Soul Calibur III is pretty good. It's very easy to pick up, so don't worry at all about that. If you're worried about the story, I wrote this for just such a situation.

http://soulcalibur3.us/soulcalibur3/...r_ii_story.txt

There's plenty of unlockable stuff in there, and the character creation system is fun enough to add a layer of depth.

This game is a lot better as a multiplayer game, though. That's where the mind games come into play. >:3