Suddenly, a vision of beauty stood before us, and we gazed, transfixed. But one can only gaze longingly at a picture of Natalie Imbruglia in her pants for so long, hey lads? Afterwards we played Soul Calibur until our fingers bled...
James Price

The Dreamcast is dead. Long live the Dreamcast.

Confused? Play Soul Calibur and any amount of confusion caused by the above lines will disappear like coherent thought after a swift, heavy blow to the head. Namco's new beat 'em up - their DC debut - positively grabs the attention of any passing gamer, wrenches it into a position where its polygonal beauty is on full display and roars: "THIS is how Dreamcast fighting games should be! Want to fight about it?"

Soul Calibur is beautiful beyond compare. Running at a crisp resolution, and with its 60fps frame rate oddly reminiscent of silk, a supermodel's buttocks and, ahem, dysentery - in terms of fluid movement, natch - it's an altogether startling game to view. For years, console owners have had to endure the lies of videogame marketing men; we've had to grasp the fact that a claim of 'arcade perfect!' and actual, genuine arcade perfection are not the same. Soul Calibur is, get this, better than its coin-op counterpart. Its characters and backdrops have been redrawn, its textures enhanced to take advantage of the DC's capabilities. You know the soap cliché where a woman who has previously appeared merely pretty, in a plain kind of way, takes off her glasses? Oh, you must do. She washes her hair, applies a bit of slap to her (suddenly flawless) face, and it so transpires that she's gorgeous. Well, who'd expect Sega's console to pull such a narrative trick?

We aren't trying to malign Dreamcast. As regular readers will understand, we're rather fond of Sega's wee sandwich toaster. (It does look like one, doesn't it? Breville should sue.) But Soul Calibur, as an example of technical expertise, is so far and away the Dreamcast's most inspired moment to date we're almost lost for words. Well, almost.