Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

Soulcalibur IV hits PS3 and 360 HARD on July 29, arriving with new console-exclusive characters, returning favorites (yay, Talim!) and plenty of question marks. Bandai Namco has done a great job on the ol’ PR slow trickle, eaking out character reveals and feature sets over the past six months.

I’m not super-jazzed about the Star Wars crossover characters (Darth Vader=PS3, Yoda=360), only because they seem to take over the game… and I don’t especially need Star Wars in my Soulcalibur. I’m hoping their presence in SCIV is as innocuous as the Link/Spawn/Heihachi trio back in Soulcalibur II, and that their constant appearances in all the pre-release vids is just marketing spiel at work.

And I’ll put it right out there that I believe PS3 owners will be able to micropayment Yoda into their game and vice-versa with Vader and the 360. I mean, why wouldn’t Bandai Namco do that?

Vader’s Secret Apprentice will appear in both versions, although I’m not sure anybody gives a crap about him. My guess is that Bandai Namco wanted Vader and Yoda, and Lucas said they had to take Secret Apprentice too to seal the deal.

A particularly delicious rumor (fronted by EGM’s venerable Quartermann) suggests that Kratos – of Sony’s God of War series – will be playable in the PS3 version. I’m not a big God of War fan by any stretch, but I agree that he would be a super addition to the exclusivity roster… certainly far more interesting and relevant than Spawn was five years ago.