No bare bums or boobs in Soulcalibur IV

By Robert Purchese Published 2 July, 2008

Plus: Namco dismisses storage rumours.

The BBFC has deemed Soulcalibur IV worthy of a 12 rating in the UK for its "moderate fantasy violence".

Official blurb on the decision also points to the "exaggerated 'curvy' figures" of the female models, but scuppers our wildest dreams by confirming there will be no bare bottoms or boobs.

"The Guidelines at '12' state that 'Violence must not dwell on detail. There should be no emphasis on injuries or blood'," begins the BBFC summary.

"The game also contains some female warrior characters with exaggerated 'curvy' figures accentuated by skimpy costumes. They are presented in a comic book manner and although the game allows characters' costumes to be customised, the player is not able to create a character with full breast or buttock nudity."

Meanwhile, Namco Bandai has claimed suggestions Soulcalibur IV on PS3 will require a 6.5 GB install and produce 2 GB saved game files are "significantly overblown".

"Those numbers are not accurate and are significantly overblown. The actual amount of space for the Soulcalibur IV install and save data file are in-line with other games requiring this feature," a Namco Bandai spokesperson told Kotaku.

Soulcalibur IV is due out for PS3 and Xbox 360 on 1st August.

It's better looking and more attacking-minded than any of the previous instalments, and there's a fancy critical finisher move that instantly kills your opponent if you can press the right buttons after you diminish your opponent's Soul Gauge and turn it briefly black.

Darth Vader, Yoda and the Secret Apprentice from The Force Unleashed are in it as well.

Pop over to our Soulcalibur IV gamepage to see it in action.

Incidentally, if you can't wait for a taste of Soulcalibur you can always download a revamped version of the Dreamcast original from Live Arcade today for 800 Points (GBP 6.80 / EUR 9.60).

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (54) Latest comment 4 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • SBfistfun #1 4 years ago

    No buttock nudity = no buy

  • bad09 #2 4 years ago

    more installs, thank heaven I own 360 for multiplatform. I'll take take 4-5gb of space over Vadar every time....

  • Cappy #3 4 years ago

    Revamped version of the Dreamcast original on Live Arcade. No. Revamped version of the arcade original. Yes.

  • WinterSnowblind #4 4 years ago

    It includes all of the extra's the DC version had though.
    It's only missing mission mode, all the unlockables are still there though, albiet already unlocked.
    Edited by 1 at 02/07/08 @ 11:52

  • Darren #5 4 years ago

    @bad09 - I'm getting sick of these mandatory HDD installs for PS3 games personally, it's the main reason I went out and bought a 320 GB HDD for my PS3. Instead of these HDD installs becoming rarer due to developers getting to know the hardware better, they're on the increase such that every game now uses them. I wouldn't mind if they actually improved loading times noticeably over the 360 version but in most cases they don't, they're just the same. And those games which are faster, like DMC 4, are only quicker by 1-2 seconds at most.

    /sarcasm mode on

    Yeah, the PS3 is really making efficient use of its HDD!

    /sarcasm mode off

    P.S. I've pre-ordered the 360 version of SoulCalibur IV even though I'd have preferred Darth Vader as the bonus character.

    P.P.S. The game will still have man boobs so I'm happy! ;)
    Edited by 1 at 02/07/08 @ 12:06

  • mattigan #6 4 years ago

    Side boob FTW

  • ghearoid #7 4 years ago

    What, no bare ass Kilik to amuse myself with? Bah!

  • mischief #8 4 years ago

    Do thongs count as buttock nudity? I think they should if the definition on this link is correct.

    http://ww w.merriam-webster.com/dictionar...

    I could have sworn I saw (thonged) buttocks on the gameplay video at the bottom of the article.

  • mischief #9 4 years ago

    and the BBFC no integrity it would appear. Negligent.

  • Rirekon #10 4 years ago

    "the player is not able to create a character with full breast or buttock nudity."

    Just full frontal wang then?

  • Gradius #11 4 years ago

    Nothing wrong with a bit of <a href=http://www.fightersgeneration.com/games/35_wang_l.jpg&g t;wang</a>.

  • monkie_king #12 4 years ago

    It's spelled "Hwang".

