I remember it like it was yesterday. Sitting there in my college apartment, my roommates clamoring on about some fighting game that one of them brought home to play on our trusty Dreamcast. I thought to myself Great – ANOTHER fighting game that I have zero interest in. You see, my relationship with fighting games up to this point was not one for the ages. I had some interest in Mortal Kombat II, though I never could really get the hang of the fatalities. And… thats it. So I plopped down on the couch, ready to spit forth a stream of vitriol towards the game, the purchaser and the whole idea of fighting games. Then the title screen booted up and I saw the logo for Soul Calibur. Fast forward many hours into the early morning, and we were all still in our living room, myself included, playing the game. Everyone had settled into a character that made sense to them, and overall, not one person was dominating the whole game the entire time. It worked, and it worked very well. That was the first taste of Soul Calibur for me, and it remains the only fighting game series that I have ever purchased and played extensively.

From that point on I bought or played every major game in the series. The only one I dont own currently is Soul Calibur 3, because at that time I did not have a PS2. All throughout this time Astaroth has been my main character. Something about his brute strength was alluring from a gameplay perspective. Or to put it another way, I liked swinging a huge axe around and making opponents cry.

So here we are at Soul Calibur V. Namco Bandai have bolstered the roster even further than before, with 30 characters and even more that can be created with the robust character creation feature. The challenge here is this: If you are on the fifth iteration of your game, how do you keep it fresh without completely alienating fans of the series who have been with you all this time? Thankfully, though there were a few mis-steps along the way in my opinion, this was accomplished with a pretty good result. Lets go into some details, shall we?

From a gameplay perspective, you are given a host of normal options. You can play against the computer, play against a friend on the couch next to you, or play online against foes all around the world. Heck, you can even watch two computer-controlled fighters compete if you would want to, though I never understood the allure of such a feature. From a single-player perspective you can go through a storyline mode that I actually found quite interesting. You play mainly as Patroklos or his sister, Pyrrha, as you progress through a well-told tale featuring those two prominently. The storyline is developed by using a combination of manga-esque comic panels and in-engine cinematics, and the result is an effective way to push a surprisingly-deep story forward while keeping things interesting. One gripe I have about this mode is that you basically have to learn one or two characters movesets at the offset or else you wont be too successful here. I wish there was a story-line single-player mode for each character. This isnt a huge loss, but it certainly is missed from where I sit.

There is so much that has gone right in the game. The graphics are stunning, the music is as epic as one would expect from a Soul Calibur game, and the controls are tight and responsive. I personally make do with just the analog stick on my 360 controller, but my friends go with the d-pad, and either way its not difficult to execute even the more advanced moves. There are, however, some things that were rather confusing for me. First of all, I cannot for the life of me realize why they saw fit to do away with an infinite time limit when playing a match. I get that in tournaments they have standard timings and things of that nature, but why on earth would there be no option whatsoever for unlimited match times? When I have a bunch of people over to play a Soul Calibur title, often times the matches can go on for some time with all the defensive maneuvering and posturing that goes on. Nowadays with Soul Calibur V we have to keep a tight eye on the clock and it has forced a more aggressive play-style this time around. This just doesnt feel right.

Text by Anders Frederiksen

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. That is… Wow, that is a bunch of syllables, like forty, or two hundred. However many it is, that is some title, and the game it belongs to has a lot to live up to, and not from just the title alone. The front of the case proclaims the list of mega stars involved in the development of this game, and without going too deep inside baseball, this is a game with some history, in the development, story, and gameplay.

This is a open world RPG set in Amalur which is a brand new world, one that R.A. Salvatore helped create, and has written something like ten thousand years of history for (give or take an epoch or so), and it shows. So much so that the world, and back-story of it all feels overwhelming at times. Here are just the races of the world that have speaking rolls, far as I can find: Almain, Varani, Ljosalfar, Dokkalfar, Gnomes, and Fae… Oh and those first four are what you can select as you player character, which are pretty much human, human, wood elf, and dark elf, got it? Me neither.

The story is very good, dealing with some interesting ideas throughout, not with out a few holes here and there but nothing I found egregious. Story quests lead you across the large world map, introducing colorful characters along the way. Some choices must be made, but nothing as granular as a morality system as the role the game casts you in eschews the need for a good/evil gauge by placing you outside of the weave of fate while being able to affect the fates of others. But as the story is one of the things Ive liked the most, I am going to leave it at that.

Sound overall is quite good, with music being top notch. The voice acting is very good, my major complaint being the guards in the gnomish city and the clips that play from them as you run past, and while many, many actors lend their voices, you will hear repeats now and then. I just wish the hero had a voice.

Graphically it leans more to a WOW style aesthetic, meaning more of a cartoon or comic book look, rather then a photo-realistic style. It works very well; there are times that you will really find you are swept up in the vistas. The animation is also good, with high points being the fate shifting finishing moves, which all feel very brutal.

Onward to the gameplay and combat, all aspects of which are handled nicely. Melee combat is easy to get the hang of, and feels really good no matter your choice in arms. On that note weapons are long swords, great swords, war hammers, daggers, fae blades, staffs both long and short, and chakrams. All feel unique and appropriately weighty for the type of weapon youve chosen to fling about the battlefield, with skill tree abilities and spells woven into the fray of it all. The combat is somewhere between the heavy combo and finesse focus of a Ninja Gaiden or Bayonetta, and tip-tap rhythm of Fable 2 or 3: very easy to pick up but with enough depth to be interesting hours and hours in. Skills and abilities fall into three basic paths. Might handles sword and shield, hammers and other tank style buffs and abilities. Finesse is for those that want daggers and stealth, bows and speed. Sorcery provides a more hands off approach with spells, and what might as well be fantasy pistols, elemental control and bladed boomerangs are offered in this path as well.