Highly fun and ideal for gaming parties.
With Sales of Street Fighter 2 going through the roof (Even I had Street Fighter 2 on the SNES when I was 10 years old) Street fighter 2 spawned 7 versions of the game (with the latest version of the game being Street Fighter 2 HD remix out on PS3's PSN network and Xbox Live) then the mixed and looked down version of Street Fighter 3.
So now released on the PS3, Xbox 360 eventually PC. Street Fighter 4 is finally out. The new version of this game has been changed, first thing which has changed is the character design. The new look of Street Fighter 4 is Cell shaded. This was first introduced with The Legend of Zelda Windwaker and Capcom has followed suit. Also it's noticeable that most of the characters seem bigger built and that could easily be thanks to Steroids.
However the game plays like a charm. With the graphical changes in place you would have thought that the game play would have changed as well. However if you liked the evolution with 3rd strike and the Alfa series then you will be aware of the super and hyper combos. However in the 4th offical game they have a new attack called the Focus attack. This is a move which can be used to stun your opponent and leave them open for an attack or combos. Also the Focus attack can help to counter or block moves as well, actually the focus can be used for anything and is something which can be quickly learned but an age to master.
As per normal with a new game then will be new characters. In this game there is Able who is a French MMA fighter, Crimson Viper who is an American assassin, Rufus who is an overweight fighter and El Fuerte who is a Mexican Wrestler who gimmick is a chief, also there is a new end boss in town called Seth who looks a bit like cyborg who uses the special moves from the other characters. Also hidden Character include Akuma and Gouken (Bothers and Gouken in the mythos of the Street Fighter world is the man who trained Ken and Ryu)
The most exciting part of Street Fighter 4 is the online mode. There is the classic ranked and none ranked matches. However they have an option in the game which while sounds insanely cool however which is really annoying is the feature which allows people online to challenge you to a match at any time during the single player mode. It's to give the gamer a feeling of an arcade vibe and while it was fun at first however if you have been beating the computer and you get challenged it will re-set the match so it would be annoying if you had the computer on the ropes.
It's not a surprise that I have been very critical of beat them ups. Nothing seemed to hold my attention however Street fighter 4 has been not only a very, very good game however it's a game which I shale fire up every other night for a few ours a day. Street Fighter might have been away and got a face lift. However this is one hell of a tough old gaming series and will have brought new fans to the series.
9.5 out of 10