61 Frames Per Second : street fighter iv

Where, Specifically, Did The Street Fighter Movie Go Wrong?

Nadia Oxford — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 01:46:00 GMT

Mere days remain until Street Fighter IV steals up and punches us in the backs of our heads. The online game community is quivering and stamping in anticipation, more or less the kind of behaviour that's acceptable amongst bucks in rut and restless Street Fighter fans.

I love the days that lead up to a big release, because all sorts of fun features and articles are published to fuel hype (and boost traffic, hey, it's not a sin). 1UP is celebrating Street Fighter IV's impending ascent to King of the Universe with The Greatest Scenes of Street Fighter: The Movie.

Of course, you already know the Street Fighter movie is horrible. You're just that hip and clever, right? Scott Sharkey's feature is still well worth a look, thanks to embedded video clips of the offending scenes. I've read more “Eww, gross” pieces about the Street Fighter movie than any sort of religious text, but this video-heavy take puts things in a new perspective for me. Namely, what was director Steven de Souza trying to do with this thing?

The Street Fighter movie isn't quite comedy, though God knows it's hilarious at points—intentionally and unintentionally. It's not exciting enough to be an action film, and it's certainly not a martial arts flick. It's some bastard swamp child, doomed to drift without a name or an identity or a loving touch. It's almost a shame because the film had the good sense not to take itself very seriously some of the time. Key problem: some of the time.

I almost want to say that legendary actor Raul Julia enjoyed the role of Bison, but he's an actor; he's paid to smile through the pain, and the poor guy was probably in a lot of pain by that stage in his life. In fact, Bison, Zangief, and Balrog are worth watching the movie for. The three play off each other like some kind of dystopian Three Stooges routine, and it's entertaining enough to watch (“I'm not getting paid enough for this.” “You're getting paid?”). Not that I would have wanted to dish out the full theatre price, but really, when you're directing a movie about a psychotic Dictator who wears puffy pants, there are only so many places you can take it, and all those places eventually spiral into Batshit Berg.

Shadaloo Silly Hour is contrasted very sharply against the struggles of Guile and the Allied Nations as they try to stop the realisation of Bison's “Bisonopolis” (City Hall is adorably shaped like a skull and wings). Guile is supposed to be an all-American badass. We're not supposed to laugh at him, but how else are we supposed to react to a heavily-accented, slurred declaration from Van Damme? Soldiers don't follow superiors who resolve to “keek that sunofabeesh Bison's ass SO HOIRD, dat dah next Bison wannabe is gonna feel et.” Van Damme (probably) wasn't drunk, but the whole scene reeks of alcohol fumes.

Street Fighter: The Movie 'Guile's Speech' clip

The Mortal Kombat movie was smart enough to stick to self-parody all the way through. I really wonder if the Street Fighter movie would have been more tolerable if it had skipped the Freedom: Serious Business schtick. Maybe de Souza could have taken that over the top as well, with Guile flinging Crying Eagle 9/11 collector's plates instead of Sonic Booms.

Related Links:

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Games to Film: Street Fighter: The Legend fo Chun-Li Looks...Good?
Trailer Review: Wanted

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

Street Fighter IV's Dress Rehearsal

Nadia Oxford — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 04:38:00 GMT

Street Fighter IV is coming, and the World Warriors are dressing up in their Sunday best for you.

Palette-swap “costume changes” are something of a tradition in the Street Fighter series and other fighting games. Said costume changes usually involved Ryu standing in front of his closet and musing if he should wear his purple gi or his white gi. But the latest installment in Capcom's famous series will actually offer alternative costumes that are seemingly based on the characters' history, personality and whether or not they have a bum that looks good in tight leotard.

Zangief wears the felt overalls of his hero, Mayor Mike Haggar. Guile remembers Charlie by wearing a yellow military vest. Vega dresses up in frills and a ballroom mask so he can run straight to Ken's son's Bar Mitzvah* after he claws out Chun-Li's eyes.

Check out the video after the jump. It's a cute and welcome touch that stands to add a lot of personality to the new fighters and the ones we already know. Something about El Fuerte with a frying pan seems right.

*Disclaimer: Ken probably isn't Jewish. Vega just looks so dolled up, y'know?

Related Links:

Street Fighter IV Boxart: A Warning of Things to Come
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix is Too Big For Me
Why I Like Street Fighter Continuity

Video Game-Grade Pretension: Not For Street Fighter?

