Sorry, for the lack of updates lately. I know I haven’t been making the kind of commitment to this blog that I thought I would but I promise that there will be more frequent updates from now on. There will still be a Top Ten this week as well as an on-time F-Bomb. There have been a number of post E3 happenings since my last update so yo can expect to hear my opinion on those as well.

And now, onto my entry for the evening.

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For those of you living under a rock, Soul Calibur IV was released these past couple of weeks. I’d be playing it right now, but, unfortunately I don’t own an Xbox 360. I preordered a copy of the “Premium Edition” but I won’t be able to afford the console to play it on until Wednesday.

Sure, I could have waited and got the game with the 360, but I wanted that Premium Edition, damnit! Even if the free DLC isn’t all that great, I still got a neat looking poster, a comic book and a t-shirt all packaged within a nice limited edition tin case, all of which was well worth the extra $20 I spent on it.

But anyway…

It’s kind of ironic that I would make such a big fuss over a fighting game, considering I used to really suck at them. I remember getting my ass handed to me at the arcades as a kid playing Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter II, always suffering a severe beating usually followed by my opponent ripping my head off with my spinal column in tow (as was the case with MK, at least). Usually, the aforementioned ass-beatings were by older kids who had a much better understanding than I did of the game. I was little. I had no idea what I was doing so I just mashed buttons. As I got older, however, I began to appreciate more complex games and decided to give the fighter genre another chance and it resulted in me discovering two of my favorite games ever: Super Smash Bros. and Marvel VS Capcom 2 (there is another game in this category but I’m getting to that and you probably already know what it is anyway).

It was around the time of new found love for fighting games that the Sega Dreamcast was nearing the end of it’s short-lived life cycle. I was pretty pissed at the news considering that I had just bought a new DC after my roommate’s dog chewed through controller cable and shorted it. Being a former hardcore Sega fan, I ventured on a quest to acquire as many of the console’s worth while titles as I could before they disappeared from store shelves only to be sold at outrageous prices on Ebay.

Among the many games I bought were Shenmue, Skies of Arcadia, House of the Dead 2 (packaged with a light gun) and Soul Calibur. I bought SC on impulse because I couldn’t find DOA2 no matter where I looked (I eventually settled for DOA2: Hardcore for PS2). A friend of mine spoke highly about the game so, being the trusting person I am, I decided to give the game a whirl. It’s not until you actually played it that you discovered that this was no ordinary fighting game.

Soul Calibur was a game of epic proportions and has one of the most unique takes on a fighting game ever. Taking place in the 16th centure, Soul Calibur features a diverse cast of characters from all over the globe in search of the mythical blade, Soul Edge: An ancient sword of great power that corrupts all who wield it.

For a fighting game, the story is surprisingly detailed. Each character has a detailed background and they all have their own motivations for seeking the sword. Some seek it for good, some for evil and some wish to destroy it. It’s a fantasy epic set in an era of history where some still lived and died by the sword. Samurai face off against Athenian warrior chicks and dancers with Chinese blades duke it out with an undead pirate armed with twin swords.

And if that’s not diverse enough for you, you also have the option of choosing a nunchuk wielding Elvis pirate (it’s the hair), a blind bondage freak with claws, the demon-possessed wielder of Soul Edge and a buxom British dominatrix with a sword that turns into a whip. A mother fucking whip.

And that’s what seperates Soul Calibur from other fighting games. Instead of hand to hand combat, the fighters use a variety of different weapon based fighting styles and in place of the usual techno/heavy metal music is an epic soundtrack worthy of a good fantasy flick. It’s near flawless in its presentation and it’s easy to pick up and play. So much that it ended up becoming a family activity. Well, at least among my siblings and I.

We’ve kept up with every game in the series since then and it’s usually a must play whenever we get together. It also started the sibling gaming tradition of shit talking. “Oh, you’re gonna be Talim? Alright fine, I’m gonna be Raphael. Yeah, keep spamming the same fucking move over and over. Oh, ring out. That’s bullshit.”

Just a few more days and I’ll be able to do that via Xbox Live. I look forward to laying the smackdown on you, Panda.

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Tomorrow, in an attempt to avoid going nuts over having a highly anticipated game that I can’t play for another day or so, I’ll discuss my top ten favorite characters in the series.