Soul Calibur 2

From my personal opinion this game has been overrated by other games magazines. The reason why I think this is because unlike theses games magazines I have also played Soul Calibur (1), alot. One thing that has beeen ruined by Namco are the voice overs. In Soul Calibur (1) the voice overs are in Japanese and sound great while they have been changed to english in Soul Calibur 2. The reason why this is bad is because they have not only translated the phrases from Japanese into English, but they have also used the same speed with which the phrases are said. You might be hearing something like "The name's Mitsurugi. Dont forget it!" and the pase of the pronounciation of the words will sound very strange. For example they might talk slowly and then suddenly start talking very quickly.

Another dissapointment is that some of the characters from the first Soul Calibur game are made to look, quite pathetic in this one. The two biggest dissapoinments are Astaroth and Cervantes De Leon. Astaroth wears trousers, and in his second costume he wears purple clothes with a purple mask which has whiskers coming out of it while Cervantes' armour looks worse and Cervantes himself is made to look pale as if he was just about to be sick. Most of them are made to look huge by having massive armour. Everything else however is pretty much the same. The graphics are virtually the same as the ones in Soul Calibur on the Dreamcast. The storyline is also still crooked, as somehow everyone manages to find Soul Calibur/Edge and they ALL end up having that one weapon. All the moves are the same, with a few extras thrown in. There are also a few new characters such as Raphael and Necrid. It is good to think that namco have used a different spacial characters in each version of Soul Calibur 2. For instance if you were to buy this game on the Game Cube then you will have Link as your special character, whereas if you bought it on the XBOX you will get Spawn. The good thing about this game is that Namco have added in quite alot of extra features into the game like 'Weapon Master'. This lets you design your own unique weapons which you can use to fight with. But like I said everything is pretty much the same and in some cases has taken a turn for the worse. The fighting, which I have not menshioned yet, is still top notch so that is what makes the game so amazing. All in all this game is very similar to Soul Calibur (1) because it has not been improved sufficiently enough. The fighting experiences are what keep the game's hopes up, and nothing else.

Sound 7/10 - Classic Soul Calibur tunes which, most of the time, are unfortunately blocked by the sound effects.

Gameplay 9/10 - The fighting is top notch as in the first game, and NEVER gets too boring.

Graphics 8/10 - Some improvements have been made from the previous game, but sadly, not enough.

Value 9/10 - There are loads of new modes to select, characters to choose from, and levels to fight in.

Final Score 8.0/10