Nadia Oxford — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 04:30:00 GMT

Topless Robot posted a video of Street Fighter IV's entire cast doing its thing—that is, kicking, punching and philosophising. This is probably the first time you'll hear the aging World Warriors banter about their pills and arthritis in English. If you're a Street Fighter veteran, it's almost certainly not the first time you'll hear them ask one another the meaning of life while they pulverise one another's kidneys.

The “pretension” exuded by the cast in this video really gets at Topless Robot editor Rob Bricken, who made the post:

[H]ey Capcom--Street Fighter is not Sun Tzu's Art of War, okay? It is a fighting game. Where people punch luchadores, green fur-covered men, and Japanese schoolgirls, at that. No one needs some kind of bullshit examination into the human psyche here, and no one wants it,.either. What was the problem with the tournament idea? Was that not deep enough for you? Look, you're making a game so kids can beat up people of various ethnicities and not get thrown in jail. Do not get all pretentious about it.

I feel like I should be ashamed for being so interested in Street Fighter's backstories and character histories—like I should cement my braces back on and abandon my contact lenses for my old thick glasses with the pink frames.

Know what, though? I just gotta be me. I have to care about these testosterone-driven huns; they've been in my life since I was 11. Ryu is constantly on the verge of being consumed by hate and I think that is interesting. I think that's attractive Myspace profile info.

Eliza got her ultrasound in the last issue of Udon's Street Fighter comic, and goddammit, I'm excited about that.

Also, I'm not offended by the voices, but I have a history with Capcom's bad voice acting. This is disappointingly sane.

Related Links:

Licensing Tragedies: Malibu's Street Fighter Comic
Street Fighter IV's Fighting Spirit In Painstaking Detail
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix C-C-Combo Makers

Capcom, Street Fighter IV Cluttering My Home With Even More Useless Junk

John Constantine — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 02:00:00 GMT

Collector’s, commemorative, special, limited, ultimate, and EX plus hyper deluxe editions of games are, by and large, pieces of crap and a truly lousy way to spend even more money on an already expensive leisure. This is, of course, a well-covered topic in our little neck of the cultural woods. Saying that collector’s editions suck is a bit like pointing at the moon in the gaming journalism world. But it’s worth mentioning again when a collector’s edition of a game is announced that is legitimately cool. Take, for example, what lucky Europeans picking up Street Fighter IV will get their mitts on. A comic book strategy guide detailing how to use El Fuerte, Abel, Crimson Viper, and Rufus! (It’s totally forgivable that the rest of the line up isn’t included. Everyone knows how to use those characters.) Action figures of Ryu and Crimson Viper in a Chun Li stage diorama! And a copy of the Street Fighter IV anime movie! Hell, I’d buy that package even if it didn’t come with the game. No word on whether or not this collection will come out in the States, but I’d wager we’ll get something snappy. As long as it isn’t some crappy t-shirt or a tin case.

(Link: Siliconera)

Related links:

Finally: Playing Street Fighter IV and Super Street Fighter II HD Remix With Seth Killian
LittleBigPre-Order Confusion
Licensing Tragedies: Malibu's Street Fighter Comic
The Street Fighter IV Boxart: A Warning of Things to Come

Achievements and Trophies and Unlocking, Oh Meh

John Constantine — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:30:00 GMT

Amazing things are going to happen in 2009. In the first third of the year, we’ll be playing a trifecta of raw, unadulterated Capcom goodness in the form of Street Fighter IV, Bionic Commando, and Resident Evil 5, Killzone 2 will finally come out and not look anything like the concept footage shown at E3 2005, we might find out just what the hell Alan Wake is, and maybe, just maybe, it’ll turn out that Final Fantasy XIII is actually a videogame and not just a three minute clip of a chick with nice hair. Home might even come out! Instead of the adorable little freak version of you that putters around your Wii games – or your Xbox 360, which is the exact same little freak but with hands and a selection of shirts from Old Navy – you’ll get to have a version of yourself that is iPod commercial ready, with glossy hair sharp enough to cut a Nomura character. You’ll get to go bowling, wonder why no one’s playing Warhawk and show off all your trophies. And you will have trophies, rest assured. Come ’09, Sony’s making them an obligatory component of any and all PS3 games.

