Street Fighter IV review
Okay so, I have let a week pass before I wrote this review. So let that gauge for you how very pissed I am at this game.
Let’s get the good out first. I really dig the art direction, even Chun-Li’s freaky thigh dimensions. I have seen the web flames left and right from the camps of pro thigh, and anti thigh, I have no real opinion. Let it be known I have no ire towards Chinese martial artist thighs.
My real gripe is in the game mechanics itself. I am no bad hand at the street fighter franchise, having played every single iteration of the effing thing. Even the puzzle fighter, both its broken and fixed versions. Now I tell you my friends that this latest game is indeed broken. I expect defeats from the CPU but freakin wow, does the AI have a penchant for opposition buggery. Sans lube.
I remember the days of yore playing the single player and yes the AI was fuckered but it at least gave you a chance. You played through got to a opponent with a move of total cheese, figured out the counter to the cheese and went on. The latest game has cheese of a different flavor, unstoppable cheese. Hear me out, because I am not just crying foul on not beating a particular guy, though the fat blonde anti Ken character has to seriously go. (Whatever Art Director that thought he was a awesome character needs to have his ass removed. With a chainsaw.) The matches go sweet for the first three guys, then on the fourth the AI decides he’s through humoring you and womps the living shit out of you. Leaving you broken and weeping “Why, Why?”, like some digital Nancy Kerrigan. It’s not just the toon in question either. Trust me I tried. 32 consecutive goes at multi player and all the same result, three straight painfully easy victories and then number four comes in and has his way with me. My blood pressure spikes cannot even be good for me, nor the violent feelings this game invokes. I heartily recommend this game for budding mass murderers that can’t seem to get their killing spree started. Play fifteen minutes of this game and you’ll be happily offing people you don’t know without a single twinge of conscience. Seriously.
Besides the painful parts above the game is ok. Word of note, DO NOT have the “anybody and their brother can challenge me online” feature enabled if you are trying to do a bout of single player shenanigans. You will never start a single match. A hour and a half I sat down to play a single player campaign and never got past the character select screen. Never.
On the multi player aspect the game does better albeit still frustrating. Much like a geek with no money in a bar trying to pick up a date, don’t expect to go looking for a partner and score. Just sit back and let the opponent come to you, taking what you can get. I tried to go searching for an opponent and got kicked from every selected match or my opponent back out. But when I tried to do the above mentioned single player campaign in my “don’t want to play with you anyway” huff, I could not beat off opponents with a stick. And I tried.
The matchmaking is seriously broken. Pitting the newest of fighter virgins against the “I have no life” players that have probably a entire bedroom set in Street Fighter motif, complete with Guile bedsheets. It seriously need reworking. There is a reason why a newb fighter doesn’t stand in the ring with Mike Tyson for his first ever match. No one is seriously that stupid.
So in closing is the game a fighter? Yes. Is it the fighter that was promised? No. Should you buy it? Only if you seriously must complete a collection or are really into self inflicted pain.
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