It’s that time again. That time that only comes once every 8 years or so. Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for a new Street Fighter installment.
How Does It Work?:
Street Fighter IV producer Yoshinori Ono said that this installment will be more akin to Street Fighter II than the third release was. After hinting at the possibility of having Street Fighter II-like bonus stages (car smashing goodness!), Ono and his team decided against this for the arcade version because they believed this would cause arcade operators to lose too much money. Notice they said nothing about the bonus stages not being in the home versions, so let’s keep our fingers crossed. The new ‘Focus Attack’ feature allows for players to block a move by their opponent, and unleash a powerful counter attack. Ono says the reason this has been implemented is to give the game a feel not unlike boxing, rather than button mashing chaos. Also new to the series is the ‘Ultra Combo’. This takes the Super Combo feature from the past, and turns it up a notch. When players are hit by their opponent their ‘Revenge Gauge’ will slowly fill. Once it is full players can unleash a flurry of punches, kicks, or what have you on their opponent, complete with cinematic camera view.
What Does It Look Like?:
The 4th installment of the series boasts beautiful 3D characters and backgrounds rendered in 3D. However, gameplay will stay remain in 2D due to, as stated earlier, the team wanting to keep that Street Fighter II vibe.
Who Is In It?:
Street Fighter IV will contain many of your past favorites including: the original 8 from SF2, the 4 ‘boss’ characters from SF2, Akuma, and 5 new characters. The home version will include 8 extra characters not available in the arcade version such as: Cammy, Dan, Fei-Long, Rose, and more.
What’s In It For Me?:
So what exactly are all the things the home version is going to have that the arcade didn’t? Let’s have a look.
– The choice between English and Japanese voice acting
– Animated opening and ending sequences for each character’s story
– Bonus stages/DLC
– ‘Challenge Mode’
– A ‘Collector’s Edition’ release containing: a guide done in comic book style, a disc with the animated short The Ties That Bind as well as selected trailers, the game’s soundtrack disc, a Ryu figure for PS3 owners, A Crimson Viper figure for 360 owners, and five downloadable character outfits.
So there you have it, Street Fighter IV out on February 17, 2009. I’ll be playing it, will you?
Back about 9 years ago my family received our first PC. I can’t remember much, but it was a shitty Packard Bell or something like that. At around this time I was a very big hockey fan, so my parents thought it would be a good idea to get me NHL ’99 for Christmas. I instantly fell in love with the game, playing it day and night. I later purchased both NHL 2000 and NHL 2001 for the PC the following years. I took a break from the PC side of the NHL series with the 2003 release, which I got for the PS2. Now NHL 2003 wasn’t a bad game by far, but it was just missing that feeling that the PC series always had.
I got my ps3 july after launch, and just recently got my 360 (about a month). I now find myself playing 360, more over my ps3, by more I mean a lot. I’ve been on my ps3 roughly 3 times, and that was just to play call of duty with friends. Now i began to ask my self why?, is the hardware better? NO, are there better games? No, the reason why its more compelling is the software. Its a step above ps3’s software, ps3’s menu while organized is boring and bland, the friends list pales in comparison to the 360’s. They don’t have a party system or private chat. The psn store, while it looks good, still doesn’t match up to the marketplace and qore, while it does have cool things like theme’s and demos, still isn’t as nice and easy to use as xbox insider. What can sony do to fix’s this? Revamp the menu and get rid of the psp style, use the avatars you make on home to represent you and your friends on the friends list. Make a party feature as well as private chat and turn qore into its own section on the menu. Split the psn store with the movies having their own section in the menu and as well as games. With these problems fixed my time, spent on my consoles could end up only decided by the games they put out. What do you think please leave comments, we would like to hear from you! 
Fear Alma again!!!
The Gamers Den 