I don’t necessarily think achievements and trophies are a bad thing, especially for the type of player who enjoys setting themselves inane goals outside a game’s explicit ones. I just don’t understand why they have to be a necessary feature in every game. Nor do I see it as an effective way for players to, and pardon my French, wave their dicks at each other. Does anyone honestly care that their pals playing Gears of War have killed three-hundred thousand monsters? Finding ways to twist the fundamental rules of a game to make it something new is a time honored tradition. Just look at speedrunning for a perfect example. But unless a developer is inspired to put these sorts of objectives into their game, why force them to spend time on tacked on content?

No more ranting on the subject, I promise.

Note: The Mega Man 9 achievements are kind of neat. Perhaps I am wrong.

Related links:

Progress Quest: Playstation 3 Growing Up and The General Beauty of Firmware Updates
The Curious Case of Playstation Home
Whatcha' (Wish You Were) Playing: How Does Your Garden Grow?
Let the Mega Man 9 Speedruns Continue

Finally: Playing Street Fighter IV and Super Street Fighter II HD Remix With Seth Killian

John Constantine — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 19:00:00 GMT

If someone, some mad man or woman, decided one day that they had tired of hunting big game across the world, tired of hunting for basic thrills in defying death, and decided that the only thing left on Earth to hunt was 61FPS bloggers, well, we’d be pretty easy prey. A simple process: set a trap out in the woods, say a leaf-covered pit, and place a small box in the center of the trap as bait. Write the words “street” and “fighter” in conjunction on said box. Not even a full day later, this theoretical hunter would find me sitting in the bottom of the pit, pawing at the box, wondering aloud why I can’t make it do a proper dragon punch. We like Street Fighter here, a lot, and we’ve been waiting very patiently to play both of its latest incarnations. We’ve been thwarted in earlier attempts to get our greasy mitts on Street Fighter IV and were given only a teasing sample of HD Remix back in June. But yesterday, the wait ended with a hearty walkthrough of both, courtesy of Street Fighter guru and Capcom Community Commandant, Seth Killian.

Both HD Remix’s director, Dave Sirlin, and IV’s lead, Yoshinori Ono, have made it clear that both games were made with the express purpose of both renewing Street Fighter as a cultural force and making the fundamental, genre-defining play as accessible as it possible without sacrificing its versatility and depth. This much is clear: they have succeeded. When we sat down with Killian, he immediately began explaining SFIV’s new focus attacks. A variation on Street Fighter III’s parry system that does away with delicate memorization and timing in favor of ease and readability, focus attacks are slow-activating moves unique to each character that allow a brief moment of invincibility before landing a strong and flashy attack. They offer the same opportunity to change a round’s offense/defense dynamic (and come with the same risks) as parries, but can be executed by anyone with hands. Just wait for your opening and press both medium attack buttons, and you’re good to go. Even if the language “medium attack” means nothing to you, all you have to know is to press the two in the middle.

As far as the way the game handles, it’s a little bit different than you might expect. The characters are all significantly larger than they’ve been in the past, and they feel just a touch heavier, but they’re by no means slow. When trying out luchador El Fuerte, one of IV’s new fighters, Killian took the prototype arcade stick to demonstrate Fuerte’s signature moves, the majority of them based around running and wall-jumping. It looked intimidatingly complex and fast as the wrestler bolted about the screen, rushing up to Sakura and placing her in a fluid flying headlock or body slam. But, when I was back in control, the series’ renewed accessibility was on full display; all of the moves demoed were easy to execute but never felt automatic, a perfect balance of effortlessness and skill. That balance is essential to IV’s success, as sacrificing the reward that comes from mastery would ruin the game. Even each strike in the flashy Ultra combos, Killian told us, have hit-specific properties.

Then there’s HD Remix, which is exactly what you think it is: Super Street Fighter II Turbo, but blindingly gorgeous. The extra time spent on making new sprites and backgrounds as beautiful as they are has definitely justified the game’s multiple delays. Most impressive, though, is the simplified controls. Sirlin’s initiative to ease the timing on special move inputs has yielded incredibly positive results. (I wasn’t struggling to pull off dragon punches here.) More than anything else, the game is more adept at interpreting your intent now. Some moves, like Cammy’s hooligan throw, have been completely remapped, making them valid components of strategy rather than a mid-fight accident. I did wonder why they chose to make her breasts noticeably bigger, but I’m also not complaining.