  • Pinewood_Groves #13 4 years ago

    Looks like we'll be getting customisable pork swords as weapons

  • Artemus #14 4 years ago

    Preorder cancelled.

  • zippie151 #15 4 years ago

    i do believe these installs are required because the blu-ray is much slower than a DVD for geting information off of it which sucks!! Anyone know where i can get a large cheap harddrive for my PS3??

  • alimokrane #16 4 years ago

    Well I guess not including an HDD as standard in the 360 wasnt such a bad idea after all.Lazy developers FTL! they are making it a nightmare for PS3 owners .... *sigh*
    Edited by 1 at 02/07/08 @ 12:47

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #17 4 years ago

    Big games should require big installs, deal with it.

    Or like Xbox 1 and 360 games, they could just cache the data automatically. From what I heard at dev conferences, MS weren't going to allow installs normally even if every 360 had a hard drive.

  • Gradius #18 4 years ago

    I do love my PS3 and all but c-mon, even the most hair brained fanboy would have to except that these installs are not a good thing. Yes, it's true we can all purchase bigger HDDs but that's hardly the point...

  • Mashum #19 4 years ago

    I for one couln't give a bare buttocked fuck about waiting for a minute or two for a one time install. Granted disk housekeeping is a drag but it is very occasional.

    I wonder just how perfect your life has to be before this kind of thing becomes an issue, unless this is just redirected anger drawn from other annoyances in life - like how your Mum asked you to turn down your music... again!

  • anomagnus #20 4 years ago

    fucks sake - no titties - that means i'm reduced to following women in the streets

    jesus, it'll be black monday all over again

  • Darren #21 4 years ago

    @Arbiter - The original Xbox arguably made better use of the harddrive than the PS3 does by caching efficiently and transparently. The main reason for these mandatory installs on the PS3 in the first place is to circumvent the slow BD speeds, something which could be avoided with many games if Sony released them on DVD instead of BD, i.e. multiformat releases. I believe the PS3 can read DVDs at 8X, not quite as fast as the 360's 12X admittedly but still it would be better than installing every bloody game! When most 360 games can run off a DVD with NO HDD install and load at the same speed, more or less, as HDD installed PS3 multiformat games, it does make Sony's system look a bit clumsy and messy IMO. The PS3 is supposed to be an easy-to-use games console for goodness sake not a PC!!!

  • anomagnus #22 4 years ago

    Big games should require big installs, deal with it.

    WRONG

    Big games should require big breasts, and losts of bare (female ass)

    and perhaps a sexy bearded midget lady

  • Grunk #23 4 years ago

    What happens if they release a patch to fix the no nudity bug? does the game have to be re-classified?

  • johnnybrn #24 4 years ago

    "Those numbers are not accurate and are significantly overblown. The actual amount of space for the Soulcalibur IV install and save data file are in-line with other games requiring this feature," a Namco Bandai spokesperson told Kotaku.

    Hope he doesnt mean MGS4.

    ;)

  • Chufty #25 4 years ago

    When was the PS3 supposed to be an 'easy-to-use' games console? And, more to the point, what part of installing games are you finding difficult to use?

    Get a Wii if you can't work the knobs on your PS3.

  • Darren #26 4 years ago

    @Chufty - That's not what I meant and you know it. For 40 GB HDD users who will eventually find themselves having to labouriously delete and reinstall games when they run out of space, the PS3 is NOT an easy to use system. Yes, it's an inconvenience that's all but nevertheless it's an inconvenience that the competition doesn't have. You don't have to buy an HDD to play Xbox 360 games for example.

    I'm not against HDD installs personally IF they're used properly and PROVIDED they're optional. I don't think forcing mandatory 2-5 GB installs for a system that only has a 40 GB HDD model is particularly sensible myself. As Uncharted proved, it's possible to have a BD-based game without a massive install and still have quick loading times so it's up to Sony to ensure that the developers are using installs for legitimate reasons not through sheer laziness as so many seem to be doing now.

    P.S. I have a Wii! :p

  • space_ace #27 4 years ago

    No bare bums or boobs in Soulcalibur IV

    what is the world coming to... :-S

  • Dillinger #28 4 years ago

    >>Lazy developers FTL!

    joe public ignorance FTL!

