Soulcalibur V

Set 17 years after Soulcalibur IV, it's taken Siegfried's ending from that game and expanded on it. Siegfried, now 39 years old, no longer wields the Soul Calibur sword, so the focus – in the 16-chapter story mode – is on a chap called Patroklos, who happens to be the son of Sophitia Alexandra (from previous Soulcalibur games). He has adopted Sophitia's fighting style, but is more agile and has new moves, and he is hell bent on finding his lost sister Pyrrha, who happens to be corrupted by the evil Soul Edge.

You progress through the story, fighting strangers, in the search for your missing sibling. Some of the characters you battle against are just guards from the cities you happen to be in, and others are new faces, such as ZWEI, who ends up joining you on your journey after your first scrap, and you also take control of him for a fight or two. Characters include Ivy, Mitsurugi, Maxi, Voldo, Yoshimitsu and Astaroth, to name a few. Since Soul Calibur 2, the series has been known to include special guest characters, such as Spawn, Darth Vader and Heihachi. So following in tradition, SC5 has done the same – enter Ezio Auditore from Assassin's Creed fame.

The gameplay has been described as 'lighter, sharper and more elegant' by the developers, and it is, to a degree, with slightly shinier graphics and quicker, more agile combat. There have also been some big changes to the series: the 'Critical Finishes' are no more; armour stays destructible, but no longer has an indicator to show when it will break. Each character has a different super move that is activated in the same way for everyone: you charge up a bar as you fight, then when full you can unleash – much the same as other fighting games on the market – but this is something this series has never seen before.

Soulcalibur's online mode sees an overall improvement over Soul Calibur IV's, and contains some new features too. Create a character mode has returned once again and has also been improved – you can now alter the character's height change their facial features, and there's more to do on editing clothing.

As a whole, this is a good solid fighter. Non hardcore fans may not notice much of a difference, and the cut scenes between fights that tend to drag on may start to become a bore... But this does not disappoint.