Why didn't they change Blanka!?

One for all the Street Fighterz: Burgy just made me shoot milk out of my nose. Why aren't you subscribed to him on Youtube yet? What are you, some sort of jerk?! Don't be a jerk.

Coolness officially bestowed upon Street Fighter

If you needed more convincing that Super Street Fighter 4 was going to be the raddest thing to happen to gaming ever, then Capcom has the answer in the form of it's print advertising campaign. Getting together with some of the biggest names in contemporary graphic design and graffiti, Capcom have produced a unique set of posters boasting the game's new feature sets and showing off some of the new characters. 123Klan, Dalek, Futura, Cody Hudson and Grotesk have all contributed. Seems like Capcom have done their homework. Futura fans tend to have massive disposable incomes, you should see the prices that guy charges for scribbling on military jackets....
However, I digress. Futura has skill got it, I loved Grotesk's artwork for The Cool Kids and 123 Klan are so cool they'll make you reconsider the French. The ads will run in Complex and Vice amongst other publications- this is some smart marketing, hitting the borderline hipsters right where it hurts.
Enjoy radness:

123KlanFutura

GroteskSee the rest over at the Capcom Unity blogs (source)

The Coolest Game Characters of All Time: Cody Travers (Final Fight, Street Fighter series)

If you want to talk about cool game characters then there is really only one place you need look: the house that Capcom built. Capcom have been showing character designers the world over how it should be done for decades now. Their characters exude a simple, timeless charm that sees personalities expressed in small visual nuances ; whether it be Ken's irritating thumbs-up, Dan Hibiki's tears or Barry Burton's magnum.To stand out as the coolest amid the inherent coolness of your brothers and sisters is no mean feat and one that is achieved by only one character: Cody Travers.

Despite my increasingly vocal professions of love for Mike Haggar, it is undoubtedly Cody who is the coolest motherfucker in Final Fight. The classic James Dean white t-shirt and blue jeans, coupled with those fly 80's shell-toes makes Cody Travers the kind of dude that mayor Haggar is happy to see railing his daughter. His only goals in life are to get all up in Mad gear's shit and save his smoking-hot girlfriend. Looking good whilst he does it just comes naturally to him.


When Capcom retired Cody from the Final Fight series he told them where to shove it. After saving Metro City and his girlfriend he just couldn't settle down. Cody was built to fight, so that's what he continued to do. You have to admire a guy who knows his purpose and managed to brawl his way from one fighting series and into another. Getting imprisoned for his violent temperament is little more than a slight inconvenience; he frequently breaks out, seeking more opponents, only to return for a meal and a roof over his head whenever it suits him.

Cody's coolness is not so much determined by his actions, but rather his mannerisms and the style he exudes in everything that he does. Opening fights by taunting his opponents to see if they can finally do something about his boredom, still wearing those shell-toes with his prison garb and wearing those handcuffs when he has the key. What a swaggering bad-ass.

Throughout this whole week of coolness, I can see no-one else that I would rather be. Cody is nonchalant about fights when I simply panic and by playing as him I effectively become cooler. If, like me, you think coolness is all about the style and the swagger, then Cody Travers has got it down to a fine art.

Yes, I have a Street Fighter boner. Wannafightaboutit?

Okay, so as many of you may know the new copy of Famitsu has been released and confirms the inclusion of the Third Strike characters Makoto, Dudley and Ibuki (they're awesomeness is in descending order).

So here are some pics I've been sitting on and slept too late to be able to get up before some of the others (I did promise).



So far so awesome, Dudders looks cool as all hell and Makoto (other than the weird shape on the red top) will no doubt become the bain of many of your existences when I pick her up as a secondary character.



Ibuki never ever appealed to me, but hopefully some of you can give her a go and thrash me with her until I respect her. Dudley clearly can't be searching for Gill to get his car back, so this time his story is that he is searching for a rose, which I think fits him perfectly and doesn't make the English look in any way fey.




Do any of you plan on picking up any of these new characters?

I'm a flowchart Gen 4 lyfe but will be dabbling with Makoto and Adon (take that you Fagat users). However, with Gen able to ultimate spider you until you die I'll play the others as request.

I also have something special to do with what will be the next announcement from Capcom that I promise will make it to you first. Finally here is a bonus boner for The Faux Bot

Super Street Fighter IV Video Game, Exclusive Features Trailer HD

I'm always the last person on this blog to get excited about Street Fighter. Even I can't deny how awesome this looks.

