Street Fighter IV (PC)

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Street Fighter is back, more beautiful than ever.

First off we visited Capcom's UK HQ to dust off our Sonic Booms and Flash Kicks and dip our trembling toes for the first time into Street Fighter 4. Then we travelled thousands of miles, to Los Angeles, California, to play Street Fighter legend Seth Killian at his own game, getting the low down on the four brand new characters in the process. Then, still wrecked by jet lag, we queued up, sometimes for half an hour at a time, to get our Hadouken-ing hands-on the finished Japanese arcade version at the recent Battle of Destiny tournament in a sweaty London university student bar. And, now, finally, having played it to death, we're ready to bring you our impressions of what could be the best fighting game ever made.

The question 'is Street Fighter IV good?' is a pointless one. Of course it's good. It's bloody great. It's great if you played Street Fighter II back in the day and haven't touched a fighting game since. It's great if you mastered the parry system from Street Fighter III and occasionally dabble in tournaments across the UK. And it's great if you just love fighting games, because, well, nothing does 2D fighting quite like the guys and girls at Capcom.

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So, with the question 'is Street Fighter IV good?' firmly Dragon Punched into oblivion, we come to the really interesting question - 'just how good is it?'. This is a somewhat harder question to answer.

We asked around at Battle of Destiny, the European leg of the global Evolution fighting game tournament, to see what fighting game fanatics thought. Some said it was too slow. Some said it was too similar to the original Street Fighter II. Some said the new characters weren't interesting enough. And some even said they didn't like the art style. But everyone we spoke to queued up to play it and, once they were beaten, immediately rejoined the queue to have another go, as if it was the latest heart-thumping roller coaster ride at Alton Towers.

The point we're making is that for many fighting fans Street Fighter is much more than a mere video game. It forms a part of who they are. Each has his or her own personal memory - whether it be of pumping 20p pieces into dingy funfair arcades or of trying to make sense of the Japanese manual having imported it for the SNES. This is a game we all love, and we all love in our own special way. And if anything about the fist proper Street Fighter sequel in a decade rubs us the wrong way, we won't be afraid to moan about it.

Screen shots don't do SFIV justice - it looks amazing in motion.

Take the new art style, for example. When the first screen shots hit the web there were just as many people moaning about it as there were people falling over themselves in excitement. Then there's the perceived 2.5D game engine - a point of concern for all those who wanted a pure 2D experience. Well fear not - if you haven't already seen the game in motion, let us be the first to tell you - the game is animated in 3D but plays in classic 2D, and screen shots are meaningless. In motion, and in feel, Street Fighter IV an absolute work of art.

The 3D cel-shaded characters and environments give everything a wonderfully emotive, hand-drawn look. The Ultra Combos, the most devastating moves in the game, and some of the most spectacular moves we've ever seen in a fighting game full stop, show the game's new look off best. Take spiky-haired US marine Guile for example. His Flash Explosion (charge down back, forward, down back, up forward and all three kicks) sees the camera zoom in for a more cinematic angle as he crouches, builds up energy and then pounces in a flurry of kicks. But it's not Guile who'll you'll be looking at as you connect, it's your unfortunate opponent. The facial expressions in Street Fighter IV need to be seen to be believed - eyes pop, mouths open, faces contort and spines curl. It's fluid, 60 frames per second graphical greatness.

That mysterious ink effect we all got excited about after the first Ryu versus Ken teaser trailer was released also makes an appearance in the form of the new Focus attack. By pressing middle punch and middle kick your character will perform a one-hit attack, spewing forth shadowy ink, and absorb a hit at the same time. The Focus attack effect changes depending on how long you hold the buttons down. Tap and you'll do a reflex attack, hold a little longer and it will stun, allowing you to follow up with an Ultra Combo, if your Revenge Gauge is at least half full (more on that later), or charge to the max for an unblockable attack.

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