Previews// Street Fighter IV

Street Fighter IV on next-gen consoles, like all SFs that have preceded it (and I pray to the enormous stomach of my favourite new character, Rufus, will come after it) is played in the way you want to play it. Button-mash with your pals around on a Friday night after the pub when you've forgotten how to control PES or FIFA? Too right. That feeling you get when you have remembered how to string three moves together and jump at the same time as your equally drunken opponent has gone low? That feeling makes playing SF IV well worth it.

Carefully considered and constructed strategies based on knowledge of each fighter's abilities and those of your human opponent? Why not. Fighting games, unlike tortuous platformers, lengthy combat sims, sand-bloody-boxed-worlds or even driving games present the opportunity to kid yourself that you are the master of your craft. Gods bless 'em.

SF IV does not mess with the idea that fighting games are fun games. Sure, it's got these new-fangled 'Focus Attacks'. Apparently these have been brought into play in order to get away from combos. More prattle. Don't get me wrong, it sounds like a good idea. You not only soak up the force of your adversary's (probably combo-based) attack, but you then get the chance to use your own attacks in several stages of complexity.

Not enough for you? Are you thinking to yourself, “Why, I may as well just go back to SF EX”. Why, you might try hanging around and giving the Revenge Gauge a chance. This addition (I very nearly typed 'new addition', which is a band) to the armoury could stop you wondering, “What happened to my blocks?” when you begin to play.

Basically, you get hit (which you will, unless you're one of these Shaolin SF monks, or you're less drunk than your mate), your Revenge Gauge fills a little. Get your Revenge Gauge to half-way and you have access to 'Ultra' combos. Not little 'Super' combos but 'Ultra' combos. You may extrapolate from this that Ultra combos are more violent, more effective and more difficult to pull off than Supers (they are, however, basically, Supers with three buttons). You would be right.

But the chances of pulling one off? Well, because you've got to take damage in order to ascend to the Ultra level, the chances are that whoever has delivered the damage will continue to do so.

It's a mind-game, see. Yes, indeed. Street Fighter IV returns to one of elements of its history that you'd only appreciate if you've played it with some scintilla of seriousness. Once you had a few moves down, understood how to block, sussed out your enemy (both character and human), you entered the realms of the mind-game.

Do not get me wrong. Unless you were very, very, very stoned indeed (or terminally boring, although it's often impossible to tell the difference to the objective observer) the mind-game aspects of the franchise and the genre in general were often subsumed by coming up against somebody who simply carved straight through you and your zen/cerebral pretensions. These people were called 'Savants' or 'Younger Siblings' and they were to be barred from the gaming environment.