All I really need to say about Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition is that it manages to cram all of the features of its console big brother into a smaller cartridge. This isn’t just a portable version of SSF4, this is SSF4.

Granted, there were a few things that needed to be scaled down in the transition to a handheld: backgrounds that were full of life and animation are now static, and character model elements that were fluid before, like Ryu and Sakura’s headbands, are now stiff and immobile.

Honestly, though, those omissions aren’t even that big a deal: the game still looks great. The character models retain their personality from the HD versions of the game (and judging by screenshots I’ve seen, they look even better than the iPhone version). The 3D, which you wouldn’t think would add much to a 2D fighter, really adds a lot of depth to the game, with the backgrounds becoming layered and the fighters really popping in the foreground. The fact that Capcom is one of the few developers that still likes to use color in their games really shines here, and the game is a great way to see what your new handheld is capable of.

The game has a new 3D view mode, which moves the camera slightly over the shoulder of your character, and it certainly looks cool and makes good use of the 3D effect, but it makes play extremely confusing. It’s something you’ll use for one match to check it out and then switch back to the regular camera mode.

All thirty-five fighters from the console versions are playable, with all alternate costumes and colors unlocked from the start (I call eternal dibs on Sakura, alternate costume, color 6). The anime openings and endings for each are still in arcade mode as well. The voicework and music all still sound amazing, especially in my Astro headphones, and there’s no noticeable drop in quality from the console version.

The game makes use of the touch screen by allowing a “Lite” control mode, which allows you to assign any normal, special, super or ultra attack to any of the face buttons as well as the touch screen. It’s a good thing that it’s there, too, because trying to play like you would on the console just doesn’t work. The circle pad isn’t conducive to many of the precise movements needed for many high level techniques, and using the d-pad becomes bothersome due to its placement below the circle pad. Trying to keep your thumb on the d-pad and your forefinger on the L shoulder button is extremely uncomfortable.

Still, there’s fun to be had as long as you don’t go in expecting it to be as awesome as the console version with a proper controller or fightstick. The AI actually seems ramped up from the console versions as well – on Easy, the computer always knew which attacks would knock me out of my moves at exactly the right moment – and combined with the imprecise controls it can get frustrating. Now, before you start accusing me of being a scrub, I’m perfectly capable of holding my own on the consoles, even at higher difficulties and while playing against experienced players online. For 3D Edition, though, I found it quite relaxing to just turn the difficulty all the way down and treat it as a way to enjoy my favorite fighting game without having to get all tangled up in hardcore play.

The coolest new feature, though, is the figure mode. As you play you earn FP – Figure Points – which you use to purchase bottle cap figurines of the game’s fighters. You can also use Play Coins, if you wish. You purchase them through a slot machine system, so while they’re somewhat random, if you’re good you can still nab the one you want. The figures are used in the game’s StreetPass functionality; you build a team of five figures (all of which have levels, ranging from one to seven depending on their power) with a maximum total level of twenty. Anyone else you walk by who’s played 3D Edition will engage in a quick battle with your figurines, earning you more Figure Points. I haven’t gotten the chance to try it out yet, as this isn’t Japan where I’m going to walk by several people with the device without even trying, but I’m really dying to give it a go.

All in all, Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition is a great purchase for grizzled veterans and fledgling fighters all the same. Keeping all the features of the console version while adding in things to make the game more accessible to newcomers (and also realizing the limitations of the control mechanism) make it not only an excellent launch title, but a game that will remain a “must-own” even as the 3DS’ library continues to grow.

So I’ve been playing a whole crap ton of Marvel vs Capcom 3 lately. It’s an amazing game, and considering how much time I spent playing Marvel vs Capcom 2 on my Dreamcast it’s really no surprise how captivated I am by its sequel.

I’m getting pretty into it, too; I’ve been reading Shoryuken’s guides and I watched Level|Up’s “Wednesday Night Fights” event last week. I’m trying really hard to get better, even though I’m not having much luck.

