Moving on, it’s pretty safe to say that anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m a pretty big dork. Let’s see… video games, anime, science fiction, comics, Star Wars… any of the culture that goes along with those things, such as soundtracks and the like… yup. That about sums me up.
That’s why I’m so excited about a couple of upcoming releases. Yesterday I took a few minutes off from work to pre-order two games that I’ve been excited about for a long time.
Street Fighter IV
This entry in the series returns to the formula of Street Fighter II. Many fans, myself included, are excited that the game is built around the mechanics of II. I grew up playing the many incarnations of SFII. What was great about that game for me was the controls. I really felt like I was in control, unlike later games, which featured a series of button sequences to carry out combos. Although I did get into Killer Instinct (which featured combos), the others felt like memorization rather than having more direct control over your character.
SFIV will see the return of many of the most beloved characters, some of which weren’t featured in SFIII or the SF Alpha games. Pretty much everyone from the SFII games will be present, although it appears that Dee Jay and T. Hawk, two of the four additions in Super Street Fighter II will not be making it. Their counterparts, Cammy and Fei Long, however, are reportedly returning. Some new characters, along with some others such as Akuma and Sakura make for a nice variety. The game’s art style looks very nice as well.
With February 17 quickly approaching, the wait is nearly over. Pictured above is the special edition for the 360, courtesy of Capcom’s website. It features an anime movie and a soundtrack! ;)
Resident Evil 5
Can you believe it’s been a little over four years since Resident Evil 4 was first released on the GameCube? It’s been a long wait for this one as well, bit it ends on Friday, March 13th, 2008. The story picks up in Africa, where Chris Redfield and his new partner Sheva Alomar investigate an epidemic. I won’t get any further into the story for fear of spoilers, but it looks like it will be interesting. The graphics look nice, as expected, and the gameplay builds on RE4, which took the series in a bold new direction and was generally considered one of the best games of the generation.
This time around we won't be exactly fighting zombies, but we will be facing some sort of enemy similar to the Ganados in RE4 - zombie-like, but faster & meaner. A demo is coming to X-Box Live on January 26th, and to the PS3 the week after, which will give most of us our first chance to try it out. Last I heard, Capcom hadn't confirmed what would be in the US version, but the Japanese release has a waist pack and a 2 gig USB drive shaped like a capsule with the Tricell logo (a company we'll be inroduced to in RE5).
<3 Clint
