Street Fighter IV

It’s confession time. We’re exactly the right age for Capcom’s classic Street Fighter 2 to be at the heart of our most cherished gaming memories. We vividly remember playing it on dirty arcade cabinets, surrounded by hooting friends, as twenty pence pieces passed from our sweaty palms into coin slots with a continual clunk that plastered huge grins on bemused shopkeeper’s faces. And then breathlessly exclaiming, “Gaming will never get better than this!,” as the home versions arrived, before sinking an entire youth into the Super Street Fighter Turbo, Alpha and VS renditions of the series that followed.

So to say Street Fighter IV had a lot to live up to is a massive understatement. Thankfully Capcom’s re-imagining of their marquee franchise more then exceeds our expectations, and on PC it’s the best looking version of the best Street Fighter game ever created. Its twenty five strong character roster brings back the original twelve world warriors from Street Fighter 2 Turbo, salts the mix with unlockable notables from the series history, and throws in four brand new characters for good measure. Whether you’re a traditional Ryu/Ken player or willing to take on more technical new characters, like crazy luchador El Fuerte or Abel, there’s a huge variety of fighting choices.

While you could conceivably play SF IV like a souped up version of Street Fighter 2 Turbo, (and many will do just that), there’s great levels of depth for series fans and those willing to learn. As well as the usual gamut of Dragon Punches, Fireballs, Sonic Booms and so on to be re-mastered,(our fingers never forgot, sob!) the Super Combos and EX Special moves from previous games return, joined by a visually stunning Ultra Combo that does even more damage.

SF IV’s great new innovation is the ‘Focus Attack’, allowing you to absorb an attack, temporarily losing some health, but staggering your opponent, leaving them open to some devastating counters. It can even be used to ‘Focus cancel’, breaking moves animation, so you can segue instantly into other attacks. All of that might sound crazy and complex, but quickly becomes second nature, and it’s that perfect learning curve and vast array of fast paced tactical choices - each different for every character - that makes the game such a joy to play.

The Street Fighter adherence to timing and skill, rather than button basing has never been more demanded. And of course, playing real people is where the game shines; fighting the AI is fun (excepting end boss Seth, whom we’ve dubbed ‘Cheapest boss this generation), but can’t beat the rush of beating good human opponents. Street Fighter IV supports both 360 pad several fighting sticks- but we recommend getting hold of a stick if you’re thinking of being good enough to triumph over Windows Live.

Capcom chose to keep the 2D fighting style of the game, but render it in gorgeous stylised 3D shown to its best advantage on the PC version. The extended Street Fighter cast have never looked so vibrant or detailed. The higher resolutions on the PC really enhance the games exaggerated anime style and facial expressions, as do the PC only additional graphical ‘flourishes’, of Ink, Posterization and Watercolour.