61 Frames Per Second : street fighter iii

The Five Characters You Won’t See in Street Fighter IV

John Constantine — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 22:00:00 GMT

Written by Cyriaque Lamar

On February 17th, a numerical Street Fighter sequel will come out in America for the first time in ten years. In an act of unprecedented video game democracy, the good folks at Capcom allowed fans to vote for the characters that would appear in the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 versions. Their shortlist included such perennial favorites as the panties-flashing Sakura and the leotard-clad M16 agent Cammy. As in the 2008 presidential election, sex appeal commanded the polls.

But what about those fighters who didn’t make the cut? Join me as I take a look at Street Fighter’s lesser-known pugilists and postulate why these lovable losers didn’t earn a silky-smooth 3D sheen.

Rolento

Who?
Rolento debuted as a boss in the 1989 arcade beat-em-up Final Fight. As a boss character, he was entitled to certain amenities players were not, such as a baton, incendiaries, and a subscription to the Ginsu-Of-The-Month Club. When he turned up in 1996’s Street Fighter Alpha 2, he returned with all of his thwacking, exploding, and stabbing habits intact.

Why He Should Have Been in SFIV
Rolento is an absolute hoot to play. For a game full of high-flying karate-men, it’s surprising that the most agile character is the guy with grenades strapped to his pectorals. Rolento’s moves include a wide array of flips, rolls, and the ability to use his baton as a pogo stick. Playing him is like playing a paramilitary spider monkey. Furthermore, his backstory is hilariously bad even by Street Fighter standards. As he puts it, Rolento aims to create a militaristic new world order free of “panty-waist politicking”.

Revolutionary rhetoric.

Why He Isn’t
We suspect his absence has something to do with all those unfair knives, grenades, and super moves involving trip wires and impaling opponents with crane hooks. The moment you bring a goddamn crane to fisticuffs is the moment you’ve left the realm of “street fighting” and gone headlong into “demolition derby” territory.

Sodom

Who?
Another expatriate from Final Fight, Sodom was the boss of the underground wrestling match in Level 2. Despite his menacing shogun attire and dual katanas, Sodom was easily thwarted if the player stood directly below him. He later appeared in 1995’s Street Fighter Alpha. Sodom proved to be a more formidable foe in this game, as players could only walk left and right.

Why He Should Have Been in SFIV
He’s the most meta character in the entire Street Fighter mythos. A white guy with an overweening respect for Japanese culture, Sodom fancies himself a modern samurai. He flaunts fans and writes in pidgin Kanji. Capcom seem to be making fun of American fans’ geekier proclivities. Hey gaijin, see this joker? He’s you. Go do some push-ups with Guile.

Dude, leave E. Honda alone. He’s above your nonsense.

Why He Isn’t
That name is best left in the past, don’t you think?

Oro

Who?
Oro is a Street Fighter III original. A hundred-plus-year-old hermit from the Amazon rain forest, Oro spent decades in solitude until he grew bored and entered the third World Warrior Tournament. Hey, after Rolento’s rationale, that’s as fine an excuse as any.

Why He Should Have Been in SFIV
Along with collecting AARP benefits out the ying-yang, Oro handicaps himself by tying his left arm to his chest. And he’s not fighting one-handed for laughs — Oro’s so tough that he could accidentally kill his opponent if he unloosed his other fist. He can also take a nap mid-fight, which is one of the best flip-offs in fighting game history.

Why He Isn’t
Although there’s nothing like schooling your opponent with a one-armed, half-comatose decagenarian, playing against Oro is a viscerally unsettling experience. Many of Oro’s moves are grapples, so you’ll spend most of the match getting groped by a greasy geriatric wearing nothing but a loincloth. Plus, he’s from Street Fighter III, and clearly SFIV producer Yoshinori Ono hates that game’s characters. Even if they’re awesome.

Twelve

Who?
Twelve is Necro’s nemesis in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. Necro’s special moves unabashedly mimick Blanka’s electricity and Dhalsim’s stretching. His antagonist needed even more novelty powers to be a formidable foe. So, naturally, he’s a crazy advanced version of Necro made by the Illuminati.

Why He Should Have Been in SFIV
Twelve was a Whitman’s Sampler of ridiculous gimmicks. Invisibility? Check. Flight? Check. Ability to become a doppelganger of your foe? Check. Ability to transform into a fighter jet? Double check. It’s like Capcom said, “The arcade industry’s in a freefall and this might be the last Street Fighter game we ever make. Fuck it, let’s pour all of the worst excesses of fighting games into one character and hit the karaoke bar.”

Why He Isn’t
For all his shtick, Twelve is perhaps the least playable character in the SF franchise. He can turn invisible, but the player has no idea where he is onscreen. He can turn his hands into pickaxes, but he’ll do almost no damage. Capcom balanced out Twelve’s bells and whistles by making him terrible. Street Fighter III rule also applies.

T. Hawk

Who?
He’s from Super Street Fighter II and possibly the worst caricature of Native Americans since Iron Eyes Cody. Hell, Capcom Japan wanted to name him “Geronimo” until Capcom USA intervened.

Why He Should Have Been in SFIV
T. Hawk is the only character on our list to make Capcom’s shortlist. So in theory, had anyone actually voted for him, he should have been in Street Fighter IV.

Why He Isn’t
Let’s ignore T. Hawk’s F-Troop routine for a moment to talk about his gameplay. In short, he combined Zangief’s complicated special moves, Sagat’s unwieldiness, and a sleeveless Canadian tuxedo. I have terrible childhood memories of selecting T. Hawk on our Super Nintendo versions of SSFII, only to have 5’5” Cammy knock the wind out of his longhouse.