  • Pinewood_Groves #29 4 years ago

    I wonder how much of the install is taken up by Ivy's chest

  • Darren #30 4 years ago

    Someone on another site said the install was a gig per tit but I don't know how true that is... or how many tits there are in the game! LOL

  • Darren #31 4 years ago

    @Area88 - 'Fraid not as PS3 games that install data still require the disc to play them. ;)

  • Razz #32 4 years ago

    Ivy is my virtual woman. I need to find a woman in real life that looks adn dresses like that. :))

  • bad09 #33 4 years ago

    I love the fanboys trying to defend PS3 installs, it's funny! Me I don't really like the idea of having to watch the games I buy or wait to install games if I want to play something I've had to erase of the drive so I can play something new. Thankfully I have 360 which saves huge amounts of space on my PS3 drive, but if PS3 was my only console I'd be pretty pissed about it.

    Sure I will (have to) get a new HDD (at further expense to me thank you very much Mr Sony) but that is far from the point. Personally, I thinks it terrible they only give us 40gb knowing full well the kind of storage these installs are taking up thanks to a disk system clearly not the best for running games, still blu wasn't put in PS3 for the games anyway was it.... ;)


  • DrDamn #34 4 years ago

    See now I always thought Namco would be one of the devs who could work well with a Bluray drive. Previous Namco fighters are always super quick to load. So to here they are doing a mandatory install on PS3 is quite bad news.

    The problem I assumed with bluray drives was seektime. So games with open environments were tough but where you can bundle stuff up logically should be ok. A fighter should be easy to bundle up. One bundle for the arena and one bundle for each possible fighter combo. Although I seem to remember that SCIV has lots of character customisation which could arse this up.

  • Darren #35 4 years ago

    @bad09 - Exactly my point... completely agree with what you said.

    At least, Sony don't make you pay for their own grossly overpriced HDDs like Microsoft do for anyone wanting more than 11 GB of storage space on the 360. I mean £130 for a 120 GB HDD?!?!? I paid £80 for a 320 GB HDD for my PS3!!! LOL

  • muftak #36 4 years ago

    @bad09

    oh shut up will you , you can tell you are a new school gamer who has never heard of pc gaming

    Installs arnt a problem been doing it for 7 years with my pc and now the ps3

    if it speeds up loading times then its okie by me , looking at a 300gb harddrive this month but for 40 odd quid no biggie

    just get a life and stop trying to get one over on people.

  • Miths #37 4 years ago

    "Sure I will (have to) get a new HDD (at further expense to me thank you very much Mr Sony) but that is far from the point. Personally, I thinks it terrible they only give us 40gb knowing full well the kind of storage these installs are taking up thanks to a disk system clearly not the best for running games, still blu wasn't put in PS3 for the games anyway was it.... ;)"

    On the other hand, if they released an official 250 or 320 GB PS3 at this point, they would probably charge at the absolute very least around a hundred Euro more than for the 40 GB model, while on the other hand you can buy a 250 GB disk for around €50 and spend five minutes installing it yourself.

    But I do agree - for those stubbornly refusing to do such an upgrade (as I refused myself until around a month ago), the many large mandatory installs do become a pain in the ass with so little space available. I frequently had to go back and delete game data from games I hadn't played in a few weeks, but nevertheless still felt I might want to revisit soon.

    On the other hand, there's no way in hell I would rather have a faster DVD drive than a Blu-ray drive. That's one of the original reasons I bought a PS3 - as a full media system. And if it did have a DVD drive instead (or if games were released on DVD), I imagine it's likely we would suffer from the same horrible drive noise as you get from the 360 (and most PCs, but there you generally only have to sit through the turbine sound during the initial game install).

  • bad09 #38 4 years ago

    @ Darren

    I agree completely MS are no angels in the HDD skullduggery either but the important difference with MS is it's down to you if fill up your HDD with arcade titles and media with the PS3 you have no choice but to fill a great deal of space purely with data for "disk format" games before you even get to purchasing stuff off PSN or putting media on it.

  • bad09 #39 4 years ago

    @ muftak

    OK I don't know gaming. I don't need to prove myself as gamer to you or anyone and certainly not trying to get "one up" on anyone and also I'm perfectly aware PCs install, that's why I made sure when I built my PC I had enough storage.

