Soul Calibur 4 Catch-All

Some of us have wives, children, girlfriends, mothers, fathers, etc. who live in the house with us.

I'm not too concerned about what the general public thinks of me, but I do care if my wife thinks I'm a pervert.

To Lobster's point, yes, Video Gaming is a horny teenager. Specifically a horny teenage boy. It doesn't have to be though. I know a lot of women played the original Soul Calibur and I thought the games depiction of characters was fairly balanced. I'm sure women will still play the current version but I also know that this style will be an instant turn off for many women.

We complain about the perception of gamers and we complain about the lack of women gamers, but then we justify any game we like that objectifies women. The simple fact is, we can't have it both ways. Personally, I am not content with the perception of gamers as a bunch of socially awkward man-children. I'm a professional, a husband, and a father. I don't want to be associated with that image in any way.

Benticore wrote:
Benticore wrote:
Cramps wrote:

Maybe the uninitiated will only talk about the relative flatness of Ivy's butt to her bussom? :)

Respek Knuckles!

Benticore
Out

...Wait, what?

Don't look at me. You typed it. I've got know idea what it means.

Botswana wrote:

Making the game more hardcore is bad in my estimation. I was really pissed about SC3. I'm not going to spend the time learning all the secret moves, I just want to mess around and beat people up. Getting my ass handed to me repeatedly with a character I am somewhat proficient with was enough to make me pause and consider how "fun" the game was. The other add-ons seemed pointless.

Then there is the "boobs" issue. I think the point here is that we don't need porno for 13 year olds for this to be a good game. The original Soul Calibur certainly had some sexuality but it wasn't quite so in your face. It doesn't add anything to gameplay and it certainly makes it harder to justify that you're playing it for the gameplay.

Trying to convince people the value of these games was nigh impossible.

I feel this is the same problem with SC4. The game doesn't need Ivy's "nuances" to be good, yet the increase in overt sexuality in the game makes it more difficult to take the game seriously.

Yeah, I'm not really following you here. What is with all this "convincing" and "justifying" you are talking about? Do your parents have to review a game or something before you can buy it? Then at first you're saying the game has been made too hardcore, only to later say the "sexuality" makes it more difficult to take the game seriously - in other words you want to take the game seriously - wouldn't that be a "hardcore" attitude?

Seriously you seem to be overly obsessed by the fact that there are well-endowed females in this game with scanty clothing. Maybe you're just trying to "convince" yourself of something?

Botswana wrote:

Some of us have wives, children, girlfriends, mothers, fathers, etc. who live in the house with us.

Yep, I play with my kids. They are used to boobs, in fact they feasted on them for the first couple years of their lives. Believe it or not, the female body is not inherently sexual - to you maybe, definitely not to my kids. It's not even an issue. Otherwise, we couldn't even go to the pool, lest they see women showing more than you see in digitized form in Soul Calibur.

OK guys, I think it's pretty simple.

Some people think of video games as immature toys. Gamers often fight that perception. Games full of ridiculously huge boobies do not help.

Could we take further discussion of the matter to a different thread? I think it warrants discussion but it doesn't directly relate to SC4. :/

AcidCat wrote:

Yep, I play with my kids. They are used to boobs, in fact they feasted on them for the first couple years of their lives. Believe it or not, the female body is not inherently sexual - to you maybe, definitely not to my kids. It's not even an issue. Otherwise, we couldn't even go to the pool, lest they see women showing more than you see in digitized for in Soul Calibur.

Wait, wait, are you arguing that soul calibur IV doesn't have sexualized depictions of someof its females fighters? Because of thats the case you're building an arugment that doesn't stand in my eyes. Thats like arguing that DOA extreme sells on the merits of its volleyball phyisics.

Yes, I know what I just typed.

Edit: agree with Lobster. Make a thread about sexualized women in games.

LobsterMobster wrote:

OK guys, I think it's pretty simple.

Some people think of video games as immature toys. Gamers often fight that perception. Games full of ridiculously huge boobies do not help.

