People Are Going SCIV Creator Crazy!

That character creator in Soulcalibur IV certainly has opened up a barrel nutty! Picking up where Kotaku reader CB's Metal Gear Solid creations left off, just check out this rogues gallery which includes appearances by Ronald McDonald (with an afro!), the girls from Lucky Star, Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer, Dante from Devil May Cry, Final Fantasy IV, the Mario Bros., the bride from Kill Bill, Gundam and many, many more! Right up there, that's Japan's number one Xbox fanboy Jamzy.

「ソウルキャリバー4」キャラクリで作る漫画、アニメ、ゲームキャラ [裏はちま起稿]

There Are "No Plans" For Yoda v Vader In Soul Calibur IV

While some could-be-real, could-not-be-real images and video of Vader battling Yoda in Soul Calibur IV have surfaced over the past few weeks, the rumour that both characters will feature as DLC (Yoda for PS3, Vader for 360) is far from confirmed. Enter Soul Calibur IV director Katsutoshi Sasaki, who...fails to confirm or deny said rumours, saying "We don’t have any plans" to add the pair as platform-crossing DLC. Once was a day "no plans" meant just that, there were no plans, but these days it could just as easily mean "sure we will, but we'll announce it in a month's time when you're starting to get sick of the game".

XCN Soul Calibur IV Q&A with Katsutoshi Sasaki, Director [MSXBOX World]

Buy Soulcalibur IV, Get A Break On Fried Chicken

In an extremely classy move, Namco Bandai Games has included a pair of coupons in the Soulcalibur IV instruction manual, giving gamers a break on their mall shoe shopping and fried chicken fix. Yes, gamers, your sixty dollar purchase of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 fighting game will get you a cool $1 off any value combo at Church's Chicken and a $10 price break on bigger Journeys purchases.

And, hey, it's a full color manual! Sadly, it looks like those who purchased the Special Edition of Soulcalibur IV will have to pay regular prices on their chicken and Vans. Thanks to macmanus for the money saving tip!

With character creation tools in our current-gen games comes some serious character creation; most of it character re-creation. To wit, Kotaku reader CB has gone ahead and created both Raiden and Solid Snake, Metal Gear Solid 2 style, to tell a tale of souls and swords eternally retold. Or something. Read this post with Soulcalibur announcer guy voice and it might make more sense.

More pics of the sneaking souls in our gallery below. We await the flood of user creations when the game officially streets in North America this week.

Above, a pic that supposedly proves that, via the wonders of DLC, you will indeed be able to play as both Vader and Yoda in Soul Calibur IV, regardless of which version of the game you buy. It's certainly far from conclusive proof, in that all it proves is that Yoda is on the left of a digital image while Vader's on the right, but far crazier, far less likely rumours have turned out to be true than this one.

Update - Perhaps sensing the internet's trepidation, the source of the pics - GamersReports - have thrown a video clip up on YouTube, showing Yoda and Vader going at it. You can see it after the jump. Still not proof, but it's fun to watch regardless.

He still doesn't belong in this game, but if he's going to be in it, you may as well use him in his native surrounds. That way you can at least pretend Kilik's an curious bonus character in a Star Wars fighting game, and not the other way around.

It seems almost pointless to write hands-on impressions of a game several of you have already gotten your hands on, by I assure you my hands are professional trained to receive impressions still harboring the faint traces of a spiral notebook I fell asleep on in 1989. Those are lasting impressions right there. Either way, I got a chance to test my Soul Calibur IV mettle against some of the Namco Bandai folk at E3 last week, and boy did I ever fail to kick complete ass. Word to the wise: don't button mash against employees of the company creating the game. They are wise to such tricks. Could I alter my strategy and beat them at their own game?

Soulcalibur IV Start Screen and Character Selection

Reader Sourside21 found four Photobucket images of Soulcalibur IV breaking the street date by about 10 days. Well, maybe. It looks like these guys are playing it in the back of a store, so maybe they're employees (or friends) playing with the stock after hours. Naturally, we don't see any gameplay. But we do see the character selection page and Kratos ain't on it. "We'll probably be getting a lot of information on how each of the characters play soon," Sourside21 surmises. Good bet. All the full size photos are on the jump. Officially, Soulcalibur IV drops on July 29 in North America, July 31 in Japan, Australia and Europe, and Aug. 1 in the UK.

Ah, the onward march of technology. Though the fiddly arguments over what “next gen” really means are unceasing, the general trend is that games get bigger, slicker, richer and more lifelike with every passing year.

Soulcalibur’s Ivy may be the poster child for this annual augmentation – literally. It seems with each passing year, her endowment multiplies, ushering in each passing technological evolution with more ludicrous, top-heavy jiggle than the era before.

But it’d be unfair to pick on Miss Valentine. After all, unrealistic body types in games are nothing new, a conversation-starter as old as Lara Croft. The fact that “sex sells” and the proliferation of exploitive body types is a cultural pandemic, not simply a video game issue, is the easy way to explain it, but the “easy” way is seldom very enlightening, nor does it help us learn about why we play.

