Super Street Fighter 4 Review

            Street Fighter IV burst onto the fighting game scene breathing new life into what used to be a dying genre, and its successor Super Street fighter IV seeks to bring some timely improvements to the series.

            

            New characters, stages and modes, as well as overall balancing provided an overall package that gave fighting game fans something to sink their teeth into. But, besides bringing new changes to the series, it also managed to retain the nostalgia of a classic Street Fighter game by taking stages, modes, and characters from passed Street Fighter games and seamlessly blend it with a 3D art style.

             

            Out of all the changes made the most notable would have to be the addition of 10 new characters to the already sizable 25 character roster. Some of the new character additions include returning Street Fighter veterans Cody and Dudley, while others are Super Street Fighter 4 originals, such as Juri and Hakan. Like past Street Fighter installments, these new characters bring both serious and comical elements to the game, whether it is from a peculiar fighting style, a sinister demeanor, or an overall awesome attack. With the number and variety of characters in this game, it is hard to get bored.

            

            Meshing new elements with classic Street Fighter characteristics is a noticeable theme in Super Street Fighter IV, and it is no different where the stages and modes are concerned. Old Street Fighter stages like the Chinese market were upgraded to look more alive and new stages like the solar eclipse stage were created as visually overwhelming backdrops. Several nostalgic, albeit pointless modes also returned in the latest incarnation of the Street Fighter series.  These were the car destruction mode, which was a stage where you just beat up a car until the timer runs out, and the falling barrel mode, which was just hitting barrels that fall before they hit the ground.

             

            The gameplay in Super Street Fighter IV has also received some tweaks here and there, one of which includes the addition new flashy attacks per character. Multiplayer gameplay has also been vastly improved by adding an interface where more than two players can be in a lobby and battle each other in a rotating format. Now all of your friends can watch as you beat them down or get beat down.

              

            Generally, Super Street Fighter IV is a fun game that is easy to pick up and entertain new player, but is also complex and challenging enough to keep hardcore players coming back for more. This is why I highly recommend this game, but if that isn’t a good enough reason, maybe the cheap $30 price tag is.

           

Modern Warfare 3 on the Horizon

            Activision’s wildly popular Call of Duty franchise is once again raring to go with another installment of the wartime first-person shooter. Gamers are strapping on their bullet proof vests and side arms in anticipation for the 2011 release of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, which was revealed by a report from the Los Angeles Times.

             

            After Call of Duty Black Ops was released in November of last year, Activision wasted no time commissioning the production of the next Modern Warfare installment.  This installment will take gamers out of past conflicts like the Cold War and WWII, and bring them back to modern day battlegrounds, as the first two Call of Duty Modern Warfare installments faithfully did.

             

            According to the Company Town blog of the LA Times, Activision commissioned some new blood to help Infinity Ward, the original creators of the Call of Duty series, develop the new game after several of their key employees left the studio in March.  Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software will be working in collaboration with Infinity Ward to complete the game before their 2011 deadline.

            

            Although Activision has not officially announced an exact release date for Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, if the three developers meet the projected 2011 deadline, it is possible that the Call of Duty franchise will have a best-selling game for 3-years running.

Mortal Kombat Fan Film Gets Web Series Deal

            A fan-made short film based on the Mortal Kombat video game franchise just got the green light to be turned into a ten episode web series after being pitched to Warner Bros. Pictures.

             

           The director of this film titled, Mortal Kombat Rebirth, Kevin Tancharoen created this short to be a loose, gritty reimagining of the Mortal Kombat games, placed in the real world. The changes were welcome ones that helped reformat a story that was created to be part of a game.

           

           According to a horror genre website called Bloody Disgusting, the series is scheduled to begin shooting sometime this February in Vancouver, Canada. Several actors from the short-film like Michael Jai White will be reappearing in the web series. White will be continuing his role as "Major Jackson 'Jax' Briggs, a police officer of fictional city of Deacon City.

             

          The release date of the web series is yet to be determined, but due to the graphic and violent content shown in the film it is likely to receive a mature rating by the ESRB.

 DO NOT WATCH THE FILM IF UNDERAGE OR DON'T WANT TO SEE VIOLENT CONTENT

Marvel vs. Capcom 3 Reveals

Capcom released new information about their upcoming fighter, Marvel vs. Capcom 3 yesterday with news of two new character additions to the games sizable roster, as well as the size of the roster itself.

           

            Helping round out Marvels growing roster is Capcom’s first new addition, Taskmaster from the comic book universe of The Avengers. The second new character joining the fray is Akuma, a fighter from Capcom’s Street Fighter franchise and the evil counterpart of Ryu and Ken, the protagonists of the series.

            

           Capcom has also announced that upon release of the game there will be 36 characters included in the initial roster, but more can be obtained through downloadable content. The downside is that 36 characters is not much compared predecessor, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, which had a roster of 56 characters.

           
           According to Wesley Yin-Poole, a writer at Eurogamer, there are still two characters that have yet to be unveiled before Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is slated to release on February.