Video games: High 'Calibur'

I've always loved "Soul Calibur's" brand of weapon-based one-on-one combat, from its precursor on PS1 to the amazing multiplatform sequel and the mediocre third entry on PS2. The latest iteration, "Soul Caliber IV," falls somewhere in the middle of the series' legacy. While it doesn't recreate the finely tuned excellence of "Soul Calibur II," it sidesteps many of the issues found in "III" and adds a ton of single-player depth and lag-free online play. Plus, on an HD display, you have to see this game in motion.

Mechanically, "Soul Calibur IV" is nearly identical to its predecessors. Equipment breakage and a simplistic blocking gauge strongly discourage turtling, but otherwise you could easily be playing the first game with new characters and tweaked move sets. Unfortunately, sideways dodging in "IV" is just as bad as it was in "III," with vertical attacks magically tracking to negate lateral movement on the defender's part. The flow of a round still finds that magical balance between combos, juggles, defense and positioning more often than not, which is the most important thing.

Venturing outside of the traditional Arcade or Versus modes is finally worth your time here, and not just for unlocking the full roster of characters. The plethora of challenges, many of which hark back to the totally unfair (in a good way) adventures in Soul Edge, will take even dedicated "Soul Calibur" nuts months to clear. Nearly everything you do works toward leveling up your fighters, unlocking new ones, and padding your in-game wallet. In most other titles in the genre, this would be an afterthought. Here, the introduction of an astoundingly deep character creator/editor allows you to customize the look and capabilities of created characters and stock fighters to an impressive degree. I normally don't bother with this sort of peripheral frippery no matter the genre, but I spent almost as much time playing with the character editor as I did beating the crap out of my colleague, Matt Miller.

Skills like "Auto Grapple Break" and "Invisible" add a wacky element to the game, but it's all fun and games in single-player mode since setting up your favorite fighter to handle some of the more unfair challenges can be an entertaining metagame. Hard-core fans can relax, though -- Arcade and Standard Versus modes still require unmodified characters, so you don't have to deal with the lack of gameplay balance these new skills present.

Online play, a first for the series, is well implemented. Most of the matches I played were lag-free, and the matchmaking system works well. It still doesn't beat having a couple of buddies over and passing off the controller between bouts of smack talking, but the option is nice.