What does it all mean, in an interactive medium where realism, immersion and engagement are the primary goals? Are we seeking idealistic images as avatars for ourselves, to complete the fantasy of power that gaming can provide?

Is this a case where the gaming audience has been misjudged through the ages by marketing teams who assume each and every one of us is a vapidly salivating 15-17 year-old male – until their assumptions have unconsciously shaped our taste?

Let's shift the focus away from the Soul Calibur IV women for a moment to focus on the new big boss of the Soul Caliburse, Algol. Not to be confused with petite Angol, Algol is the king of an ultra ancient civilization, and the strongest character ever in the Soul Calibur series. This according to character designer Hideo Yoshie, who addressed Angol's design in a statement accompanying these new screens of the character today.

So how powerful is the bird-armored ancient ruler? His right hand glows red because he is holding the Soul Edge, and his left hand holds the Soul Calibur and a blue glow. He has 10 different weapons built into his body. In short, he's much more of a bad ass than a generic energy being who mimics the other character's styles could ever be. Hit the jump for the full description in somewhat broken English from Hideo Yoshie.

Check Out SoulCalibur IV's Darth Vader Stage In Action

Soul Caliber IV’s Starwars Stage [Aeropause]

Soulcalibur IV Adds One More Female Fighter

With this, the seventh new character to join the Soulcalibur IV line up, we're starting to notice a trend. Kamikirimusi, like her predecessors Shura, Scheherezade, Algol Fear, and Ashlotte, is a female fighter designed by a well known Japanese artist, this time by guest artist Hirokazu Hisayuki. Kamikirimusi will fight with a very large metal club/mace and satisfy fans of exposed upper thigh flesh.

Her facial expression seen in the scan above — click through for the full-sized version if you're just visiting the front page — accurately sums up our thoughts on her design.

Ivy's Soulcalibur III Outfit Surprisingly Less Whorish Than We Recall

If the Soulcalibur IV media flood has you pining for a simpler, more demure Ivy, perhaps this Soulcalibur III era Ivy from Enterbrain will fit the bill. Oh, sure, the breasts are still obscene and the outfit isn't exactly appropriate for Sunday mass, but at least there's some amount of coverage here. Plus, it's perfect for displaying on your work desk. What co-worker wouldn't impressed by $120 USD worth of PVC, molded perfectly into Ivy form?

If the cost and shame hasn't scared you off yet, inquire with your immobile action figure importer of choice, because there's not a ton of time between now and September.

Soul Calibur III 1/6 Ivy [HobbyStock]

The Soulcalibur IV Ladies In Action

Sorry for being curt there, but really, that's about all there is to these latest Soul Calibur IV shots. Tits. Oh, and that subtle crotch shot. Good to see Namco Bandai are remembering it's not all about Star Wars, and that there's a church full of the converted who still enjoy being preached to every now and again.

Soul Calibur IV Features Hot Tag-Team Action

The latest issue of Famitsu has more news on Soul Calibur IV. Nothing on Star Wars or disappearing clothes here, though, this stuff's technical: the game will feature tag-team action. Yup, in the good old-fashioned Marvel v Capcom style. Well, almost. It's supposedly not quite as extensive - it's suggested that team-mates are used only for stuff like combos, not full-blooded, mid-battle tap-outs. There's also only mention of it being available in singleplayer, but still. A Vader-Kratos (if confirmed) one-two punch? What a weird and wonderful world we live in.

Soul Calibur IV Features 'Character Swapping' [1UP]

Xbox Live Soul Calibur Sure Looks Like Soul Calibur

It's been almost nine years since I first played the Dreamcast port of Soul Calibur which, at the time, seemed like the pinnacle of fighting game visuals. Another instance of my gaming career where I genuinely thought "This is it. They've done it. It can't possibly get any better." This was, of course, before the engineers at Namco Bandai dedicated man hours and processing power to ass-jiggle physics; before we really knew how detailed a cod piece could be. Anyway, the compressed Soul Calibur for Xbox 360 seems like a fun diversion, but I've still got my Dreamcast hooked up to Input 3 on my television. And Soulcalibur IV is out, like, any day now. Kinda makes the whole thing seem moot.

Soul Calibur Gameplay HD [GameTrailers]

If Darth Vader wasn't enough to sway you toward the PS3 version of Soulcalibur IV, perhaps the God of War will. According to the latest issue of EGM magazine, by way of 1UP, Kratos may be joining the line-up of souls in Namco Bandai's newest weapons-based fighter. Considering that Yoda versus Voldo fights will be commonplace, we're nonplussed at the concept. It's a surprisingly good fit.

Sure, it's a rumor, but that "expect confirmation soon" and a hint about Xbox 360 owners getting their own platform-specific fighter — Joanna Dark? Marcus Fenix? Banjo?! — makes us wonder if this is less of a rumor than it is a tease.

Quartermann: God of War Meets Soul Calibur? [1UP]