Could we take further discussion of the matter to a different thread? I think it warrants discussion but it doesn't directly relate to SC4. :/

If you're going to sum up the whole argument in one sentence that explains both sides of the debate and shuts the whole thing down then you're just no fun. Didn't you read the front page article? It's our God given right to debate stupid crap that doesn't matter!

In all seriousness though, I do think your last comment effectively ends the discussion.

Botswana wrote:

In all seriousness though, I do think your last comment effectively ends the discussion.

Lobster uses End Conversation.

It's super-effective!

LobsterMobster wrote:

Lobster uses End Conversation.

It's super-effective!

:D

I have no follow up for that. So, uh... How's things? Anyone else playing with Vader?

Sephirotic wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

Lobster uses End Conversation.

It's super-effective!

:D

I have no follow up for that. So, uh... How's things? Anyone else playing with Vader?

Vader is crazy awesome. The secret is the Force. Bully people with it. Pull them in, crush them to the ground, counter and punish, and choke them when they're on the ground. When he's in the rhythm he's pure power.

Thirteenth wrote:

Vader is crazy awesome. The secret is the Force. Bully people with it. Pull them in, crush them to the ground, counter and punish, and choke them when they're on the ground. When he's in the rhythm he's pure power.

And a well placed kick to the chops does wonders, too.

I was so disappointed that Yoda doesn't hobble and jump around the way he does in Lego Star Wars. I guess it would've been pretty hard to make it work in a fighter, but that's really what I was expecting.

The armor disintegration is rather cool. I haven't really noticed if it has any effect on anything, but it sure looks nice and gives the attacker a sense of accomplishment.

LobsterMobster wrote:

The character creation system is what it is. You unlock more parts to use and as you level up weapon styles it unlocks new skills but you won't be editing the movesets. That'd just be way too difficult to balance. I mean it's one thing in a wrestling game where every move is basically the same thing with a different animation but this is a fighting game. Even with all the movesets set in stone the balance is still pretty messed up. So yeah, you don't get to make your own truly custom character but on the plus side there's less of a chance of a perfect "uber build" emerging and changing the entire character customization feature into a LEGO kit (in that you can make other stuff if you really want to but in the end you're best off following a list of assembly instructions).

I'm more disappointed that they removed the movesets that were unique to custom characters from Soul Calibur 3. They had some neat stuff in there. I particularly liked the Dagger + Bomb style.

Yeah, I miss those unique custom character movesets.

About editing the movesets themselves, it wouldn't have to be a terribly robust system in itself. Perhaps just a handful of optional moves that you can swap in and out as you want for each moveset. So, you wouldn't be able to mix and match Kilik and Astaroth's moves, but you could have a Kilik-style fighter with a few moves specific to that style that are different from Kilik's standard moves, if that makes any sense. I just don't like the idea of having a custom character who plays exactly the same as the default characters.

I made two more custom characters. One is an old ninja named Jerry Oldman (he's Jewish) and the other is a girl with all her armor slots set to nothing so she's just in her underpants. She was originally named Obligatory Bikini-Clad Female, but the game shortened it to Obligatory B. As much as I like her new gangsta rapper name, it didn't really explain who she was, you know? So I changed her name to Useless Slut. Because I'm a mature adult.

I also wish you had more face editing options. I hate having to select from a handful of pre-made faces. I want to reshape the damn thing and switch the eyes and the mouth and the facial hair and stuff independently. I want to be able to make Jack Black and Kyle Gass and Christian Bale and Bruce Campbell and Johnny Depp and Jesus and Hitler! And maybe a famous woman, also. But, at least you can reshape the body so you can make steroid-monkey body-building women whose lack of breasts cause them to be indistinguishable from men. Arnold with a pony-tail.

jlaakso wrote:

I was so disappointed that Yoda doesn't hobble and jump around the way he does in Lego Star Wars. I guess it would've been pretty hard to make it work in a fighter, but that's really what I was expecting.

Well, Yoda's older, now. He's not quite as spritely and agile as he once was.

Speaking of Yoda, I especially like Yoda's story in the Story Mode.