By the way, the title is the link.

Cack-handed year-round-up that is also about what I am looking forward to in 2010

I had it all planned out: a banner, some semblance of structure. Then I got bored and distracted. I really wanted to make a go of this, but it's a little too formulaic. I couldn't even be bothered to come up with a decent post title. I'm sorry. I may chuck some headings in here, I may not. Let's just look at it as a stream of consciousness thing.

2009 was a tad shit for games and I personally -add foolishly- avoided some of the better ones (Uncharted 2, Borderlands, House of the Dead: Overkill). My New Year's Resolution is to get a Blockbuster card in an effort to resolve this. 2009 can be summarised for me with this succinct list of games that I enjoyed playing:

Street Fighter 4

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Guitar Hero Metallica

DJ Hero

Rhythm Paradise

Brutal Legend

Shadow Complex

Done.

Now, 2010, come to me. My boner-list:

1. Super Street Fighter 4

Heh, bet you never expected me to harp on about this, did you? That's why I'm getting it out of the way first. More of everything piled on top of my favourite game is exactly what I want. More characters, backgrounds, music, online modes and a whole host of tweaks that could potentially balance the game even further. Also, it will provide brilliant screenshots like this:

of Ken's stupid face. Look at ken - what a fucking knob, I hope that punch ruptures his spleen. Stupid face Ken.

2. The Last Guardian

If you ever played Ico or Shadow of The Colossus then I don't need to tell you how special a new Fumito Ueda project is. His inimitable mood and eye for detail shows no signs of absence here, along with a character partnership that serves to strengthen his status as one of gaming's few true auteurs. Beautiful from the offset, this can surely not disappoint.

3. Heavy Rain

David Cage may be a self-aggrandising wanker, full of pomposity and delusions of grandeur, but I still have to admire the guy's commitment and passion. He genuinely believes in the advancement of digital media, pushing it beyond the safe conventions of what defines a videogame. It could, of course, just turn out to be a glorified QTE, in which case we can all comfort ourselves by making fun of Cage. He's such an easy target after all.

4. Dead Rising 2

Played-out though they may be, I don't think I could ever get bored of killing zombies in Capcom's Dead Rising. With the sequel promising even more options and implements with which to maim the undead, I'm not about to turn my nose up. Blender on a zombie's head? Fuck Yeah!

5. Final Fantasy XIII

Whilst I'm still apprehensive about the lack of turn-based combat, it's hard not to look forward to a new Final Fantasy game. The brand always carries an assurance of quality that this generation of consoles has yet to truly see. On that basis alone I'm looking forward to it. Once again, their character design, music and presentation are all looking incredible too, which only helps it's case.

6. Hokuto Musou (Fist of the North Star)

I grew up watching the Fist of The North Star anime and it gave me a taste for the kind of elaborate, explosive violence that the Japanese do so well. The game will have you beating the crap out of hundreds of dudes and you'll have the ability to make their heads explode. Sold.

7. Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days

If this comes out on time, bug free, it will be nothing short of a miracle. The first game was a colossal fuck up in terms of tweaking, bug-fixing and marketing. Eidos rushed it out incomplete and pulled every dirty trick in order to get sales from halfway-decent review scores, need I remind you of Gerstmann-gate? With Square-Enix providing some much-needed assistance publishing the sequel, we can all breath a sigh of relief. IO Interactive's status as a quality developer should never be questioned, let's hope that with a new and respected publisher behind them, they can start making K&L the brand that it deserves to be. Then Hitman 5, please.

8. Yakuza 3

On an almost daily basis I find myself pining for more Shenmue. I've accepted that this will never happen, but at least we now will see a Western release for Yakuza 3 - a series which is often considered as Shenmue's spiritual successor. It's not quite the same as working down the docks, collecting capsule toys and winning Saturn games, but it'll do for now. I miss Yu, Suzuki. Pun intended.

I'm fairly sure that most of these games will get delayed. If so, I'll just re-post it next year. Until then......

