Super Street Fighter 4 Review for Xbox 360 and PS3

     In 1991, a game hit the arcade scene that would forever change the face of the 'beat-em up' genre. Street Fighter II was a sequel to the original 1987 Street Fighter title and is arguably the most influential fighting game ever. In 2008, Street Fighter IV was released to critical acclaim and major success. It boasted new characters, graphics, moves, backgrounds.....pretty much everything had been improved upon. So, did Capcom manage to improve upon such a fantastic game?

GRAHICS + PRESENTATION

= Same old, same ole! Nothing major has changed graphically, although the game does appear to be a bit sharper around the edges now with marginally improved lighting and textures. I guess if it ain't broke etc.

+ Look! A hippo! More backgrounds have been included and although they offer no new gameplay elements themselves, they all help bring the fighting to life that little bit more. Special mention must go to the African Eclipse background with the hippos. :-)

+ Still looking good there!! 10 new characters have been added to SSF4 and each one of them has been faithfully re-created from their previous incarnations. The 2 exceptions to this are Hakan (a Turkish oil-wrestler) and Juri (loosely based on Tae-Kwon Do) who are completely new to the series.

SOUND

++++ IT'S GONE!!! Yes ladies and gents! Never again will your ear-drums be assaulted by some god-awful J-pop lunatic singing "IN-DES-TRUCTABLE!" I can finally stop seeing my therapist now! :-)

- BINGO! What the hell is it with the Japanese and annoying voices for characters? Cody grates the hell out of me whenever he shouts "Bingo" and the screams of the female characters as they lose, make me wanna bathe my ears in razor-blades!

+ Bring the beat back! Capcom have brought back character theme music during the fights. By this, I mean they've re-mixed all the old music from SF2 etc. A fantastic little touch.

GAMEPLAY

+ Who do I pick 1st? 2 brand new characters plus 8 characters from previous SF games? Yes please. From 3rd Strike and Alpha 3, there is almost more than enough variation for SF veterans and new-comers alike.


+ Can you move like me? Capcom are spoiling us further by giving every single character 2 Ultras instead of just 1 this time around. This further opens the door for combo potential.

- "Almost" enough variation! Ryu, Ken, Sakura, Dan, Akuma. It feels like there are too many carbon copies of characters here. Compared to the uniqueness of fighters from other games ie: Blazblue, SSF4 does feel like it slightly cheats you with the character selection.


- A.I (Awful Intelligence). I'm used to cheap A.I in fighting games but SSF4 just crosses the line into down-right cheating. The amount of times the A.I will read your button inputs and then counter is ridiculous! Plus, all the A.I does is attack. You can't pressure it or condition it. This was a minor problem in SF4. In SSF4 it is not acceptable.


- Slow motion. Online still suffers from massive amounts of lag, often at the most inconvenient of times. I've also found out that the spammers are still taking advantage of this, demonstrating no skill what-so-ever and dis-connecting if they lose!


- Priority! Some moves have a very strange level of priority. For example: Chun-Li's 2nd Ultra (Kikosho) can be interuppted by a simple jab! Throws can be stopped mid-animation whilst other characters normal throws will go through Supers+Ultras!? Other special moves have been worked on such as Ken's 'Flaming Dragon Punch' which now has a ridiculously quick recovery time. Offline, this is quite annoying. Online it's an absolute f**king nightmare!!

+ Online vs. Offline. Always, if you can, play SSF4 offline against your friends! Online is nowhere near as responsive. Offline SSF4 is a LOT of fun! Online, it just becomes frustrating.

= Out with the old, in with the new! Call me crazy but I really enjoyed the Survival and Time Trials from SF4. I see no reason as to why they were taken out. In their place are several new online (what a surprise) features. Endless battle (replaces player matches), team battle (exactly as it sounds) and Tournament Mode (recent DLC release on Xbox Live). The trials from SF4 make a return in a new format and are slightly easier to pull off this time, but many still require more skill than many players are able to achieve!

Should you buy it?

Despite it's faults, I would say that this is a resounding 'yes'. If you've got more than one pad and more than one friend, you owe it to yourself to play this against each other. Don't worry about online play too much and just enjoy versing other people offline.

Super Street Fighter IV was developed and published by Capcom. Hours played: 100+ (both online and offline). Review is based on the Xbox 360 version.

Achievement difficulty: 9/10. It's the trials that are the real killer here!