- For Sega Dreamcast Systems.
.com
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Featuring graphics that surpass even the amazing NFL 2K (
/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000K4C9/%24%7B0%7D ), Soul Calibur is the
martial arts fighting game to end all fighting games and the game
to get if you're a Dreamcast owner. Based on the arcade classic
of the same name, Soul Calibur lets you choose to represent one
of 10 fighters in a series of battles against your peers. If you
can successfully defeat all of your nents, you will then face
the fiendish Inferno in a final showdown that will determine the
e of the world. Each of the game's warriors is armed with a
different deadly weapon--, ax, stave, nunchaku, you name
it--and an assortment of special moves all tailored to that
specific weapon. The warriors include men, women, and creatures
from all over the globe and from various mythologies. Each is
brought to life with amazing motion-capture animation, which
results in incredibly lifelike and realistic duels. If you own a
Dreamcast or are thinking of buying one, do yourself a favor and
add Soul Calibur to your collection. --Mike Ryan
Pros:
* Exceptionally lifelike graphics and animation
* Multiple game modes--1-player, 2-player, team, computer vs.
computer, martial arts demo, and more
* Secrets and extra features will keep players coming back
Cons: * May be too violent for some parents
Review
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Let's get one thing out of the way: Soul Calibur is the best 3D
fighting game ever released in the arcades. Better than Virtua
Fighter 3. Better than Tekken 3. If that weren't enough, the
Dreamcast version one-ups the original arcade release in just
about every way imaginable. Now that we've established that,
let's explore why, and what it is about the Dreamcast version
that raises the bar on fighting games in general.
From its debut at the 1998 Electronics Entertainment Expo, tucked
away in a remote corner of Namco's booth, it was obvious that
Soul Calibur was something special. Namco had pushed the
PlayStation-based System 12 hardware farther than anyone had a
right to expect from such a modest chipset. Namco took what it
had learned from Tekken 3 and built on the ambitious, but
limited, Soul Edge fighting engine. Soul Calibur was not only a
substantial leap in graphics, but in gameplay as well. Employing
a new eight-way directional system in conjunction with a physics
engine that took weapon weight into account, Soul Calibur's
gameplay reached new heights in both complexity and depth.
Perhaps one of the most crucial additions was the inclusion of
the tech-roll found in Tekken 3. No more lying on the ground as
your nent rained down attacks from the sky. Just a quick tap
of the guard button and you were back on your feet, quick as a
whistle. Graphically, the game was a fireworks display of
particle effects, complex polygonal character models, and a
light-sourcing tour de force, all running at a blazing 60
frames-per-second.
The short of it is, if you haven't played Soul Calibur, you need
to. For sheer adrenaline working in tandem with eye-melting
graphics, nothing could touch it. What then, does the Dreamcast
version (Namco's first "real" game developed for archrival Sega
in ages) of Soul Calibur do to leapfrog past its arcade
counterpart in every way possible?
To begin with, the most obvious enhancement are the graphics.
Despite the lack of a prerendered FMV intro, the likes of which
we're used to seeing from Namco, the opening offered here will
drop more jaws than Muhammed Ali. Think of the intros usually
seen in Capcom games like Marvel vs. Capcom, but rendered in
full, hi-res, 60fps 3D (with a splash of Samurai Shodown thrown
in for good measure), and you're not even close to imagining how
awesome the intro to Soul Calibur for the DC looks. Picture a
first-person camera zooming in over some sandy horizon, as
weapons slam into the foreground. Keep going until the weapons
are replaced by a swiftly approaching Kilik (the staff user in
SC). Trigger an impressive sequence of character cameos and a
dynamic soundtrack, and there you have it. This has to be seen in
person to appreciate. It looks so good it might as well be CG,
because five years ago, graphics like these were impossible.
The reason the arcade version couldn't be ported home to the
PlayStation was due to hardware limitations. Despite the fine
conversion of Tekken 3 to the PlayStation, Soul Calibur on
System-12 used an extremely high a of RAM to enable effects
like Z-buffering and other processor-taxing effects - effects
that were not present in Tekken 3. The Dreamcast, on the other
hand, represented the perfect solution to Namco's problems. With
hardware roughly ten times as powerful as the PlayStation, the DC
can not only manage Soul Calibur's graphic fireworks, but also
enhance them by leaps and bounds. With characters boasting not
only improved polygon counts, but high-resolution textures, each
member of Soul Calibur moves around each stage looking larger,
tougher, more solid, and more detailed than ever before. For
example, Astaroth's alternate costume sprouts Godzilla-like
spikes out of his back (these spikes wobble as he moves), along
with a tall Alfalfa-esque hairdo that swings and sways depending
on what direction he's moving in. Soul Edge alumni and
Siegfried's alter ego, Nightmare, wields the Soul Edge itself,
with an eyeball set in the center that looks around at the
proceedings independently of the . Details like hair,
clothing, and accessories all move in rhythm with an extremely
realistic physics model. Improving the quality of the characters
wasn't enough for Namco's programmers though. They also added a
muscle-flexing system that causes pectorals to ripple during
victory poses, s and buttocks to jiggle realistically
(read: subtle, not exaggerated as in Dead or Alive), and skin to
stretch in a most natural way, with not a polygon tear in .
These characters look incredible, and some benefit from the
enhancements more than others (Lizardman's tail no longer looks
like a polygonal mess). Everything looks perfectly smooth
(especially faces), with minimal blockiness, putting the models
in VF3tb to shame. This is an extremely solid-looking game. The
characters have also been outfitted with an extensive set of
facial expressions that add greatly to the game experience. Take
Mitsurugi, for example. With every slash accompanied by a
grunt or yell, his face synchronizes the appropriate expression
as well. Even during win poses, each character mouths his own
victory speech. Even little things like fingers are individually
rendered.
Weapons are also impressive enough to simply sit back and watch:
The blades on Voldo's twin katars move independently; Kilik's bo
flexes with each swing; and metallic weapons like Mitsurugi's
feature specular highlighting (think Gran Turismo, but
better) that reflects the environment around it. Other things,
like head tracking, dust clouds kicked up by the characters'
feet, and amazing real-time shadows (check out Ivy's flaccid
whip- in practice mode for a good idea of how cool simple
shadows can be), round out the visual impact. Soul Calibur is so
detail-intensive that even your character's breath can be seen on
some stages. --James Mielke
--Copyright ©1999 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction
in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written
permission of GameSpot is prohibited. GameSpot and the GameSpot
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