"Yoda was chilling out on Dagobah and just listening to the Force and sh*t and he noticed a disturbance caused by the Empire. And then he noticed another disturbance. But he was all, like, 'Whatever!' and he went back to his little swamp life. But then Darth Vader did something and that seemed like it probably wasn't going to be good and Yoda decided to go to whatever planet Soul Calibur takes place on and beat up a bunch of f*ckers. So then he did, and there was an old guy there who had Soul Edge and Soul Calibur and Yoda killed him because the lightsabre is all awesome and sh*t. Yoda knew this wasn't the end, because Vader wasn't here after all and he really wasn't sure why he thought Vader was but he was tired so he went home. The end."

MechaSlinky (5:15:25 AM): I wish the character creator let you make your own Jedi characters.
Admiral0kelvin (5:16:09 AM): So you can't make Slutty Yoda?
MechaSlinky (5:16:54 AM): Well, you can also edit pre-existing characters. So, you can edit Yoda to give him a slightly more powerful lightsabre, which I suppose could make him sluttier.

I'm thinking of picking this one up. I've actually sort of been planning it for years; I rented SC3 once when TheWalt and various friends were in town and it was the most fun I've had with a fighting game in years. I suppose it didn't have online play and I decided to wait for the next iteration, which has taken longer than I thought it would.

If my wife has any comments on the boobzorz, I'll let you gents know. Perhaps we could brainstorm some face-saving replies in advance? "They're modelled after your wonderful proportions," perhaps?

jlaakso wrote:

I was so disappointed that Yoda doesn't hobble and jump around the way he does in Lego Star Wars. I guess it would've been pretty hard to make it work in a fighter, but that's really what I was expecting.

The armor disintegration is rather cool. I haven't really noticed if it has any effect on anything, but it sure looks nice and gives the attacker a sense of accomplishment.

It's part of the Critical Finish mechanic, which is basically in there to keep people from turtling endlessly (basically, if you break all three pieces of armor and that player keeps blocking eventually one of your hits will stun them and while they're stunned you can do a move that kills them instantly).

I can kind of understand why they don't let you edit the costumes for the "special" characters but it sucks that they don't even let you change the color scheme.

By the way, I got the downloadable parts pack. They tell you everything you get in the item description, but do it in the typical way that makes you think you might get more (note to Namco, usually when you use the word "including" you follow it up with highlights, not the entire contents). Still, for 100 points it's not bad. It includes Sophitia's breastplate from SC2 for the ladies, and a number of helmets for the gents, including (see, Namco? This is how you use "including") three of the helmets Nightmare's used over the years and Voldo's xenomorph-looking mask from SC2. Naturally everything's got a new coat of paint for HD. Probably about 7-10 items in total.

1Dgaf wrote:

Pyro,

Why are you worrying about what people will think when you play? If you like it, play it. If a woman quizzes you about it, say 'I don't notice it' or 'Yeah, I just play for the tits' and grin.

If you make a big thing out of it, other people will make a big thing out of it. If you're fine with it there's unlikely to be a problem.

Also, it sounds like you're projecting how someone new to the series would percieve SC IV. You're noticing all sorts of sh*t, but most people probably wouldn't. For most people it'll just be cool to run around and swing a sword in a video game.

I'm looking forward to getting my copy. If there's stuff that confuses me, I'll look it up. If I can't be bothered, I'll just swing my sword regardless.

Oh no I don't really care what other people think. It's really more what opinion Namco has of me as a consumer that they thought I'd want these changes. Like I said the most disappointing thing is that I think Namco has tried desperately to run away from everything I liked about the original.

Pyro, if Namco gave a rat's ass about what Soulcalibur fans really want they wouldn't've put frikkin JEDI in the game. They care about drawing in new customers and I guess Star Wars and huge boobs is the way to go.

Well, this IS the first SC I've bought...

I picked it up too.

PyromanFO wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

Pyro, if Namco gave a rat's ass about what Soulcalibur fans really want they wouldn't've put frikkin JEDI in the game. They care about drawing in new customers and I guess Star Wars and huge boobs is the way to go.

Hmm

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Well, this IS the first SC I've bought... ;)

necroyeti wrote:

I picked it up too.

Good point :)

Heh, except I have bought all of them.....

necroyeti wrote:
PyromanFO wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

Pyro, if Namco gave a rat's ass about what Soulcalibur fans really want they wouldn't've put frikkin JEDI in the game. They care about drawing in new customers and I guess Star Wars and huge boobs is the way to go.

