Everybody Was Kung Fu (Street) Fighting!

For those of you around my age, I don't have to tell you how much of a phenomenon Street Fighter 2 was for the arcade. It was simply the last hurrah of the now defunct video game arcade. Back in the mid-90's, Capcom released a game that was so simple to play, but hard to master, that it was incredibly addicting young teenage gamers around the nation. Every arcade or mall had one and for each game there was always that one kid who was awesome at it. Kids would line up for their chance to beat him. I was not that kid. I was the kid who waited 25 minutes to put two quarters in the machine just so "Street Fighter Scotty" could embarrass me in front of everyone. The game was simple. You would choose a fighter and then fight against one other fighter. If you beat the fighter you would move onto the next round and play a harder fighter. After 8 rounds, you fought the big boss and then you beat the game. Controls were easy. There were three buttons for punch, and another three buttons for kick (light, medium, and strong). Each character had different moves and a different combination of the buttons would make each character perform a different move. Here's the rub though. Anyone in the arcade could walk up to the machine and challenge you by putting in 50 cents. If they beat you, you were bounced from the machine and the winner would take over your progress in the game. The game became so popular, the actual single player game never finished. It was just a line of challengers.

It's been over ten years since those glory days, but last month Capcom brought them all back with the release of Street Fighter 4 for Xbox and PS3.

This game is a great advancement for the series. And while the basics remain the same, the game is much deeper. For starters, each character now has "Special" and "Ultra" attacks. These are meters that fill up at the bottom of the screen throughout the fight. If you fill your meter and can hit your opponent with one of these attacks, look out. That guy is screwed. The graphics have the full high-def treatment which make the game look outstanding.

What really makes this game standout is the online features. You can completely recreate that old arcade feeling by opening up your game to challengers. You just start your game like you normally would and then randomly "A New Challenger has Entered the Arena". Your game stops as a random player from Xbox Live now challenges your game, just like the old days. Awesome!!!

There is one major drawback to this game and I have to mention it. If you want to play this game somewhat seriously, you need to buy a new controller. The game was originally designed to be played in an arcade. That means an arcade stick with 6 buttons. Some of the major moves require you to hit three buttons at the same time. While that's easy as pie in an arcade, you practically have to break your thumb to do it with the Xbox controller. These arcade fighting sticks are $60 extra on the cheap end and as much as $140 if you want a professional stick that they use in tournaments. So that means this game could cost anywhere between $120 to $200 to get the full experience from. I'm not sure about you, but that's a lot of dough to drop on a single game regardless of how good it is.

I ended up buying the lower end arcade stick and I love it. Maybe I'm just a sucker for a good video game. Perhaps I just wanted to recapture some of my youth. Or perhaps I just wanted to kick the crap out of complete strangers on line like Street Fighter Scotty used to kick the crap out of me over 10 years ago. Either way, I can see this game staying in my active rotation for a long time to come.

Until next time,

- The 30 Year-old Gamer