Memories like that stick with you forever, so let’s hope SFIV’s new challengers don’t disappoint – check back in 10 years to see if we’re griping about “that goddamn Crimson Viper” by the time Street Fighter V hits the Xbox 1080, Zii, and Atari Jaguar 2.

Related links:

Street Fighter IV's Dress Rehearsal
Video Game-Grade Pretension: Not For Street Fighter?
Play Street Fighter in Youtube
Finally: Playing Street Fighter IV and Super Street Fighter II HD Remix With Seth Killian

New Year’s Resolutions For a Few Of Our Favorite Publishers

John Constantine — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 00:30:00 GMT

Now, to close out the first full week of 2009, we will do for videogame publishers what we did for console makers: we will tell them how to live their sordid, godforsaken lives! You’d think developers would make the list, but no. No, I tend to trust them, so they will be left to their own devices, free from the crushing logic of advice from 61 Frames Per Second.

In 2009, the following folks should resolve to do the following things:

EA – Stick to your guns and keep investing in new IP. 2008 was good stuff, Riccitello. Keep promoting Mirror’s Edge and Dead Space, they will find their audience. And EA Sports? How about SSX4 already.

Capcom – Resolve to support Dark Void with an aggressive marketing campaign and release it during the summer. Do not let this one die during the holiday rush. Also, Street Fighter III HD Remix. You know it would be sweet.

Atari – Do not release Ghosbusters until it is perfect.

Namco – Push Klonoa like you have never pushed a game in your entire lives. Tell people it will make them lose weight, tell them it will make them smarter. And knock it off with the nickel-and-dime DLC already, what is this, 2006?

Square-Enix – S-E, I want you to go out tomorrow, hop on a train, and pay Jupiter Games a visit. You cut them a check, and you tell them to make whatever they can imagine. The people who made The World Ends With You should be allowed to make whatever they like.

Konami – Release a press statement claiming you were forced to make Rock Revolution at gun point.

Midway – Um. Hang in there?

Activision – Give Neversoft the vacation they so desperately need and deserve.

Atlus – More PS1 reprints!

Take-Two – If Bioshock 2 looks stupid, don’t be afraid to cancel it.

Ubisoft – Release Beyond Good & Evil 2 by the end of the year. Please. PLEASE!

XSEED – Keep on keepin’ on, you guys. Can’t believe you actually localized Retro Game Master. Just awesome.

Tecmo-Koei – No Dynasty Warriors: Dead or Alive games. Just don’t. I know you're thinking about it.

SEGA – Disband Sonic Team. It’s over. Enough.

And that about covers it. Happy New Year, everyone.

Related links:

Microsoft’s New Year’s Resolution
Nintendo’s New Year’s Resolution
Sony’s New Year’s Resolution
Virtual Console New Year's Resolutions

Trailer Review: King of the Fighters XII

John Constantine — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 23:00:00 GMT

King of the Fighters fans are a lot like people who tell you they prefer The Rolling Stones over The Beatles. They seem insane to us normal, Street Fighter-loving folk, and their predilections make us deeply uncomfortable on a fundamental level.

I kid. Outside of the weapons-based affairs, like Samurai Showdown and Last Blade, I never cottoned to SNK’s two-dimensional fighters. I’m the first to admit that the King of the Fighters titles, and the series that birthed them, are all beautiful, well-made games, but the flow of their fighting has just never clicked for me. Call it Capcom brainwashing. I respect the hell out of the King of the Fighters series though. Fighting game staples like enormous character rosters, franchise crossovers, and team battles all have their roots in the series. I also have to give props to a series that was developed on hardware from 1990 for eleven entries over as many years. That’s awesome.

King of the Fighters XII is an event for the series. It abandons all of the character sprites of yesteryear, loses many fan favorite characters, and it is built from the ground up for HD play. What’s more, every single facet of the game, from the backgrounds to the character sprites, is hand drawn. Even Arc System Works, the 2D fighting hounds responsible for Guilty Gear, Arcana Heart, and others, didn’t make their HD debut, Blazblue, fully hand drawn. And understandably so. SNK has taken an enormous risk with King of the Fighters XII. It is monumentally expensive (not to mention time consuming) to make a densely animated 2D fighter by hand, let alone one built for high-definition. And fighting games broadly aren’t the most profitable genre in gaming,

From the looks of this new trailer for KOFXII, it looks like SNK’s efforts have yielded very positive results. This game is gorgeous. So gorgeous, I’m going to have to pick up its inevitable home release like it were a work of art I would hang over my mantle. After almost twelve years, it looks like someone may finally best Street Fighter III’s level of detailed animation in its characters.

Previous Trailer Reviews:

Scribblenauts
Resident Evil 5
Star Wars: The Old Republic
Edge
Wanted
The Chase: Felix Meets Felicity
Yakuza 3
Dragon Quest IX
TGS Trailer Time: Resident Evil 5
Retro Game Challenge
Golden Axe: Beast Rider
House of the Dead: Overkill
Riz-Zoawd
Idolm@ster PSP
The Last Guy
Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff
Captain Rainbow
Mega Man 9 and Chrono Trigger DS
Densetsu no Stafi 5
Sonic Unleashed
Infinite Undiscovery
Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood
Street Fighter IV
The Conduit
Mirror’s Edge