SoulCalibur V (PS3)

Soulcalibur 5 is the latest instalment from the long running fighting game series. The franchise started its life in the mid-nineties as an arcade release dubbed Soul Edge. Since then the weapon duelling saga has been rechristened Soulcalibur and made its way onto the home consoles. I first became acquainted with the series when Soulcalibur 2 caused some buzz by supplementing its roster with an exclusive character that was unique to the version it was being played on. As a PS2 owner I had to settle for the Tekken fighter Heihachi whilst Xbox and Gamecube users had the far cooler comic book ... more

Ok, for a start, this game was released in an unfinished state, whatever reasons for that are simply conjecture, but that doesn't change the facts. The game has a bare-bones story mode, but this will not satisfy anyone brought up on previous titles in the series. The mode itself is totally linear and only deals with the story of some of the newer characters. There are no endings for the large proportion of the characters availiable. But who cares right? This is a fighting game, how's the fighting? Well instead of bogging down with opinion, let's look objectively. The system has been stripped ... more