HD Remix is all but done, and should be out in November, followed closely by the Xbox 360 and PS3 edition of IV in early ’09. I’m happy to tell you, they have been worth waiting for.

Related links:

Street Fighter IV’s Fighting Spirit, In Painstaking Detail
The Street Fighter IV Boxart: A Warning of Things to Come
61FPS Q&A: David Lloyd and Larry Oji of OC ReMix on the Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix Soundtrack
Street Fighter HD Makes Me Freak Out
Street Fighter IV in NYC and We've Got Proof This Time
Bringing Sexy Back: Street Fighter Dress-Up Party!

The Ten Greatest Classic Mega Man Levels, Part 3

Peter Smith — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:32:00 GMT

Shadow Man

As Pete said, Mega Man III started to strain the series' robot-masters-as-industrial-tool conceit. Silly as Top Man is, I have even more trouble getting my head around Shadow Man and his lair sitting at the bottom of a waterfall of lava. What was the civic-planning meeting like for this one? "Finally, we have used the remaining funds in 200X's robot-master budget to build a crazy-sweet ninja robot who lives in a rad fortress at the bottom of a lava flow. He will be protected by robot frogs and parachuting heads." "Madness! Why would you do such a thing?" "Because, sir. It is awesome." Know what? He's right. — JC

Bubble Man

A big part of the classicness of any given Mega Man stage is the music. Bubble Man's got one of the greatest tunes in the series, an unforgettable bit of melodic pop that builds quickly to a dazzling chorus of harmonized square waves and Van-Halen-esque arpeggios, all over an appropriately watery triangle-wave bassline. But let's not forget the stage itself, which follows our hero from a huge waterfall, down into a cramped subaquatic tunnel (some kind of refinery?) stuffed with giant robot lantern fish, then back out into the open air for a showdown with the local kingpin. As in so many classic Mega Man levels, there's a beautiful sense of the elemental here — the breeze, the cold metal, the spray of the sea. — PS

Crystal Man

You'd think Capcom's increasing ability to push the NES hardware would've made stages in the later Mega Man games even more memorable than their simpler precursors. Unfortunately, this usually wasn't the case. Many levels in Mega Man II and III gave you just enough detail to fire your imagination, and not enough to stifle it; the increased detail of IV through VI actually made the stages seem less like real places and more like digital constructions. Sometimes the most evocative background of all is just a sinister and inviting black. Still, the fancier graphics of later games did allow the occasional surrealist delight, like Crystal Man's stage, a jagged landscape of shimmering gems and glass-tube-enclosed machinery. For a brief and gorgeous section, the blue background switches to glowing hot pink like an animated bar sign. — PS

Dr. Wily's Castle, Part 1

This is the finest stage in the entire Mega Man franchise, spin-offs included. Mega Man II has four scenes of explicit narrative, and outside of the introduction's brief narration, they are wordless, used only to provide spatial context. What is remarkable about the first stage of Wily's castle is how it conveys scale and design independent of the cutscene that precedes it, how its propulsive music perfectly illustrates exhaustion, finality, and resolve. It is an assault, the scaling of a mountain using literally every tool at your disposal. The level concludes with actually breaching the fortress' walls and finding a chasm, the crossing of which requires precisely timed jumps across miniscule platforms. The castle's guardian, a screen-filling robotic dragon, destroys your footing in its pursuit. The stage, the music, the opponents reveal everything about this world and its stakes: you are fighting a madman on his terms and survival is not guaranteed. Remarkable. — JC

Click here for Part 1.
Click here for Part 2.

What'd we miss? Tell us in the comments. For the record, we like Flame Man's arabesque oil well and Tomahawk Man's cod-western badlands too, but nothing from MMVI makes the top ten in fairness. MMVII and MMVIII are beneath discussion.

