After crushing the very awesome game God of War II (deserves it’s own post), as sort of an impulse buy I went out and picked up Soul Caliber IV for the PS 3. The reason I got this? I enjoyed playing Soul Caliber 2 with friends on the Xbox, it got good reviews, and it was $10 off at Fry’s!

The one thing I forgot is I really only enjoy fighting games when playing with friends. Especially, if those friends are as awesome at fighting games as I am. AKA Button Mashers!

So while I played through the story mode a couple times once with Mitsurugi, and another time as Darth Vader I grew bored of Soul Caliber IV. I might pick it up and play a round here and there but sadly I don’t see myself ever actually managing to learn all the combos/moves for any character. I’m also not obsessive compulsive enough to go try and unlock all the little sub features. I wish games came with everything already available. I guess if that was the case you’d have nothing to do.

Though my lack of enthusiasm doesn’t mean Soul Caliber IV is a lousy game. In fact it’s a fairly enjoyable iteration of a fun fighting game series. It just lacks the key things I’m looking for in a single player game which is a great plot, combined with smooth gameplay to tell a story I get to participate in. While the fights are fairly fun, they’re about 40 seconds long and the plot is at best “weak”.

I guess you can count the little text scroll before story mode as plot. They did have Darth Vader travel from another dimension to collect the Soul Edge and Soul Caliber for terrorizing the Empire, but this tenuous story needs more Grand Admiral Thrawn to really shine (See Tie Fighter for best Starwars game ever).

Next on my list of games to pick up is SPORE. This game will either be a fun sandbox (I know no plot) or is totally over hyped and will suck. I’m totally looking forward to how they captured a few different game play styles in a single game so perhaps it will keep my attention.