(XBLA) Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix beta

This is me playing for the first time, straight after downloading the demo. Sorry about the dodgy camera angle, I didn't have anywhere else to get a better view.



The only way to get this beta is to buy the Xbox Live Arcade game of Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3. This will be available for eight weeks from 25th June and will enable Capcom to test the online capabilities of the game.

You have a number of options before you start the game, most of which are locked. You can choose your preferred type of audio which can either be the original arcade version or the new remixed tracks. There's also limited gameplay customisation like the number of rounds, time limit and game speed. Finally you can choose to have the game in widescreen, which I'd highly recommend.



The games sprites and backgrounds have been completely redrawn UDON Comics. These guys were responsible for the Street Fighter comics and they give the game very stylised new look. In my opinion this is a welcome improvement to the series and it works very well. In the completed game you can have the option of the updated visuals or the classic style we're all used to.

The games music was handled by my favourite gaming remix website OverClocked ReMix. The main menu music (Ken's theme) is an edited version from the Blood on the Asphalt album. This was a collaboration from various remixes and turned out to be a great Street Fighter tribute soundtrack.

You have the option of either choosing Ryu or Ken. They are known as Mesatsu fighters and dress in a traditional karate outfit. These guys are very similar, but also very different. Ryu relies more on power and Ken relies more on speed. They both control the same so might not find much difference between to start off with. They mostly do your standard types of martial arts moves with a few variations in-between. Each of them has unique move, Ryu can do a two hit lunging punch while Ken can do a stylish over head kick.



They have each have three special moves which are Hadoken (fireball), Shoryuken (diagonal uppercut) or Tatsumaki Senpukyaku (forward hurricane kick). Each character has a unique flaming attack. Ryu can do a fire Hadoken while Ken can do a fire Shoryuken. Once you deal enough damage to your opponent you can do your "super move". Ryu can do a Super Hadoken which will hit your opponent five times and Ken can do a Shoryureppa which is a double Shoryuken.



In options the "how to play" option isn't selectable so newcomers to Street Fighter are at a major disadvantage. You're basically fucked because you'll have to figure the moves out for yourself, ask a friend or find a moves list online. Why this wasn't available is a complete mystery. What were Capcom thinking?

I know it's only the first day of playing the game, but I've had some major issues with the game already. First was when selecting a quick match my Xbox completely crashed and I had to hard reset it. This happened twice and also happened to moltile a few times. I've also had the menus disappear, but they still had the information at the bottom of the screen so I guessed what I was doing.



Playing online didn't seem as laggy as I though it'd be apart from the first few fights I watched as a spectator. I didn't have an issue once I started to play and I enjoyed myself. If the game is like this in the complete version I'll have many hours of fun online. The only options available were the six player tournament mode which makes the other people sit out and watch while two people fight. This is a bit unnecessary if you ask me, but it'll get you in to the swing of things once you see a few fights before you play.

The major issue with playing this on the Xbox 360 is the shitty d-pad. It really hinders your movements and I found myself doing the wrong special moves or moving in the wrong direction. This isn't really anything to do with the way to game was designed, but it's still something to mention. I'm sure you'll eventually get used to the strange way you have to play, but you shouldn't need to. I'm looking into finding a 3rd party controller with a good d-pad to play this the way it was intended to be played.

Apart from having to buy Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3 I'd say this a great demo. Pity about only being able to choose from Ryu and Ken who are very similar. The lack of a versus CPU option could put some people off because you'll need Xbox Live Gold membership to play. It's great to see new stylised Street Fighter in 1080p on my HD TV. I give this a thumbs up and I look forward to playing the complete game when ever it's released later this year.

References

www.udoncomics.com

http://www.ocremix.org

http://sf2.ocremix.org

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Street_Fighter_II_Turbo_HD_Remix