bit-tech Shopping: Namco Bandai Soul Calibur 2 (GC)

Rating: 10

Time with product: 4 Years

Strengths: Great fighting stratagies, Good graphics, Taki is a cool character

Weaknesses: Gamecube is pretty much replaced with stinky, expensive Wii. I kinda miss Dreamcast.

Summary: I absolutley love this game. It has cutting edge graphics, cool characters, neat fighting moves for each character. It has more girls to choose from than the first. I have always loved this game. I heard bad things about the third one unfortunately. I would totally recommend this game because of these reasons.

Rating: 2

Time with product:

Strengths: Link appeals to young children

Weaknesses: Could write a whole review just about this

Summary: Characters fall out of the ring at the slightest provocation sometimes, and yet while flying three feet above the ground are able to bounce off of thin air other times. Sometimes vertical moves track people while sidestepping, other times they don't. Nintendo is still the king of poor controller design, and this games takes complete advantage of that poor design. Characters lack any semblance of balance. Button mashing is a viable strategy, even against experienced players.This is just a poorly executed game. It's a shame that so many people's expectations have fallen so far. I weep for humanity, and pity those that have wasted more than twenty minutes trying to find rhyme or reason within the travesty that is Soul Caliber II. The people responsible for this game should be ashamed.

Rating: 8

Time with product: 1 Month

Strengths: Good graphics, easy basic controls, multiplayer

Weaknesses: Single player is a bit too easy

Summary: Bearing in mind that I don't have a lot of experience with fighters (my last few experiences probably being on the SNES or arcade), this is one of the better ones I've played. The 3D gameplay is very smooth and intuitive. I found that the basic fighting maneuvers are very easy to pick up. There are plenty of combos and whatnot that require a bit more attention, but if all you want to do is button-mash hitting and kicking, you can do that. My only beef is that single player is pretty easy. I was able to beat the initial campaign in my sitting covering about 20-30 minutes. That being said, the real strength of this game is playing others, which is great fun, even when having a beatdown handed to you.

Rating: 8

Time with product: 1 Days

Strengths: (1)Nice environments and character models (2) Fun pick-up-and-play fighting (3) a wealth of unlockables

Weaknesses: (1) Button mashing seems to work almost as well as true skill and strategy (2) Some effects are really bad/cheap looking (water splashing when a character falls out of the ring)

Summary: Soul Calibur II is a really solid fighting game. The graphics are great and the action is easy to pick up and play. It's really the most fun as a multiplayer game and lone gamers may get tired of it after they've unlocked all the new characters. The main advantage of the Gamecube version is that it has Link (Legend of Zelda series), which may be enough incentive for Nintendo fans, like myself. It is a great game with really nice graphics and makes for a lot of fun in short bursts with friends. I would recommend a purchase if you have someone you can play it with.

Rating: 10

Time with product: 1 Years

Strengths:

Weaknesses:

Summary: Get this game. Soul Calibur 2 is simply one of the best fighting games in existence. It also has the added benefit of being a weapons based fighter, which is much less common in the market. The game is of course gorgous. The quest type mode is a good addition to add replay value for the single player. Rather than it being nothing more than a time killer, the player must also play this to unlock most of the different types of weapons the players can use. The weapon choice really doesn't change much, they are simply tweaks of how the weopons function. But they do add something to the game. Specifcally to the cube version, the extra character is Link from the Zelda series, which I really like, but I haven't really played that much with the other console specific characters. I just like playing as Link.