Versus - Soulcalibur III and Soulcalibur IV Part 1

  Originally I was going to conclude my Soulcalibur reviews by talking about Soulcalibur III alone.  Of all the games in the series it's by far my favorite, and that's a huge accomplishment after how much time I put into Soulcalibur II.  However as I began to work out what I would say about the game I found myself frequently comparing it to it's successor Soulcalibur IV.  The two games are very similar in gameplay, but the differences between the two are really the case study for what future Soulcalibur games need to focus on.  So lets get started with the best of the series, Soulcalibur III!

  This installment of the Soul series debuted in North America in October of 2005, and did so strangely before it's Japanese release.  The arcade version wouldn't appear until the following year, and the game would only appear for the PS2, unlike Soulcalibur II which saw a version on all major home consoles.  Also unlike II, III would not have any special guest characters from other franchises.  No Link of Zelda fame, nor Todd McFarlane's Spawn or Necrid.  Not even Namco's own Heihachi Mishima would make an appearance.  At the time I thought this was disappointing, now I think it's definitely a plus.

  This game would reintroduce the character of Siegfried as a default playable with a unique move set, which hasn't been the case since Soul Blade where he clamed Soul Edge for himself and thus became Nightmare for Soulcalibur and Soulcalibur II.  III also had Nightmare as a default playable, but a new Nightmare that series fans were unfamiliar with.  
  Also new to the series was Tira, Setsuka, and Zasalamel.  Each of these characters were solid additions that improved upon the depth of the battle system as well as the roster of characters.
  The storyline to this game was actually really good, especially for a Namco fighting game.  Players were finally treated to a serious throw-down between Soul Edge and Soul Calibur in a battle between Siegfried and Nightmare.  The story could be experienced by playing the Tales of Souls mode that took the chosen character on a journey across Europe and Asia in pursuit of their own ambitions.  It played out in a level by level manor with the occasional option to choose a path or stop and face special bonus opponents who may be unlocked if you defeat them.
  The biggest and most welcome addition to this game is the character creation mode Create A Soul.  For the first time players could actually build their own custom character out of parts purchased with gold won from other modes or earned via achievements.  The level of customization was fairly extensive with hundreds of parts available at the start and hundreds more unlocked through play.
  Finally there was an additional mode called Chronicles of the Sword which told an alternate story about Soul Edge based in a fictional land thrust into war.  A special custom character of your own making was the main character and the game involves moving characters around a map and attacking strongholds and other characters in either a rock-paper-scissors battle or you could choose to face the opponent in a standard Soulcalibur battle.
  However you play this game it's a huge undertaking that will keep you involved for weeks.  Between leveling up your custom characters to learn new disciplines or job classes or earning enough gold for new weapons and equipment, Soulcalibur III had a lot to offer for play value and enjoyable experiences.
  There really were only two flaws with this game.  The first was that getting new disciplines for your character could take entirely too long, and there was no way of knowing if the job class you picked would level up to have the Soul discipline of the character you desired.  As a Siegfried fan, I'd have to struggle along and play 600+ battles with other characters just to unlock the Knight job class, then likely 50+ more to level up to Soul of Siegfried style.  This is easy enough for people who have friends to play with in versus mode, but for single player it's way too time consuming.
  The other problem was that the save file could corrupt on you if you deleted or moved other files on the memory card your SC III file was on.  Usually this resulted in losing your Chronicle of the Sword data while leaving the rest of the save data alone, but for a few players it ruined the entire save, and even their memory cards.  A major flaw to be sure, but unintended and with proper precautions avoidable all together.
  That said, Soulcalibur III proved itself to be a great game and any fan of fighting games can have a great time with this installment.  Fighting games don't normally have a great deal of depth, which makes it stand out all the more.  I still recommend this game, even with it being five years old.  Unfortunately, it's only playable on the PS2 or early PS3 models if you have the game disk.
  That's it for part 1 of this versus match up.  Next time we'll take a look at Soulcalibur IV and see how the PS3/XBox 360 chapter in the Soul series managed to turn to the dark side.

Equipment - Consoles: Old Vs. New

    I just wanted to take a moment to talk about the durability of video game consoles.  You no doubt are familiar with the issues the PS2, PS3, and XBox 360 faced.  Disk read errors, red rings of death… Even the Wii had it's issues with it's System Menu 4.0 update rendering your sleek little Nintendo console a white, slanted brick.  High technology sure has it's price.

    Rewind twenty years, it's the age of the original Nintendo Entertainment System.  The old gray box wasn't without it's own issues.  Stick a game in, shut the lid, click in the power button and… nothing.  What did you do?  Power off, slide out your game, blow on it, blow on the console, wiggle things, press down something, insert another game maybe.  Everyone had a trick that got the bugger to work eventually.

    How about the Wii?  If I put a disk in and nothing happens, what do I do?  Blow on it?  Push the disk in firmly?  In this day and age of next gen consoles there is one thing for certain, if it won't work you are more or less screwed.  Unless you are the savviest of tech geeks you're either on the phone with Nintendo's Help or in the market for a new console.

    I understand that these consoles are much needier devices than the older systems.  High end graphics, bluetooth, wifi, and internal hard drives all provide a number of things that could go wrong at any time, whereas the Atari 2600 - 7800, Sega, and Nintendo only had a motherboard and a cartridge slot for the most part, not to mention just simple RF or AV ports and your trust controller ports.  Very simple in this age that now lacks RF and controller ports (favoring HDMI, Component, Optical, and USB).

    There exists though another reason why consoles have become more fragile, a reason now long forgotten.  In the 1980's there was a video game crash of sorts.  Customers were't interested in consoles anymore and stores were quickly replacing displays of Ataris, Intellevisions, and Colecovisions with board games and card decks.  When Nintendo emerged on the scene here in the States they had a steep hill to climb.  There was no room for error as even the slightest slip up would forever doom the market to obscurity.  This resulted in the NES becoming a massively popular system, as well as the creation of the current video game era.

    Today games are a corner stone of companies like Sony and Microsoft.  Major games have productions that rival major motion pictures and release dates that the later schedule around.  E.T. on Atari had a six week development time from inception to release, Final Fantasy XIII was in development for over four years, both were highly anticipated titles for their times (ignoring the fact that E.T.'s flop lead to the 80's video game crash).  The industry is so huge now there really is little fear of it ever coming to an end, unlike the early days of Nintendo.  There is no razor's edge these days, just ups and downs.

    The consequence of this is that the same care and attention that went into the NES has been traded for mass production and lowered development costs.  What used to take only six weeks to three months takes years now, and in some cases more money than any single Atari or NES game grossed in it's time.  Naturally cuts have to be made where they can in order to curb time and lower prices for the consumer.  Unfortunately that sometimes means we're left staring at red rings and empty wallets.

    It's no wonder that old games are seeing a second life.  People are dusting off their old consoles for another go, even in this age of HD and 3D.  I think the new innovation in systems need to be reliability, not motion controls.  I'm confident that ten years from now I'll be able to hook up my NES and play The Legend of Zelda with a little tweaking.  I don't think my PS3 will survive that long.  My PS2 is showing it's age already, being unable to remember the date if the power is out even a moment.  And my PS2 is a slim, so it's not even as old as some of the others that exist out there.

    In conclusion while todays games are very gorgeous and tons of fun, the consoles are definitely letting us down, and I think it's high time we start remembering what it was about games that attracted us all in the first place; Reliability and simplicity.  Fun isn't determined by how it looks, but how it's played.