Soul Calibur 2

STORY / GAMEPLAY
The quest for the all-powerful sword known as Soul Edge continues and fighters around the world compete for the right to wield its power. This time fighters can unlock and use over 200 different weapons and items! When it comes to weapon-based combat, Soul Calibur 2 is definitive the winner of the fighting genre! The ability to acquire and use different weapons for each character is actually a feature in contrast to its predecessor. The various weapons have special properties, but now they have greater offensive power at the cost of some defensive power. Also, those weapons do not change the character's fighting style and they are mostly just graphical replacements! The game features seven game modes including Arcade, Time Attack, Survival Mode, Versus Mode, and Team Battle. Much like its predecessor, the gameplay involves four buttons corresponding to your character's horizontal slash, vertical slash, kick, and guard. Using different button combinations and the directional pad, you can make your characters unleash dozens of killing moves. Of course, fighting games are best when played against other human players, and Soul Calibur 2 could not stay without a two-player mode which gets just as entertaining as the first game of the series. Another interesting feature of the game is the exclusive console-specific characters based on the different system versions released: The PlayStation 2 version features Namco's Heihachi from the Tekken universe, while the Xbox version contains Todd McFarlane's Spawn, and the GameCube version boasts Nintendo's Link from The Legend of Zelda saga! Pretty interesting, isn't it? If you ever played and enjoyed the original Soul Calibur, you'll definitely love its sequel since it's so much like the first game with extra features. Soul Calibur 2 is by all means a great fighting game and Namco has once more done a fine job in making a top notch title!

GRAPHICS / SOUND
The graphics are astonishing! Soul Calibur 2 brings the Gamecube's hardware capabilities to its limits and uses them to create a visually stunning package. Many of the character (and background) animations are recycled from the previous game, but for the most part, the game runs smoothly at 60fps and features lifelike character models that were expertly motion captured! The gorgeous backdrops are something you'll notice from the very start and each stage is beautifully designed and heavily animated at the backgrounds! Every once in a while you might detect a very slight hitch in the frame rate, but this is something you can live with and does not act negatively to the gameplay at all. The sound fits very well with the overall setting of each stage and character, offering a handful of CD audio quality music and plenty of speech with a plethora of sampled sound effects!