I decided to try to sell my fightstick on eBay the other day, since I wasn’t using it, and I’d buy another fightpad so Christina and I could play together. We set up the auction and I was about to write the description, but as I looked back on the pictures from my blog post about it… I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I couldn’t part with the fightstick.

I know it’s a bit harder for me to use, because I’m not used to it. I went to arcades as a kid, but not often because there weren’t that many near me and my parents didn’t like taking me anyway. I grew up playing fighting games on controllers. It’s why I liked the fightpad so much.

But the stick… I’m forcing myself to learn how to use it better. I still tend to get confused in the heat of a tough battle, but I’m forcing myself to “stick” with it (haha!) and it’s helping. I go on the Shoryuken forums and browse their thread where people post pictures of their custom sticks, and it’s amazing what some people are doing. I love fighting games, and I need a stick to call my own, just like those guys.

I have Christina coming up with a new design for it, so I’ll put new art on it (just over the old art, I’m not ruining that) and put in new buttons, a new ball top, a new bezel and a plexiglass cover. I think once I really make the stick “mine,” like I did with my old Hori stick, I’ll feel more comfortable with it. I’m weird that way.

I haven’t really played Street Fighter much lately, mostly because I just couldn’t get used to playing with an arcade stick (and playing with the Xbox 360 controller is NOT an option). It wasn’t anything wrong with the stick itself, it just wasn’t the way I had always played Street Fighter. In the heat of battle I tended to get flustered and lose my position on the stick, and as a result I’d lose and get angry.

I had some good luck the other day and managed to pull a loot card in a booster pack of World of Warcraft cards, so I put the card on eBay and decided to invest in one of the Mad Catz Street Fighter IV Fightpads. They were advertised as a cheaper alternative to the arcade sticks, and I had heard nothing but great things about the d-pad they designed. I picked the one with the Chun-Li design because a) blue is my favorite color, b) I thought it’d be weird buying a controller with a buff dude on it, and c) c’mon it’s Chun-Li, the First Lady of Gaming.

You see, when I was a young lad growing up in Antelope, California, I didn’t spend my time playing Street Fighter in the arcades. We didn’t have a lot of arcades in the area so a trip there was a special treat (even moreso when you consider that my parents both hated the fact I loved video games so much). No, I spent my time playing Street Fighter with one of these bad boys:

I took to the new controller immediately. It took me maybe three or four Hadouken motions before I was comfortable with the d-pad. I did a couple trials to warm up and then jumped online. The difference was night and day! I won 8 out of my 10 matches (which is pretty good for me!) and even when things got tight, I didn’t lose my cool and bumble with the controller.

The d-pad is fantastic. I had read that they took a lot of inspiration from the Sega Saturn controller (considered by many to be THE fighting game controller, which makes sense when you remember that the Saturn was the best home console for 2D fighters in history). It’s incredibly responsive, and although the d-pad feels like it has a lot of swivel to it, it doesn’t feel floaty or slow. The buttons are great, being a bit larger than the ones used on the standard 360 controller, and they have a very satisfying click when you push them.

The top of the controller is a glossy plastic adorned with whatever character you prefer (There are Ryu, Ken, Akuma, Blanka, Chun-Li, Guile, T-Hawk, Sagat, and Juri versions available) and the bottom is more of a rubbery material. This is my only complaint with the controller: I get that they used the rubbery material to keep the pad from slipping if your hands get sweaty, but as a result it made my hands MORE sweaty. My hands typically don’t get very clammy when I play games, but they definitely felt that way after a few rounds with this new pad. It WAS particularly humid out today, and we live on the third floor, so it could have been the weather. Still, it’s worth noting.

It also has a turbo function that can be toggled for each button, as well as a switch to set the d-pad as either the d-pad, left analog, or right analog of the default controller.

The pads retail for $40 and are available for the Xbox 360 (wired) and PlayStation 3 (wireless). If you want to get into Street Fighter and hate fumbling with the default controllers but a $100 or more fightstick is a bit too much for your tastes, then this controller is a fantastic investment. If you wind up playing on the 360, let me know if you’re ever up for a match! My gamertag is Joe Sunrider.