Hmm

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Well, this IS the first SC I've bought... ;)

necroyeti wrote:

I picked it up too.

Good point :)

Heh, except I have bought all of them.....

Sorry, thought you were replying to Lobster. Removed from original post

LobsterMobster wrote:

Pyro, if Namco gave a rat's ass about what Soulcalibur fans really want they wouldn't've put frikkin JEDI in the game. They care about drawing in new customers and I guess Star Wars and huge boobs is the way to go.

Hmm

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Well, this IS the first SC I've bought... ;)

Good point

PyromanFO wrote:
necroyeti wrote:
PyromanFO wrote:
LobsterMobster wrote:

Pyro, if Namco gave a rat's ass about what Soulcalibur fans really want they wouldn't've put frikkin JEDI in the game. They care about drawing in new customers and I guess Star Wars and huge boobs is the way to go.

Hmm

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Well, this IS the first SC I've bought... ;)

necroyeti wrote:

I picked it up too.

Good point :)

Heh, except I have bought all of them.....

Sorry, thought you were replying to Lobster. Removed from original post

but....but....my righteous indignation!

Thanks to Nim and Slytin for some quick rounds earlier. Sorry 'bout dropping, my internet connection has been pretty flaky as of late. Not sure if it's my cable modem dying or just the ISP having problems in the area.

Anyways, game has been fun so far. I've just gotten far enough into the tower to where the AI's turning into a total pain, so I guess I'll really have to start getting a better handle on the characters to make much progress there.

I just played about an hour of matches with a friend in California, and the whole experience was amazingly lag-free.

That, and random custom character matches are absolute win.

In a random room tonight I watched Gandhi fight the "This is SPARTAAA!" guy on the bridge of a Star Destroyer and suddenly the world made sense.

Slumberland wrote:

In a random room tonight I watched Gandhi fight the "This is SPARTAAA!" guy on the bridge of a Star Destroyer and suddenly the world made sense.

That's awesome. And hilarious.

And still more awesome.

Slumberland wrote:

In a random room tonight I watched Gandhi fight the "This is SPARTAAA!" guy on the bridge of a Star Destroyer and suddenly the world made sense.

I can already imagine what Gandhi might have looked like. Oh yes. Wonderful.

I bought Soul Calibur 2, and rented Soul Calibur 3. Almost bought 3, but the crazy unbalanced garbage drove me nuts. I would've bought Soul Calibur 1 back in the Dreamcast days if I could have found it by the time I got a Dreamcast. I'm not a hardcore fighting game fan, and I'm not even a hardcore Soul Calibur fan, but I'm a Soul Calibur fan. And I love having Star Wars in my Soul Calibur. I also loved having Link in my Soul Calibur back on Gamecube. Basically, I like having anything not Soul Calibur in my Soul Calibur. Perhaps I'm weird.

I actually sort of wish there were more non-Soul Calibur characters in the game. Like, the Arbiter from Halo on 360 and Kratos from God of War on PS3 (which would've totally made me get the PS3 version). I also want Ryu from Ninja Gaiden and Ryu from Street Fighter! And Raiden from Metal Gear Solid, and Sora from Kingdom Hearts, and Bionic Commando, and Mega Man, and Mario, and Loco Roco, and the L block from Tetris! I want everything!

As such, I have made Hulk. Hulk smash.

I just noticed that Necrid isn't around any more. That's fine, I never liked Necrid.

I wish I could put Yoda in black robes. Black is very slimming.

I finally got around to unlocking the Apprentice. He's awesome. I think he made be my favorite character so far. Still, I have yet to find a character I don't like, which is really odd for a fighting game. Even in Soul Calibur 2, there were a handful of characters I didn't like, such as Sophitia. Now I love Sophitia. Not sure if the game has changed or if I have changed, or maybe both. I'm rambling.

Tried playing some online multiplayer last night. All in all, it ran well but all the pubbies played Kilik and Siegfried. The only time I saw something different was one match with Yoda vs. Apprentice. I also got my ass kicked pretty soundly.