Street Fighter IV is the most recent in a long line of games brought to you from Capcom and the first of the Street Fighter franchise to grace the Xbox 360. Now as a childhood fan of Street Fighter and all of its many permutations, this game was another must buy title for me. So much hype and excitement in the media storm surrounded me, cel-shaded graphics, most fluid gameplay and the original characters. All of these were true, however they neglected to mention the other details about SF4….

Firstly while having the original twelve characters with an HD makeover and new improved super combos is a nostalgic bonus, the creative department of Capcom must have been exiled on pacific iland somewhere and only had haribo to eat because the brand new characters are terrible!

Abel is french mixed martial artist who’s arsenal involves rolling about on the floor trying to grab your bollocks, Crimson Viper is a pornographic secret agent with a neck tie between her tits and who’s special moves are so specific to the opponents position it’s almost impossible to use her effieciently. El Fuerte is luchadore chef (yes you didn’t misread that), which roughly translates to gimp with a frying pan. Anyways his attacks involve running about maniacally as if he has a cactus in his boxer shorts and ping-pongs off walls to land some very weak attacks. And finally there’s Rufus. Oh dear Capcom. Rufus is easily the worst character ever created in the SF franchise, as he is a (surprisingly) martial artist with a gelatinous gut the size of Belgium and a stupid ponytail/plait to boot. His attacks are ridiculous and are only overshadowed by the constant annoying taunts which actually puts you off as you’re trying to play. It’s almost as if he fell into a cauldron of Karate Kid and pies when he was a baby (note Asterix reference).

The format of the game is the same as the other SF titles, fly around the world defeating opponents before the fanfare kicks in when on round 7 you must “fight your rival”. This again is where the creative team took another hiatus as this is populated with incredibly tenuous storylines trying to link all the characters together like a fine tapestry of storytelling when in actual fact it just adds another gratuitous cut scene to your control pad battering.

And then comes the final boss. Historically the final boss has always been M. Bison and the goal is take down his Shadowlaw organisation. Except they thought they’d mix it up a bit. Instead we’re greeted to the worst boss ever in the shape of Seth. Seth has the most frustrating repertoire of moves ever as he just replicates every other signature move but at twice the speed (for example Sonic Booms, Shoryukens and Spinning Piledrivers). He teleports at a rate of knots and always manages to dodge your super combo to spam you constantly with a string of more cheap moves. When he’s not zinging about the screen like a windows screen saver he’ll hide in the corner blocking before unleashing the gayest thing since Cristiano Ronaldo crying, a move which involves sucking in THE ENTIRE SCREEN before ejaculating yourself out face first into the screen like releasing a cat from a washing machine. I mean come on, how on earth can you avoid that? Answer, you can’t. Seth is cheaper than a tin of beans down the local Netto and you will find yourself throwing your controller in frustration playing him on any difficulty higher than medium! Yet if you play as Seth (once you’ve unlocked him) he’s about as easy to use as flying a boeing made of sausages.

Street Fighter is another game of which should you choose to play online seems to have the cult following of every single bad loser in the world. I have never seen so much rage quitting in my life and tantrums could possibly be worse that those heard down the ear pieces of regular Call of Duty fans. On the other hand it is also the Mecca for bad winners as 1 in 5 players will come up again a professional Billy One Move who will then tell you how crap you are because he stringed together the same move 87 times. Such is the temptation to actually tell him what it’s like to kiss a girl.

So in conclusion, SF4 was a decent game which suffered from bad plot and character design and was only saved by the fluidity of combat and beautiful graphics.