This is the best 3 minutes of live action Street Fighter you’ll ever see.

I’m not going to make a habit of passing off cool things I find as blog posts, but this was really awesome. I mean, that IS Ken. Like, if Ken stepped out of the game into real life, he’d look just like that.

So Capcom has once again taken an amazing fighting game and updated it by adding even more awesome to it. What’s better than Street Fighter IV, if not SUPER Street Fighter IV?

As you may recall from some of my earlier posts, I am a huge Street Fighter fan. I’ve been through Capcom’s update cycles before (I’ve played/owned Street Fighter II, Street Fighter II Turbo, Street Fighter II Championship Edition, Super Street Fighter II, and Super Street Fighter II Turbo), so when they announced late last year that they’d be updating Street Fighter IV, I didn’t interpret it as some kind of attempt to milk their customers as so many of the basement-dwelling internet populace did. I knew it meant Capcom would take what was so great about Street Fighter IV, tweak it, refine it, and add a ton of great things to it.

Street Fighter IV (which I’ll refer to as “Vanilla IV” from this point forward) was unbalanced. It wasn’t unbalanced to the point of being broken like Marvel vs. Capcom 2, but there were characters who were overpowered and had a clear advantage over all others, like Sagat. With Super IV, Capcom went back and rebalanced the characters a bit, making the playing field a bit more even.

I noticed this a lot with my main character, Sakura. In Vanilla IV, Sakura was considered a “low-tier” character, mostly due to her low damage output and her low stamina. They’re buffed her up a bit in Super IV, increasing her damage output slightly, while adjusting the amount of damage she takes. She’s also got a very handy new Ultra move in the Shinku Hadoken (and the anti-air Shinku Tengyo Hadoken) which I’ve been trying to work into my game.

Every character now has two Ultra moves, with all returning characters gaining one new one since Vanilla IV. You select one at the beginning of each match, depending on your play style. This gives you an amazing amount of versatility in the way you play. Going back to Sakura, my main weapon when I play as her is her EX Shinpukyaku, which combos very well into her Shinku Tengyo Hadoken, making that a much more useful Ultra to me than her old Haru Ranman.

Ten new characters have joined the roster, boosting it up to a whopping 35 characters. Returning from Super Street Fighter II are Dee Jay and T. Hawk, from the Street Fighter Alpha series are Guy, Cody, and Adon, from Street Fighter III come Dudley, Makoto and Ibuki, and two new characters, Korean kickboxer Juri and Turkish oil wrestler Hakan are brand new additions. They all add something new to the roster and really spice up the online play (Super Ken Fighter IV this is not, at least in my experience so far). I’ve taken a liking to Cody myself, and I’m trying to get good with him but it’s slow going, sadly.

There’s also new online modes, including Endless Battle, which is an 8-player “Winner stays” scenario, just like in an actual arcade. Team Battle lets you partner up with another player and try to score wins for your team. Replay Mode lets you join a lobby and watch recorded matches, checking out other strategies and being able to analyze a character’s moves without having to do so in the heat of battle.

The only thing they took out, though, was the old theme song “The Next Door” (aka “Indestructable”). This saddens me beyond belief. I can no longer feel it comin’ over me, nor feel it all around me.

A lot of people have put up a big stink about how this is all a retail release rather than a DLC update. These people are stupid. I mean, I’m fully aware that today’s gamers are a group of entitled, self-centered idiots, but the fact that people were demanding that this update be released for free is absolutely astounding. It also shows that they know nothing about Street Fighter, again proving their limited mental capacity.

If you can look me in the eye and say WITH A STRAIGHT FACE that ten brand new characters, a rebalancing of the 25 old ones, new stages, bonus stages, and several new modes should be handed to you FOR FREE, then I’m going to Dragon Punch you in the face. Capcom isn’t even charging $60 for this one; it’s a budget title. You’re spending $40. If you REALLY liked Street Fighter, you’d understand that these are SUBSTANTIAL, game-changing updates that really are worth paying for. It’s not a patch to fix a graphical glitch. This is essentially a brand new game.

