Added: 1175 days ago by Kevin Holmes and Ando | Posted in: Nerdcore | 10 Comments

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<div align='center'><a href='http://www.kontraband.com/blog/16286/So-Street-Fighter-IVs-Been-Released/'>So Street Fighter IV's Been Released...</a><br><div align='center'></div><br><a href='http://www.kontraband.com/blog'>See more like this on kontraband.com</a></div>

The waiting's finally over, it's been 18 years since the seminal Street Fight II was released and wowed us all with its awesome mix of spinning bird kicks, yoga flames and blistered thumbs. And, nostalgically speaking, you'll all be glad to hear - even if your thumbs shrink back in fearful foreboding - blistered thumbs are here to stay with the new release; everyone I know who has a copy is now industriously ruining their respective fapping hand on the harsh edges of their D-pads and one has even taken to wearing a glove until his arcade stick arrives. We all know how those rapid hadoukens can cripple a man. So if you've got shares in companies that make arcade sticks (or, for that matter, thumb splints), you're luck could be in.

But, for many of us, it's a return to the old school. I remember anticipating the release of SF2, the agonising waiting, the longing, the hushed whispers that a certain store had a few Japanese imports in. And then, finally, the elation of getting hold of a copy for a mere £60 and rushing home with your mates to play a session so epic that the only thing that stopped you was fainting - controller still grasped firmly in hand - through exhaustion, having not eaten for the last 12 hours, surviving on nothing but pure SF2 excitement and adrenaline. Your caring mates would then just roll you out the way, because it meant they finally got to have a go. They'd have to pry the dog-bone shaped gamepad from you as though it was a loved one's cherished locket in a dead man's hand. It would usually take about four of them and a crowbar, but they wouldn't give up, goddamit!! Not if it meant a few hours gameplay. And your slumped, lifeless body made a good makeshift couch.

In a brilliant (read insanely stupid) move Capcom Europe released Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix on the PS3 the day before SF4 came out??!! W.T.F.!! Was it for those sorry, pitiable souls who were unlucky enough not to get hold of a copy of SF4, a sort of consolation prize? "Ah well, never mind, we can't get hold of a copy of SF4 for the next 3 weeks. This SF2 HD will do." Said in an almost automaton, zombie-like manner, only for moments later to breakdown, sobbing like a wailing woman whose five sons have just been killed by an allied aerial bomb. Marketing FAIL!

But even if you did manage to fight off the hungry, ravenous hordes and got your hands on the prize, you may have noticed a few bugbears. For instance the AI is particularly lameoid, it plays like your retarded little brother; either spamming an onslaught of projectiles again and again, repetitively, like the buttons got stuck or using grab moves (*cough* Seth *cough*) over and over and over again leaving only the merest shadow of a nanosecond for you to break the cycle before it starts again. If you find yourself in this almost infinite loop there's not much you can do other than swear, bite your controller in a fit of rage or try jogging the console in the hope that it's just skipping like an old record player.

As well as a new game and an old one with a new lick of paint there's - sharp intact of breath - a new (and hopefully improved) live-action movie coming out called Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. Let's pray to Dhalsim's Hindu deities (every multi-limbed one of them) that it's better than the original. Even if it's a neutrino's worth better, it will be a vast improvement. But if it's anything like that other lamewad movie then they might as well give up now. The Manga movie was OK, but the one with Van Damme was like a filmic lobotomy. I swear I came out of that movie with less brain power than when I went in. I kept staring vacantly into space for long periods of time afterward without knowing why, and when people asked me my name, I couldn't remember. No movie should do that to a man. Ever. One thing that doesn't bode well is the news that Taboo from the Black Eyed Peas is playing Vega. How and WHY? Does this mean we'll have Vega dancing about like a bull-fighting thug mumbling about his lady lumps and how much we all love them. Could be interesting... Maybe we'll finally find out exactly what Vega plans to do with all the 'junk' in his 'trunk'?

Anyway, the excitement will wane once you release how f#cking frustrating the game can be, when you keep getting your assed kicked by the Yin/Yang bellied nightmare of a final stage or if you're foolish enough to set your sights on unlocking Ken and Ryu's mysterious master Gouken - think Sheng Long. You'll want to tear out your hair and smash everything in sight. Just make sure the cat's not sitting at your feet, or it could get a nasty hurricane kick up the backside.

Added: 1175 days ago by Kevin Holmes and Ando | Posted in: Nerdcore | 10 Comments

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