Project Soul's 4th installment, Soul Calibur IV sums up what a fighting game is supposed to be about.

Its gameplay style is more about Strategic places of strong and slow attacks, rather than endless combo's like in other games.It also introduces new concepts into the game:Soul Gauges and Critical Finishes. When you block, your soul Gauge gradually decreases.When your Gauge finally breaks(Or your opponents), you/they have roughly a second to press the LB button(Left Bumper;A+B+K+G). If your timing is correct, you will preform a Critical Finish(A Move that kills or "finishes" your opponent-A less brutal Fatality if you will)

SCIV has 3 main single player modes;Story Mode(Where you complete each characters story),Arcade(Your typical 8 level arcade style fighter) and a new mode, Tower Of Souls(A Huge 60 floor tower, where you can chose to Ascend(Go through each floor to reach the top) or Descend(Endless waves of enemies, kinda like a survival mode[Unlocked after ascending 20 floors])

The online in SCIV is not Great, but it's horrible either.When in the ranked matches, there are alot of Move Spammers(People that use the same move over and over again to win) and the usual bad mouthing people.If you dont have a decent connection(The best possible in this country) then prepare for some lagg and some frustrating times.

In the end, this game is alot of fun. it has endless customization features,the challenging new Tower Of Souls mode, and online play to compete with friends or people from around the world.If you've enjoyed the previous installments of the series;this is a must for you.If you haven't, its worth a try hiring it out or borrowing it. It Definitely doesn't disappoint.

Great game, it's a good way to unwind as the control is easy to use and most characters are user friendly. The custom character option allows for a few quite powerful creations that will become frequient users.

Graphics, still the best of any fighting game out there.
Gameplay, very thorough, still extremely enjoyable after these past couple of years. Good pace. (not a mindless mash blur like many games.)
Story, could use some more depth and length (like any fighting game).
Customization, the character customization is a nice feature in this game. Well executed, though it wouldn't hurt to have more (clothes, armour, faces, etc.)
Overall, When you are used to the fighting system in this game (as I have) you come to rate everything else up against it. I'm afraid nothing else stacks up too impressively.
Thats my 2 cents anyway. Great game.

Soul Calibur IV is a great game, however there is a lot of room to bring more to the table.
First of all , in arcade mode I played as Yoda :D
the problem I found, most of Yoda's moves were repeated over and over (no matter what buttons i pressed)
It turned into a spamming session of the same move.

Apart from that, I found the story mode awesome and I do not regret playing this title through.
Without playing online, after the campaign ...thats about it..

Soul Calibur wont ever die, I just hope the next one has room for longer gameplay.

4 stars- better the earlier SC, but still room for improvement