Street Fighter IV

I've never been a fan of any fighting games. I tried all of these arcade stuffs before and was no good on proper timing, using combos, and even blocking and dodging attacks. I'm to admit that even on the easiest gameplay I seldom win or finish the game -- where the opponent (AI) doesn't bother to block any attacks.

I sure look dumb competing it out with my friends. Certain to say, I've almost given up to learn how to play these kind of games.

I never imagined that after all the frustrations on arcade gaming (even in the console ones) I would grab a copy of the latest fighting game, Street Fighter IV for PC.

It was both due to the graphics and game play that I wanted to test it out on my rig.

For the graphics, it's not really that a big deal but the mash up of the 2D and its nearly realistic background is enough for me to say its great, not mention there are some 3D effects especially when you do the power moves. There are other extra effects like additional Ink, Posterization and Watercolor which I think makes the characters more cartoon like and embossed them out of the background. The game actually reminds me of Prince of Persia IV released December of '08.

For the gameplay, over the past 3 years I've been with PC gaming, there is no fighting game I knew of being released; and since it has been ages that I haven't played any arcade fighting games, I thought of trying this one out. First, I became fascinated with the benchmarking test. It really runs smoothly with my rig, considering its already a year old (C2Q 2.4Ghz, 8800GT, 2GB RAM), It still runs at 50FPS with v-sync turned On. It is just another compliment that PC platforms are more powerful than console type platforms. During the actual game, there has been no lag times where I believe Capcom really exerted their effort. I've also scanned the memory usage during the gameplay and surprisingly everything seems to be stable and perfect.

How I've wished I could enjoy the game similar to how the test battle went. Unfortunately I can't. I'm using an XFX Controller and its pretty tactile. I think the only problem is my own ability to play these type of games. In the end, it is my brother who enjoyed much playing the game. We often battle each other out but I always ended up as a loser. Maybe next time I'll buy a real arcade type joystick just for fun.

Nonetheless, I'm still enjoying the game and recommends it to all PC platform players out there.

Here is one of the Benchmark results which is nearly similar to my own pc specs. However, note that FPS tend to go down and lags, perhaps due to the recording and his processor spec.



For the game review and other discussions, visit pc.gamespot.com