Street Fighter IV

Is this just a lame SFII sequel or the king of fighters? And do we like it more than Virtua Fighter?

	Version 360, PS3	Developer Capcom/Dimps	Publisher Capcom	Genre Fighting

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In gameplay terms, IV takes the best elements of previous Street Fighters' gameplay systems, and mixes and refines them to devastating effect while ditching some of the overcomplicated fat from previous iterations, like the "isms" from the Apha era. It was surely a difficult task to find the right balance of gameplay ingredients to make fighting an approachable but strategic experience, but they've pulled it off.

People have called me a fighting game snob/twat in the past for my undying allegiance to Virtua Fighter above other 3D brawlers, despite being a bit rubbish at it when playing proper experts - but in the 2D world, I've only ever been a Street Fighter guy (and my secret love for Killer Instinct is more a guilty pleasure, which we won't discuss here). I've been playing console SFIV since late last year, but I'm really only just starting to explore the game's true depths as I learn more about what expert players are able to pull off in the game. Every time we play, we're discovering new stuff, and I'm completely sold on SFIV's rare combination of both accessibility and stunning depth. It's something Japanese arcade players have been chipping away at for many months now, and that western fighting enthusiasts are about to go mental for.

The six-button layout is retained (obviously) and in addition to your normal health bar, your special moves, throws et al, you've got the 'Super' bar that indicates your potential to do 'EX' versions of special moves and ultimately a 'Super' attack with a full Super bar, as well as a new 'Revenge' meter that fills up as you take a battering during a round and soon allows you to pull off a flashy 'Ultra' combo, with two different levels of intensity.

You've also got the new 'Focus Attack' of three different strengths, by pressing/holding the two medium buttons, which allow you to absorb certain attacks and counter so that your opponent often ends up in a 'crumple' state. You can do a 'dash' during a Focus Attack to perform a Dash Cancel - or a Focus Attack Dash Cancel (FADC) - which opens up possibilities for further, more devastating (and more difficult) combo attacks that will maybe start to go past the half-bar mark in terms of damage if you can chain them into Supers and Ultras.

It all starts to get pretty insane quite quickly, as it should with any fighting game with any sort of serious depth. If all that sounds really complicated, well, sorry to the snobby expert players but let's be honest, it really is complicated at first. For me it was about an hour before I knew what was going on at all, and a few play sessions until I understood the strategic disciplines and uses of the EX/super and Revenge bars, and many hours of play until I started to experiment with and pull off FADC combos, and yet more training still until I was able to use these in competitive scenarios. Back in day it was punch-fireball and that was it, but there's so much more in IV that makes it worthy of a proper, modern version of the series.

Clearly, this review is not here to go overboard on mechanical detail or be a players' guide on how the gameplay system works - there are many good resources available for that online. But it's a testament to the depth in the game that the console version's all-new Challenge Mode demands a total of 8 increasing levels of 'technique difficulty' (Normal levels 1-4 difficulty, and then Advanced levels 1-4) and it starts to get really tough on the first level of Advanced. Normal stuff is maybe punch-fireball - your basic combos - and then Advanced will say right, let's see you do focus, crumple, dash, double dash punch, uppercut, dragon punch, FADC, into a Super. And that's maybe just level 1 of Advanced - you can't see what the following request is until you pass the current level. It's madness and we love it. You discover the true potential of the game in this mode, and unlock new stuff, too.

When you take into account the meters, EX, Supers and Ultras, FADCs, the game offers considerably more strategic play than Virtua Fighter, although I would question whether, in absolute bread and butter terms, anything can touch the raw depth and pacing of pure combat gameplay in the Sega title. I guess you could argue it either way.

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