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Soulcalibur IV Unleashed

Sith apprentice from LucasArts' Star Wars: The Force Unleashed to cross lightsabers in Namco Bandai's newest fighter.

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Apprentice vs Yoda.
Apprentice vs Yoda.

When Star Wars icons Yoda and Darth Vader were first confirmed to appear in Soulcalibur IV, would-be Jedi the world over doubtlessly dreamed of epic lightsaber duels. Those dreams were short-lived, as Namco Bandai had made each character exclusive to a single system, forcing the foes to instead beat up on the standard Soulcalibur cast of traditional-weapon-wielding fighters (or stage their own Clone Wars with character-versus-same-character matches).

However, today Namco Bandai channeled Yoda with the announcement that "there is another." Both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game will feature the Secret Apprentice character from LucasArts' upcoming Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, allowing for proper lightsaber-on-lightsaber duels in a fighting game for the first time since 1997's original PlayStation game Star Wars: Masters of Teras Kasi.

The Secret Apprentice stars in Force Unleashed as Darth Vader's first Sith underling. Since the game takes place between the events of Episode III and Episode IV (the most recent Star Wars film and the very first Star Wars film), the Secret Apprentice must live up to his name and carry out Vader's orders while keeping his existence under wraps.

Soulcalibur IV is set for release on the Xbox 360 and PS3 in regular and limited editions on July 29. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed will follow for the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, and Nintendo DS on September 16.

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