Street Fighter IV Review

It's obvious that each iteration of the long-running Street Fighter series has been carefully tuned and tweaked to the finest degree, and nowhere is this more apparent than in Street Fighter IV. The lessons learned in the franchise's 20-plus years have been used to prune back the core fighting experience to create something truly special.Street Fighter IV is a resounding success not only because it's one of the most technically complex 2D fighters ever made, but also because it's also wrapped inside a layer of absolute accessibility. Never has the old "A minute to learn, a lifetime to master" adage been truer than it is here.

The Street Fighter fundamentals have remained consistent over the years; your job is to knock out the other guy or gal. All 12 of the classic world warriors--Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Blanka, E. Honda, Zangief, Guile, Dhalsim, Balrog, Vega, Sagat, and M. Bison--are back and playable from the outset, and they're joined by six brand-new and diverse characters. Abel, a mixed martial arts grapple-style character; Crimson Viper a female fighter with sweeping, airborne fire attacks; Rufus, a rotund fighter whose body makes him a bit of a sight gag despite his deceptive speed; and El Fuerte, a pro wrestler whose rushes and air throws make him a slippery foe. Ryu and Ken's sensei, Gouken, also makes his playable-character debut in Street Fighter IV. Naturally, he didn't teach the boys everything he knows, so when they meet again he has a few tricks up his sleeves, including a horizontal and vertical fireball EX move. The game's new end boss, Seth, fills the last spot and joins the list once you've unlocked everyone else. Character balance is spot-on across the roster, and as a result, you should never feel that you can't compete simply because you've chosen one character over another.

You'll need to finish the game multiple times and in special ways to unlock the complete character list. Doing so will make fan favourites Cammy, Sakura, Akuma, Fei Long, Rose, Gen, and Dan playable. Like previous games in the series, Street Fighter IV lets you perform powerful super combos, but it has removed air blocking and parrying completely. Developers Capcom and Dimps have added a completely new gameplay system: focus attacks, a new multipurpose offensive and defensive ability that can be charged to one of three levels by pressing and holding the medium punch and kick buttons simultaneously. There's no onscreen bar to show how charged your attack is, so you'll need to rely on the progressively darkening ink splashes surrounding your character model. Each character features a unique focus animation, so you shouldn't have any trouble working it out after a few rounds with each. Focus attacks make you vulnerable to damage because you need to be standing still to charge them (though you can dash forward or backward to cancel them), but the trade-off is that you'll absorb the first hit without the penalty of an animation reset, allowing for an instant counterattack if you land it. They can also act as armour-breaking moves, shutting down more-powerful attacks. Successfully landing a fully charged focus attack will deal damage and crumple your opponent to the ground, giving you the chance to follow up with an unblockable hit as he or she falls.

The new mechanic also lets you use part of your EX power-meter charge to exit animations early and chain bigger combos together. They take a little getting used to and some serious thumb dexterity, but once they're mastered, you can perform moves such as dragon-punch stalls directly into super moves or use them to juggle players in midair with multiple hits. Your revenge meter builds as you take damage, whereas the EX meter fills as you dish it out. EX power rolls over to the next round, but revenge must be built from scratch each time. This becomes a crucial risk-versus-reward mechanic. Do you take hits to build revenge and power up an ultra attack, or do you deal damage to burn your EX on improved moves, cancels, or save it for a super finisher? The flexibility of this system means that you're free to play according to your strengths and style. But just like reversals, EX power-ups, and ultra combo attacks, focus attacks serve to mix up the experience only for veteran players; such is the game's balance that they have never been required to win a match, and they act more as an additional weapon in the arsenal of a skilled player. They're waiting for you when you want to take a step up and learn how they work, but well-timed basic punches and kicks are just as effective.

