Street Fighter EX2 Plus is the follow-up to Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha. Both games eschew the 2D style we've come to know from the Street Fighter series in favor of a polygonal approach, but the gameplay hasn't entered the third dimension whatsoever. While EX2 Plus adds a few features and some new characters to the mix, it doesn't really have the overall flair that made the first game stand out.

In addition to old favorites like Guile, Ken, and Chun Li and returning EX fighters such as Pullum, Darun and D.Dark, new fighters like Nanase, Area, and Vulcano Rosso have entered the fold. The new characters fit well into the EX universe and exhibit the game's altered form of Street Fighter magic. The gameplay is standard six-button Street Fighter. Everything from fireballs to dragon punches to spinning pile drivers have been implemented in polygonal form, and the timing of the moves haven't really changed, so moving from EX to EX2 or even from 2D to 3D isn't much of a change. The real differences in the EX series lie in its use of the super meter. In addition to the super cancels and guard cancels introduced in the first EX, there's a new excel move, which acts much like the custom combos from Street Fighter Alpha 2. While it's neat to watch, the standard super combos are usually a more effective use of one third of your super meter.

Graphically, EX2 has a more smoothed-over look than the first EX did. While it does look a bit better than EX did, some players will likely miss the jagged-yet-defined look of EX. The effects have been bumped up a notch or two, and super combos really explode off the screen as a result. The super combo finish is still every bit as insane as in the original, this time showing all sorts of meteorites streaking toward the earth. The music is a little generic, and you won't find any old Street Fighter favorites among the various tracks. The character voices are still reasonably good. A static screen and a few lines of text, however, have replaced the endings, a definite downgrade when compared with the animated endings in the original game.

The usual modes are here, including versus, the barrel bonus stage, and of course, the expert mode. The expert mode gives you 16 different combo challenges per character. The first few are simple things, like throwing a fireball. But near the end of each character's list lie some pretty difficult six- or seven-hit combos.

Overall, EX2 is more of an upgrade to the original game than it is an entirely new experience. It looks very good and plays well, but it doesn't add enough new features to interest anyone that has become bored with the original. If you're still interested in EX and you're looking for something to tide you over until EX3 comes out for the PlayStation 2, EX2 just might do the trick, but don't expect the originality and freshness that the first game provided.

Virtua Fighter 4 Review

The blocky, flat-shaded 3D fighters first seen in 1993's Virtua Fighter have sure come a long way. Nearly 10 years after the original arcade game was released, Sega's Virtua Fighter series now spans four games, not to mention a number of weird spin-offs like Virtua Fighter Kids and the outrageous Fighters Megamix. Virtua Fighter games have appeared on virtually every Sega system ever made. Last year, Sega bowed out of the hardware business, so the latest installment of Virtua Fighter is the first that isn't exclusive to Sega's own hardware. And PlayStation 2 owners couldn't be luckier, because Virtua Fighter 4 is the best fighting game to debut since Namco's superlative Dreamcast version of Soul Calibur back in 1999. Virtua Fighter 4 is also the best game in the series to date: It offers even more of the depth that fans of the series have enjoyed for years, yet it also quickens the pacing, streamlines the controls, and fixes the problems found in previous installments. Furthermore, the PS2 version of Virtua Fighter 4 packs some interesting bonus features and the best artificial intelligence hands down of any fighting game. Superficially, Virtua Fighter 4 may resemble any number of other graphically impressive 3D fighters. But the real beauty of it is definitely in the gameplay.

Virtua Fighter 4 has 13 characters you can choose from, two of which are new to the series. Only Virtua Fighter 3's conspicuous sumo wrestler Taka-Arashi didn't make the cut--all the other fighters from the series are back with new moves and new looks, including such favorites as the Japanese martial arts expert Akira, the massive Canadian pro wrestler Wolf, and the blonde-haired high-kicking siblings Jacky and Sarah Bryant. As in all previous Virtua Fighter games, the last bout in Virtua Fighter 4's arcade mode is against Dural, basically a very mean female mannequin made of metal (there's a way to unlock her as a playable character for use in the versus mode). The first of the game's new fighters is Lei Fei, a shaolin monk whose dizzying kung fu skills are as effective as they are spectacular. The second is Vanessa Lewis, who looks like X-Men's Storm and specializes in both defensive counterthrows and in kickboxing. Lei Fei looks better in action than Vanessa, though both of the new characters have dozens of interesting moves. Actually, the same can be said for all the characters, not just the new ones. Each returning fighter boasts a number of new abilities, many of which become important additions to their repertoires. Many of the new moves aren't just punches or kicks--they're complex techniques like deflections, reversals, and alternate fighting stances.

Virtua Fighter 4 isn't just for hard-core fighting-game fans--the game is only as complex as you want it to be. While it will definitely appeal to you if you enjoy poring over long-winded character FAQs or spending an evening just practicing the same tough move or combo over and over, you'll also enjoy it if you just want to play for fun. The majority of the game's playable characters are very easy to pick up--by the manual's own admission, more than half of them are well suited for beginners, even for those who've never played a fighting game before. All of the fighters are competitive, yet all of them are substantially different. There's much more differentiation now between some of the characters who seemed similar to each other in previous installments.

What all the characters do have in common is that they respond equally well to the game's flat-out perfect controls. Virtua Fighter 4 reverts back to the deceptively simple control scheme found in the first two games in the series: There's a punch button, a kick button, and a guard button. The evade button introduced in Virtua Fighter 3 is gone, yet lateral movement and evading attacks are still easily accomplished just by tapping up or down on the directional pad, to shift your character away from or toward the screen. You don't necessarily need to know that--using some of the characters, you can have a good time just mashing on buttons, watching as they perform various great-looking strings of attacks. But sooner or later you'll notice that Virtua Fighter 4 rewards skill and precision. The pacing of a typical match is just right--very fast and intense, but not frantic. Most of the moves in the game are easy to execute, but there's still a lot to remember if you want to get good. And some of the more advanced techniques and combos are as challenging, and rewarding, as fighting game moves get.