    When I buy a GAMES CONSOLE I buy for ease and plug in and play and I don't expect to upgrading a HDD within 2 months (i think I've had PS3 two months maybe a little more)

    As you prove, my post stands, I love the way the fanboys try to defend it, it's funny.......

    Edited by 1 at 02/07/08 @ 15:02

  • space_ace #40 4 years ago

    bring back the cartridges!

  • monkie_king #41 4 years ago

    Darren makes a very good point -- if Sony would let games be published on DVD then these problems would go away. It clearly doesn't need the BD capacity, so what on Earth is the point?

    A mandatory install for a fighter is ridiculous.

    On a related point, anyone know why the SCIV game data on xbox.com says "Harddrive required"?

    edit: oh, they've changed it now. Must have been confused with the PS3 version :-P
    Edited by 1 at 02/07/08 @ 15:37

  • Quint2020 #42 4 years ago

    No nekkid Ivy = no sale

  • IronCladChicken #43 4 years ago

    lol@bad09
    These are the same fan-boys who'd say console gaming is superior to PC gaming in part becasue there were no HDD installs... All of a sudden installing to the HDD actually makes the games better (& obviously superior to the 360 in every respect) :p

  • Quint2020 #44 4 years ago

    God bless teh blu-ray!

  • bad09 #45 4 years ago

    @ IronCladChicken

    LOL, you are so right there mate! Very much like the stupid achievements on 360....... ;)

  • YourMessageHere #46 4 years ago

    Personally I want my games to automagically load instantly from unscratchable discs that are free and play in greater than HD resolutions. However this is impossible, so I manage within the physical limitations of throwing around the huge amounts of data required with latest generation resolutions and storage methods.

    I don't get it - if you want a console that does more than the last generation did, it WILL be more complex and you WILL have to deal with it, including learning the terrible hardship this black art of installing and uninstalling presents. Admittedly I'm not a console person, but I can't believe that uninstalling a PS3 or 360 game also kills the saves; so if you run out of space, crikey, you have to uninstall a game. Then you may have to wait if you want to play it later. Why is this so hard?

  • MENTAL1ST Verified Senior Software Engineer, Picsel UK Ltd. #47 4 years ago

    Why is this so hard?

    But why is it so hard for PS3 developers to adopt a cacheing strategy such has been used for, what, 7 years on MS's consoles?

    Having to install a game is more awkward than not having to, it's as simple as that.

  • Pedrolot #48 4 years ago

    SBfistfun
    No buttock nudity = no buy


    Knowsit..

  • bad09 #49 4 years ago

    @ Arbiter

    It's not the initial install that is the problem and you know it, it's the size of the install and the number of games that require it. Hell you can blow 11gb on just GTp and MGS4 - TWO GAMES!! Even LBP will take up 1gb. I'm amazed you feel that these mandatory installs are fine for a games console (remember console, not a PC) sold with only 40gb of memory.

  • Chufty #50 4 years ago

    What's the obsession with minimal effort? You want something that just works? You're mainly men. Your console is a gadget. Be men and piss around with it, like your fathers did before you with their record players and VCRs.

    While you're at it, stop drinking cocktails and using moisturiser.

  • Gradius #51 4 years ago

    If having to wait a few measly minutes for an initial install is a deal-breaker

    It's not a deal breaker, just an unnesassary inconvenience.

  • Gradius #52 4 years ago

    @Arbiter

    After all your reasoning, I'm afraid I still don't see how installing SoulCalibur on my PS3 is advantageous to me when I could quite easily get the 360 version and not install it. I guess for people who own both systems it's not so much of a problem as we can just buy the (usually superior) 360 versions of games and not have to worry about upgrading our consoles to do so.

    I only have a few PS3 games (MGS4, GT5p, DMC4 and one or two others) but it's already becoming obvious to me that I'm going to have to upgrade the bloody thing and I've only had it a few weeks, SATA drives may be cheap but that's not the point. If Sony knew that most devs would make relatively large forced installs the norm then building the system with a 40gig drive as standard is (imo) an obvious design flaw (which, I can easily fix but at my own expense and inconvenience).

  • SpyroViper #53 4 years ago

    I wont be buying this. No Blood or anything.. Boring!

  • Ryze #54 4 years ago

    Aaaaaaahhhh,

    PS3lol