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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As you'd expect from any top-notch console fighter these days, Street Fighter IV includes online play over Xbox Live and PlayStation Network, with normal and ranked matches, as well as the ability to allow people to challenge you as you play through the normal Arcade mode (like in an actual Japanese arcade except without the smoke). There's a 5-block signal strength indicator - the more green the better the connection to your online opponent, but really the quality of online play is second-to-none here - we haven't had a really bad, laggy game at all as yet. The 'network smoothing' is better on Street Fighter IV than it is on HD Remix, too - so it's really good.

So SFIV's challenge comes in the form of its depth and ultimately competitive play, but as a singleplayer game, unlocking everything it has to offer and completing it with all the characters, or trying to really test your skill on the harder difficulty settings, is an aspect where Street Fighter once again excels; the game's singleplayer difficulty is perfectly pitched, as the series always has been historically.

Street Fighter IV has a proper training mode and loads of unlockable content, and is probably the most 'complete' home fighting game ever - there are tonnes of additions and refinements since our preview build, such as anime-style introduction and completion story sequences for every character, galleries - all sorts.

The loading times have been well optimised, and whether you're playing on Xbox 360 or PS3, we found that installing the game onto your HDD has fights ready in about half the time, making this a worthwhile course of action if you're going to be playing it as much as we are.

Make sure you're playing with a decent joystick or pad, particularly if you're getting the Xbox 360 version and only have a normal 360 controller, on which this and other fighting games are simply unplayable. MadCatz has released a series of smart, officially licensed SFIV pads and sticks, and there are many alternatives for both formats too, so get the best fighting game experience around and invest in some new hardware if you're not already properly equipped to fight.

The audio production is also excellent - we love the cheesy-but-awesome chart-quality title theme music (which sounds even cooler in Japanese once you've unlocked the option to switch languages), and listen out for the Street Fighter II remixed music. However, I wouldn't say for a moment that the new, original music in Street Fighter IV even holds a candle to the timeless melodies of SFII.

Perhaps the only other 'drawback' we can think of, potentially, will apply to players who've been optimising their Street Fighter skills in HD Remix; some of the techniques in the recent XBLA and PSN release are easier to do, whereas in SFIV Capcom has stuck more to the classic difficulty level of SFII - so if you expect parity across the titles then be prepared to step your game up. The game's also crying out for an online spectator mode and the ability to share and watch fights, and oh yeah, the lip synching is off sometimes. That's it. There's really nothing to complain about here, it's that simple.

Street Fighter IV completely obliterates expectations for a console version of the arcade fighting game, in much the same way Street Fighter IV as an original arcade release is exactly what any fan of the series would have asked for and more. The feel-good factor offered by SFIV reminds us what it's like to enjoy playing proper videogames again, rather than watch games pretending to be films or standing on one leg on a hundred-dollar bathroom scale.

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