So shut up.

If you liked Street Fighter IV, you’re going to love Super IV. Vanilla IV was an amazing fighter with a ton of depth. Super IV one-ups it in every way imaginable. The cast is huge, the mechanics are more refined, and not everyone plays as Ken anymore! What more do you want?

Buy it. It’s absolutely worth every penny.

So, keeping with my life’s tradition of bad luck, right after I wrote about my arcade stick and I started playing Street Fighter IV more to prepare for Super Street Fighter IV, my stick died. The B button decided it would retire early, and even after I re-soldered all the connections it still stubbornly refused to work.

I was bummed, mostly because I did A LOT of work on that stick, and it was the first time I’d ever worked on a project like that. Still, shortly after I had bought my Hori EX2, I read that the Mad Catz sticks were much better for customization, and the EX2s were to be avoided. I had to follow a walkthrough to mod up my EX2, so I decided it was a good time to invest in a higher quality, more customizable stick.

GameStop (I know I know) has exclusive limited edition Mad Catz Marvel vs. Capcom Tournament Edition Fightsticks (say that five times fast) for only $99, and there had been one sitting at my local GameStop for at least three weeks. I headed out into the stormy night to go pick it up, and fate again decided to Flash Kick me in the ass.

They had sold it. Actually, that’s not TECHNICALLY correct. Someone had tried to purchase the Wii Tatsunoko vs. Capcom stick, and they put the Xbox 360 Marvel vs. Capcom stick in the box. It was another shining example of my local GameStop’s competence as well as the horrible luck that has been crushing my spirits since I was born.

I found the stick at the other GameStop five minutes down the road (they’re starting to become like Dunkin’ Donuts on every corner, or Starbucks if you’re not from New England) and they had it. The box was on a rack high above the game racks, out of the reach of children’s grubby paws, so the box was still in great shape. I’m glad, too, because the box is almost as kickass as the stick itself.

You can see in the image at the top of the post, it’s decorated with fantastic artwork of the characters. The top has Hulk vs. Zangief, and the bottom has Mega Man vs. Iron Man. The front has two flaps that open showcasing Strider and Spider-Man. All in all, the packaging does a great job of showing just how high quality the stick itself is.

The artwork on the stick, while a bit busy for my tastes, is really phenomenal. They’ve got Ryu, Mega Man and Jill all together, which is awesome since they were my standard team for Marvel vs. Capcom 2. The photos can’t really convey it, but the artwork has a glossy metallic finish to it, and it really pops when the light hits it. Eventually I’ll probably add new artwork to it. but for right now, I’m very pleased with it.

The stick’s construction is top notch. It’s designed to be an exact replica of a Japanese arcade unit, complete with Sanwa parts. Considering how much work I put into putting Sanwa parts in my old EX2, it was nice to know this one would feel authentic with minimal effort from me. The only modification I had to do was replacing the standard square restricter plate with my octagonal one I had put into my EX2. I forgot to take pictures when I opened it, but inside the stick’s guts are clean and organized. All I needed to do was remove the six allen screws holding the top plate in place, and from then on it was like working with Legos. All I needed to do was snap the old restricter plate off and snap the new one on. It took less than 30 seconds. After all the drilling and screwing (heh) I had to do on the EX2 to get an octagonal plate inside, this was a breath of fresh air. The buttons don’t require any soldering, either. They have plugs that slide off, so replacing them is a snap (if you pardon the pun). Each button’s wires are color coded as well to avoid confusion.

I gave it a whirl in a few online rounds of Street Fighter IV, and while it certainly hasn’t made me any better at the game, it works like a dream. It feels hefty in your lap, but not in a bad way. It won’t jostle or slide during intense play sessions. I really liked having the two extra buttons, and mapping them to all three punches and all three kicks made performing Supers and Ultras a piece of cake.

