee as a truly great game.

This for me is the game of the year, and if you don't buy it soon, you are truly missing out.

Soul Calibur II is the long-awaited sequel to one of the all-time greatest fighting games.
For the majority of players, the most significant difference between Soul Calibur II and its predecessor will be cosmetic, though the visuals haven't been overhauled completely. The returning characters all look different and the stages are all new, but many of the animations (even for some of the new characters) are recycled from the previous game, as is the flow and feel of a typical match. As before, gameplay involves four buttons, corresponding to your character's horizontal slash, vertical slash, kick, and guard. Using various combinations of these and the directional pad, you can make your characters unleash dozens of different moves. A number of the characters even have alternate fighting stances, which they can readily switch between to vary up their attacks.

There's a two-tiered rock-paper-scissors system here that's more or less identical to the system that worked so well in Soul Calibur: Low attacks hit high-blocking opponents, mid attacks hit low-blocking opponents, and high attacks tend to beat out mid attacks. Additionally, vertical slashes tend to have priority over horizontal slashes but can be dodged laterally, while horizontal slashes can counter an opponent who's sidestepping too often. Add in guard impact moves, which all characters can use to deflect their foes' attacks, and soul charge moves, which all characters can use to power up their attacks, and you've got a deep, tried-and-true combat system. The gameplay has been tweaked since Soul Calibur, to account for some of the issues that highly experienced players of the previous game picked up on. However, most players won't really notice the different properties of crouching or of lateral movement or things like that. Of further note, the game controls well using the default PS2, Xbox, and GameCube controllers. The PS2 controller is best suited, and the GameCube's directional pad is a little small, but all of these are responsive and more than serviceable with the game.

All of the Soul Calibur cast returns either in form or in spirit. From the samurai Mitsurugi to the undead pirate Cervantes, from the nunchaku-wielding Maxi to the female ninja Taki, from the bizarre Voldo to the aptly named Nightmare, most all the old favorites are intact, each with a smattering of new moves. Some have changed more than others, but for the most part, tactics and combos that worked well in Soul Calibur still work well here. There are a number of new characters in the game, though aside from the exclusive character in each console version of the game, only two characters are completely new: Raphael, a fencer whose feints and ripostes suitably capture the elegance and effectiveness of this fighting style, and Talim, a young girl whose speed and expertise with her twin blades make up for her small stature.

The special-guest characters in each version of the game are well done in their own right and are about as fully realized as the rest of the cast. The PlayStation 2 version gets the Tekken series' grizzled old karate master, Heihachi Mishima. The Xbox version gets Spawn, Todd McFarlane's muscle-bound comic book antihero. And the GameCube version gets none other than Link from The Legend of Zelda. These characters have been heavily promoted and talked about, and though none of them fits in very well with the rest of Soul Calibur II's characters, they each look good, are competitive, and have their own unique fighting styles. Heihachi has all the ferocious kicks and punches that make him a powerhouse in Tekken and looks better than ever before. Spawn has a limited ability to fly and can inflict massive damage with his ax. And Link's got all his classic moves and all his classic weapons, including the boomerang, the bow, and the bombs.

Link is exclusively present in the GameCube version of the game.
Another character is new to the home versions of Soul Calibur II and is not in the arcade original: Necrid, a Todd McFarlane creation specifically designed for this game. Necrid is surprisingly fast and powerful and fights with a ghostly weapon that mimics the other fighters' techniques. But this hunched-over, bloated action figure of a fighting game character seems like he was ripped out of some other game and thrown in here. Surely, it's great to have as many characters as possible in a fighting game. But there's also something to be said for having a cohesive look and style across all the characters. Each fighter in Soul Calibur for the Dreamcast, though remarkably different, at least looked like he or she belonged in the same game as all the other fighters in the lineup.

At any rate, the exclusive characters represent the biggest difference between the three console versions of Soul Calibur II, and if you're trying to decide on which version to get, you should probably go for the one with the character you'd most like to play as or against. Or if you have a home theater system and an Xbox, then the Xbox version is the way to go, since it features 720p HDTV support and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. The other two versions are no slouches either, though, and natively support surround sound and widescreen progressive scan displays.

Like it's predecessor, it boasts amazing graphics. The character models are superb, fighting and reacting the way you would think they should. A huge amount of detail has been put into every little possible touch, like hair blowing in the wind, or the characters' facial expressions after being whacked, stabbed etc. There's also the stunning backdrops, that aren't just 2D, but full-blown 3D. Gorgeous architecture can be seen on the building, water running smoothly in a quaint little river, everything imaginable is there. But enough about it's looks...

The gameplay. Good or Bad? Good. No matter what console your playing it on, you will lose yourself in the controls. At times you'll forget the control pad's even there!

The longetivity of the game is HUGE. Aside from all the normal beat'em up options (Versus mode, Survival etc.), Soul Calibur 2 has the fantastic 'Weapons Master' mode, where your a character of your choice, battling your way through an adventure type mini-game. Of course it's not just fighting. You have little challenges like trying to stay on a platform before the wind blows you off. You then gain experience which then can be used to buy an absolute truck-load of weapons to equip to your character for fighting (There must be 1000's!!).

Of course, it's up to you if you want the game or not, but when you get this much fun, quality and longetivity in a game, you'd be a fool not to own it.