No more Super Street Fighter updates (or a lot less anyway)

I know the constant boner for all things Street Fighter must wear some of you down and for that, I apologise once again. It's hard not to talk about a game that I love so dearly, especially when the news and rumours concerning the upcoming Super SF4 are so scattered and fragmented - I feel a sense of duty to collate them here. No longer need I feel this way though as I have now discovered http://iplaywinner.com/

Their Street Fighter and beat em up coverage is far superior to mine and one of the best, most dedicated sites I've found in a long while. They obsess of the minute leaks and glimmers of information just as I do, so whenever you want to know what's happening with Street Fighter, just check there from now on. In short, it's like a more casual and amusing version of

http://shoryuken.com/

If you need more convincing, check out this intriguing shot of the character select screen that confirms our 'proper bit of news' from a while ago (here) that stated there would be 10 characters added to the roster.

Staying on that topic, rumours are now abound that there will be another brand new character accompanying Juri - an Arab grappler by the name of Hakan. I'm hoping that this turns out to be true as I'm a big fan of grapplers, not to mention how much of a shame it would be to see this parody video to be made in vain.

Cody, Guy and Adon join the ranks of Super Street Fighter 4 *UPDATED WITH VIDEO!*

Look, it's not like the only thing I want to write about is Street Fighter tit bits, it's just that when they keep dropping little information nuggets, what am I supposed to do? Cast them aside like an unruly child? No, of course not. It is my duty to re-package and over-hype these things to breaking point.

For those of you not in the 'Street Fighter Club' there is a very simple solution if you are getting annoyed with this 'favouritism'. Just buy Street Fighter 4, or commit to buying Super Street Fighter 4. Get on the train. There's obviously going to be another awesome-as-fuck tournament which I'm going to be bullying everyone to take part in, so why not save yourself the trouble.

I'm going to hold back now. I've got an essay simmering in my brain, one where I gush over the importance of character and why Street Fighter does it best. This post did have a point at the beginning, and that was to show you these scans that confirm Adon, Guy and Cody as playable characters in SSF4.


By the looks of it, these scans come from Japanese gaming bible, Famitsu. Most hot-shit news scans do. If the Japanese gaming industry were a little healthier right now, I'd probably subscribe just to stay on top of announcements. Then again, I could just let Kotaku do all the work for me, which is, incidentally, where I swiped this news from.

Debate in the comments: good additions, or bad ones? Like the world needed a quicker Sagat, right? Prison Cody is rad. Still no Haggar.

UPDATE (cheers Cr0nt):

More Super Street Fighter IV News & Previews

The cock-teasing continues.

I don't remember the exact day that I became so obsessed with Street Fighter 4. It certainly wasn't from the beginning and it's not a recent development, but it's still difficult to place all the same. Whenever that moment was, it's clear that my obsession is going from strength to strength when I thoughtlessly get in on Capcom's marketing hype by asking 'Who's beating up Chunners?'


I have to know. There's no logical way of dissecting this screenshot though, right? It could be Ken for all we know, but at least we get to see a nice new level. A very Final Fight-esque level: the kind that Rolento would hang out in, maybe. Anyone have any thoughts? As always, I'm holding out for the man, the legend - Mike Haggar.

Oh, look. Here's Dudley:


Gotta love 'leaked' screenshots!

Update: Jackie Chan does Street Fighter. Cross-dressing Chun Li Chan just made my day.

It's official

I have no real reason as to why it's taken me so goddamn long to blog about just how official SUPER STREET FIGHTER 4 now is. Seriously, it's fucking happening, after months of us speculating and self-erecting, Capcom are providing us with officially-sanctioned nerd-boner fodder. I don't know what else to say, other than to re-iterate that I am SUPER hyped (heh) and present you with this fine selection of collected material:









No doubt there are more additions yet to be announced, but what do you all think of what's been shown so far? Personally, I think T Hawk looks like the prick he always was and that Ultra Combo looks ridiculous. Seems to be more powerful than Zangief's with far more of a reach. What a bugger. As for Juri, that costume is a bit rubbish, but she has perhaps the coolest Ultra ever oh, and I already miss the old announcer. *sob*

Now, before you argue with me to the death, here is my list of favourite things that I like to hear Yoshinori Ono's translator say: 'beef up the online modes', '8-ish new characters', 'play in larger groups', 'see what is going on with other people', 'brand new openings and endings', 'too much for dlc', 'won't be a full-priced game' and 'the thing I would like to make the most is a new Darkstalkers'. Jurassic Park.