The single-player mode is robust and has a lot to offer across several components. Arcade mode pits you against a set number of fighters from your unlocked-character roster and culminates in a showdown with Seth. Along the way to your goal, you'll always encounter a rival fight. These are regular fights accompanied by an in-engine exchange with your opponent. They're a welcome mix-up but often add nothing to the character's storyline because some fighters clearly don't even know why they hate one another. Each character's adventure is bookended by an anime-style cinematic movie that explains his or her motivations for attending the tournament. They're quite short and keep story to an absolute minimum, but they get the message across and do a reasonable-enough job of filling in the gaps. Given the amount of additional content shoehorned into this game, we were slightly disappointed to find that no bonus levels have been included, especially since we had high hopes of reliving our car and barrel smashing from Street Fighter II.

Regardless of whether you're down with busting out a tatsumaki senpukyaku at will or think it's some kind of egg-noodle dish, there's a difficulty mode here for you. Eight levels ranging from very easy to hardest are available, so you're sure to find one appropriate for your skill level. That said, even at the gentler difficulties, Street Fighter IV is no cakewalk because your opponents will occasionally mix things up with surprise super and ultra combos. First-timers will have no trouble picking up, playing, and learning as they go. Playing on the medium or above difficulty will also enable score tracking, letting you submit and compare to other players on the game's online leaderboards.

Sometimes concepts that seem so awesome in one medium don't translate well into video games. Take Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, for example. Many people have fond memories of playing with the toy when they were youngsters. One person would control the red robot, the other would control the blue robot, and both players would madly press the punch buttons on the toy until one of the robots' chins popped up. The loser would then push his robot's chin back into position, and the whole process would start over. There wasn't anything more to it than that, but people happily frittered away hours of their formative years just knocking each other's blocks off. Now, DSI Games has produced a video game rendition of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots for the Game Boy Advance that, despite a few modest changes, works just like the toy. It is perhaps the simplest and most repetitive fighting game ever produced--and easily one of the ugliest.

The game is loosely patterned after other 2D fighting games, such as Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat, except that all of the characters are palette swaps of the same plastic robot, and all of the backdrops consist of the same toy boxing ring, which is superimposed over drab depictions of futuristic scenery. Each of the 10 playable robots has its own speed and strength characteristics, but they all look the same and have the same basic set of punches. The three play modes included also don't differ much. One lets you pit the red robot against the blue robot; one lets you set up a match between any two of the 10 robots; and the third lets you fight five robots in succession. Incredibly, the developers neglected to include a link mode.

Failing to include a link mode is inexcusable because the main reason people enjoyed the toy in the first place was that their friends and family were controlling the robot on the other side. Knocking the CPU's block off isn't nearly as satisfying.

The absence of a link mode is a terrible thing, but that isn't what makes Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots such a terrible game. Ironically, the game's biggest problem is that it's actually too true to the experience of playing with the toy. All of the arenas look the same, all of the robots look the same, and most of their attacks look the same. Just like with the toy, the outcome of each fight in the game is primarily dependent on how fast you can mash buttons. And, when you mash those buttons, you'll see the same choppy punches and hear the same clunky plastic sounds that you would if you were playing with the toy.

The developers kicked up the combat in the game a little by giving the robots extra actions and changing the way a knockout blow is performed, but these improvements are almost completely lost on the brainless CPU artificial intelligence. Every robot can move back and forth, punch high and low, duck, and execute power punches. Each robot also has its own unique special attack. Knockout blows aren't random as they are when playing with the toy. To knock the CPU's block off, first you need to whittle down its stamina meter by landing punches with the A and B buttons, and then you need to initiate the knockout punch by tapping the left and right shoulder buttons until another meter fills. All of these improvements seem like good ideas, but their value is completely offset by the CPU's inability to retreat or take advantage of openings. If you just mash buttons, the CPU will walk into almost every punch. In that regard, the video game rewards you for mashing buttons just as much as the toy.

Some concepts simply don't work as video games. Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots is one of them. The simplicity and repetitiveness that make it such a great toy make it a lousy video game.