Previous Top Tens:
The Ten Videogames That Should Have Been Controversial
The Ten Greatest Opening Levels in Gaming History
The Ten Most Adventurous Sequels
The Ten Greatest Fire Levels

The Ten Greatest Classic Mega Man Levels, Part 2

Peter Smith — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:31:00 GMT

Metal Man

More than your average Mega Man stage, Metal Man's feels collosal. Who knows why — maybe it's the giant screws and gears in the foreground, or the dense, heavily animated background (technically quite impressive) of pistons and cogs. Or maybe it's that Metal Man's stage actually has somewhat less variety than most of Mega Man II's stages, thereby suggesting a larger size. Whatever the reason, the scope seems massive. The stage itself is relatively short, but it feels like just a small part of a vast, rusted-out fortress of industry. — PS

Toad Man

For all of Mega Man IV 's missteps (downgraded music, overemphasized story, increasingly nonsensical characters), it's not without its highlights. Toad Man's stage bombards you with intimidating elements from the start, buffeting seemingly easy jumps with heavy wind and pouring rain. As you descend deeper into the sewers of 200X, waterfalls crush, overflows lead to bottomless pits, and robotic vermin (rats, slugs, snails) take full advantage of your decreased mobility. The stage is emblematic of the series' descent into comic absurdity, but it's flawlessly laid out and challenging. — JC

Spark Man Revisited

Mega Man II is an undisputed classic, but for a NES game, it's pretty damn easy, a fault that Mega Man III hastens to correct. By the time you get around to the "dark" versions of conquered stages, III is offering you no quarter. When you walk into Spark Man's second stage, you're at the bottom of a room with no ladder to the top; as you go to summon Rush Coil, just imagine Keiji Inafune giving you the finger. Spark Man 2 is also a long haul, with some truly nasty spike placement and two bosses to tackle; for an added touch of creepiness, it's also got a damaged background texture that suggests the whole place has been bombed out. Ominous stuff. — PS

Click here for Part 1.
Click here for Part 3.

The Ten Greatest Classic Mega Man Levels, Part 1

Peter Smith — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:30:00 GMT

Capcom, I don't really know how to say this. It's a little awkward, but damn it, it's the truth. We've known each other a long time, and you've always been a good friend to me, but this year, things have gotten more serious. With Street Fighter IV, HD Remix, Commando 3, 1942: Joint Strike and two versions of Bionic Commando, it's like you've gone out of your way lately to show me what I mean to you, and now that you've announced Mega Man 9, it's time for me to return the favor. Capcom, I. . . I love you.

Jesus, I don't know what came over me there. But with Mega Man 9 just unveiled in all its eight-bit glory, my old-school-gaming glands are all swollen and red, and I think it's squeezing out the blood flow to my brain. The early Mega Man games are masterpieces of their era, and they feature some of the most unforgettable stages on the NES — a series of giant constructions that, high-tech though they may be, maintain a playground-like innocence. World-building obsessives that we are, we couldn't let this glorious day go by without commemorating the ten greatest classic Mega Man levels of all time. — Peter Smith

Elec Man

Keiji Inafune's first attempt at Mega Man was promising but ultimately half-baked. The play was there but the world itself was still confused, its six core stages shuffling back and forth between "gamey" abstraction and eerie pastoral. Elec Man's tower was one of the series' first real successes, an ascent that felt like a true structure and not a background for a sprite to jump about, a dangerous place pulsing with energy that could obliterate our diminutive hero using the very power that fueled his mechanical innards. — John Constantine

Top Man

The whole premise of Mega Man was that each of the Robot Masters you were fighting had been conceived for an industrial purpose and therefore ruled over an area appropriate to his capabilities. (Guts Man is a construction robot, right, so he's in this construction zone... or something.) This whole idea kind of fell apart as the robots got weirder. By all rights, Top Man should probably have been in a giant robot toy store or something, and God knows that's how the series' increasingly corny later installments would've played it. Luckily, Inafune and co. were still capable of a curveball or two when Mega Man III came out, which must be why Top Man's stage isn't a toy store at all, but some kind of bizarre jungle/greenhouse/space station. With giant robot cats. Most fans would agree it's better that way. — PS

Gemini Man

As important as the future metropolises of classic Mega Man are the natural landscapes. Gemini Man's stage shows a world where even the harshest environments have been hollowed out, bent to the will of humanity, and overrun with intelligent machines that can work and survive where our fragile bodies can't last. Enemy placement is logical, functional in this arctic wasteland; drones spill fire digging into the frozen surface, giant penguins produce an adapted work force, robotic-tadpole pods shifting to maintain delicate structural integrity deep in the ice. The whole place is cold and sharp, beautiful and forbidden. I'd never survive there, but Mega Man can. — JC

Click here for Part 2.
Click here for Part 3.