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Street Fighter IV

User Rating:

ESRB: Alcohol Reference,Suggestive Themes,Violence
Publisher: Capcom
Genre(s): Action
Home Page: http://www.streetfighter.com/

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By: Jarno Kokko Jul 24, 2009

Perfect!

Now that is a perfectly aimed strike.

Street Fighter IV is a great example of a game where everything just falls into place. Tried and true gameplay is polished to an incredible degree and paired with amazing visuals that manage to look unique, yet faithful to the cartoon style of Street Fighter II - and everything runs at rock solid 60fps even on a bit more modest computer. Plenty of additional modes and solid online play ensure that there is plenty more for the home player than just the basic arcade mode that is designed to vacuum in quarters. Add in all the unlockables, achievements and the ability to compete with the best with a persistent Championship Points score and you have a game that has just about everything you could ask for a fighting game.

Okay, one might complain a bit about some character balance issues - in online play most players seem to pick one of a handful of characters that the collective wisdom of the Internet hive-mind has deemed as "superior", but in my opinion it is not a big flaw. A good player using a "weaker" character can still beat all the popular characters and Capcom has officially acknowledged some of the criticism so who knows - we may see an update later that tweaks the characters a bit more.

So, in summary the only major hurdle is the total price tag. While the PC version costs only $40, to properly enjoy the game you probably have to price in the cost of a proper arcade stick and that pushes the total cost to over $100 - way over, in case you go for the superb Tournament Edition stick. Personally I think Street Fighter IV is worth it but it all boils down to taste - if you like 2D fighting games, Street Fighter IV is a must-buy even if you factor in the cost of a proper controller (or two). For a newbie of the genre, the initial hurdle of the total purchase price has its risks and if you insist on just grabbing the game and trying it with a keyboard, odds are you will just get frustrated by the controls.

Summary of YouGamers Hardware Testing

The publisher of this game state the following specifications for their minimum and recommended requirements:

Component	Publisher's Minimum	Publisher's Recommended
Processor	Intel Pentium 4 2.0Ghz	Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0Ghz
Memory	1024 MB	2048 MB
Graphics Card	256MB with Shader Model 3.0 support	512MB with Shader Model 3.0 support
Graphics Card Example	NVIDIA GeForce 6600 256MB / ATI Radeon X1600 series 256MB	NVIDIA GeForce 8600 512MB / ATI Radeon X1900 series 512MB
Free Disk Space	4.5 GB	4.5 GB
Net Link	none	Broadband for online play

To learn more about how YouGamers performs its hardware testing, click here. Through our extensive gameplay and hardware testing across the full spectrum of PC configurations, YouGamers suggests that one should use the following guidelines for an appropriate minimum and recommended setup:

Component	YouGamers Minimum	YouGamers Recommended
Processor	Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 / AMD Athlon64 X2 4200+	Intel Core 2 Duo E8300 / AMD Athlon64 X2 5600+
Memory	1024 MB	2048 MB
Graphics Card	NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT 256MB / ATI Radeon X1800 series 256MB	NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT 512MB / ATI Radeon HD 3870 512MB
Free Disk Space	5 GB	5 GB
Net Link	none	Broadband for online play

Scores

To learn more about our scoring methodology, please click here.

Gameplay	95	King of the 2D-style fighting games, Street Fighter IV shows how it is done. Easy to pick up, yet offers incredible amount of depth for the seasoned player. Plenty of extra game modes over the arcade original to keep you interested.
Graphics	92	Beautiful art done with a hand-drawn style that fits Street Fighter perfectly. Incredible animation quality, even if the character models do not have quite as many polygons as they perhaps could.
Audio	94	Catchy opening song and overall great audio, including rearrangements of old Street Fighter music. Bonus points for including both Japanese and English voices for all characters.
Technology	96	Effectively a flawless port to the PC from the PC-based arcade hardware without any corner-cutting. Even the system requirements are fairly modest, yet there is extra candy for modern hardware as well.

OVERALL

Street Fighter IV on the PC is easily the best version of the game and a must-buy for a fighting game enthusiast, yet not too harsh introduction to a newbie either. The only downside? Arcade style joystick effectively mandatory, driving up the total price of admission.

If you would like to comment on this review or discuss the game further, please head over to our discussion board - please click here (registration not required).