Here’s a rundown, in language CHUD can understand, of what’s happened since the last time we got a new, numbered Street Fighter game: The Coen Brothers were great. Batman got nipples. Cop Land. DVD arrived. The Coen Brothers started to suck. George Lucas raped everyone, everywhere, at once. The Manitou arrived on DVD. The Coen Brothers stopped sucking. Also: gravity was invented and Jesus Christ was born, died and rose again. Same for Jean-Claude Van Damme.
It’s been a fucking AGE.
And now the photo just to the right, there, which you can see in larger form at 1-Up, is what we’ve got on Street Fighter IV.
Here’s a few other details: polygonal graphics and 2D fighting. So we get a ‘spruced-up’ visual design but the classic 2D combat plane. Yeah, I’ll miss the classic hand-drawn sprites, too, but face it: that’s been done to death by this series and so many other great Capcom fighters. It’s not like there’s any lack of excellent fighting games with an animated look. (Though if Capcom wants to release their own Orange Box with Marvel VS Capcom 2, some of the Darkstalkers games and a couple other bonuses, they’ll hear no complaints from me.)
Street Fighter III dumped a lot of the old roster, and we’re not sure what’s going to happen in IV. We do know that Ken, Ryu, Chun-Li and Dhalsim will be back, so there’ll be a new generation of gamers that understand some of Nick’s best jokes.
More details, including a rundown on the new moves, locations and combat features, will be in the January issue of EGM, on sale December 18.