Growing up, whether you had a Sega Genesis or a SNES, you were laughed at if you didn’t have Street Fighter 2 to beat up the neighbors in. SF has been a staple in fighting games since those days. The artwork to come from that series (fan or official) have been no joke either.

So I finally got a chance to throw down some Street Fighter IV goodness thanks to Gamefly. (It may take a while, but I’ll get to play the games we want to take a look at.) I couldn’t wait to get to unlocking all the awesome characters. But as I started getting through the first set in arcade something happened that confused the crap out of me.
“Here Comes A New Challenger!” flew across my screen while I was in the middle of battle…problem was, nobody hit start on my second controller. It seems I rushed through the menus so fast I missed that people could challenge me from XBL. They call these interruptions… Fight Requests…I just wanted to get through Arcade… >:(

The Fight Request concept is a really good idea for those who’ve completed Arcade multiple times to get the unlockable characters, but for those who just started… I’d advise going to your Xbox Live options and turning that crap off until you feel comfortable playing online. (I was creamed. Mercilessly.)

When I thought I was experienced enough, I played my first Arcade round on medium difficulty. BIG mistake. This brought back all the memories of angry nights and broken controllers from SF 2 days. After finally beating the final boss and doing the “Finally got yo ASS” dance, I realized I had to do that 9 more times to get all the characters unlocked. I put in Modern Warfare 2…

Capcom went all out in this one, and I’d say SFIV is well worth the buy, if you’re willing to put forth the time and effort to learn EVERY way to cheese your opponents online. Even if you don’t care about the online community, it’s still worth grabbing and exploring. Capcom was nice enough to put in Challenge modes that will keep you occupied and quite irritated for a good couple weeks. There was another mode added after launch as DLC that I did not get a chance to tackle… I had said enough swear words for that evening. I was also dumb enough to use the D-pad for some of the moves and had enough of the “Nintendo” thumb (enter red, raw, blistered digit here).

Street Fighter IV lived up to it’s hype and will keep the fans enthused for quite some time. I do like the game, but I can’t say it fits MY fancy.
Street Fighter IV is available on Xbox 360, PS3, and Microsoft Windows….and the iPhone…yes, I said that.

AMMIH Score: 4 (Five is best)

SMS (Sicky’s Motion Sickness) Rating: 2/5 (Lower is Better)