One of the best design features is a compartment to tuck the EXTREMELY LONG (13 feet) cable into, so it doesn’t get in the way while storing your stick while it’s not in use. It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but believe me, it’s definitely a great thing to have.

While I don’t have any real customization planned for this baby yet aside from a plexiglass cover to protect the art, it definitely feels like MY stick. It’s comfortable, it’s high quality, and it’s mine. I’m probably more excited for it than I should be, but I’m really enjoying it, and it’s only gotten me that much more excited for Super Street Fighter IV.

I’m a huge fan of fighting games. I’ve been Dragon Punching, Flash Kicking and Yoga Firing for the majority of my life. I’m nowhere near as good at them as I used to be, but I’m still a sucker for them, especially for 2D fighters by Capcom specifically.

I still remember the first time I ever played Street Fighter II. It was 1992, and everyone in my second grade class was talking about how cool it was. Everyone said Chun-Li was the best character. I went home with one of my friends to finally play, and of course I picked Chun-Li because hey, everyone said she was the best. I don’t remember if I won or lost that first match, but I remember wanting more.

I don’t play as Chun-Li much these days, but when I do I remember the first time I ever picked up the game, and it feels like hanging out with an old friend.

All I wanted to do at anyone’s house, if they had a copy of Street Fighter II, was play Street Fighter II. I was hooked. I played Ryu a ton (yeah, I know I know) but I loved mixing it up as each of the World Warriors. As we were moving some stuff around in the apartment today, I picked up my Sega Genesis copy of Super Street Fighter II, and remembered how many hours I put into that game. I played by myself, mostly, but with the amount of time I put into it you’d have thought I was having tournaments with my entire class on a daily basis.

I was never too much into Street Fighter III when that came out, mostly because the home console versions were so hard to come by, but I still loved Capcom’s other fighters, especially the Vs. series. X-Men Vs. Street Fighter was SO AWESOME. How cool was it to fight Wolverine and Ken as Ryu and Cyclops? Pulling off a full screen Hadoken/Optic Blast combo was so freaking satisfying.

One of my greatest gaming triumphs was when I was 13 years old. My parents had taken me out to pizza, and the Round Table Pizza we would go to had an X-Men Vs. Street Fighter machine. After I had wolfed down my pizza and begged for money, they gave me one quarter to shut me up. So I went over and started my game.

I got through a few fights when a bunch of older kids, probably 17 or 18 years old, came up around the machine. “Hey, let’s beat this kid and get him off the machine so we can play.” I wasn’t about to let them waste the only quarter I had, so when the first kid stepped up to challenge me, I beat him. I don’t mean just barely, either; I mean absolutely whooped his ass. I didn’t say anything as he kicked the cabinet, just kept staring at the monitor, looking out of the corner of my eye at the next one to step up.

One by one they fell, over and over again. They kept getting angrier and angrier, and I was feeling pretty good. Eventually my parents wanted to leave, so the other kids finally got the machine to themselves after my dad literally pulled me away by my collar.

I bought the Sega Dreamcast primarily for Marvel Vs. Capcom 2. OH MAN I loved that game SO MUCH. I thought I was pretty good at it, too, until I started playing other people. For some reason, I was never good at combos in that game, so pretty much every time I went up against someone who knew what they were doing I got my ass served with all the trimmings. Still, I loved my team of Ryu, Mega Man and Jill, or “Team Sequels” as I called them.

Capcom vs. SNK 2 on the original Xbox was another favorite of mine. I always liked the Fatal Fury games a lot, mostly for their characters, so seeing the two rival companies going head to head in one game was something quite special, and something I didn’t experience again until Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games on Wii.

Anyway, once Street Fighter IV came out for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, I knew I wanted to get back in. It had been a decade since the last “proper” Street Fighter, and I was ready to relive my glory days. Of course, I never got to relive my glory days because apparently I suck now, but I still had a lot of fun. I didn’t really like how Ryu played in Street Fighter IV, and Ken… well, everyone plays Ken. So I tried out spunky schoolgirl Sakura, since I played as her a bit in Street Fighter Alpha, and I had found my new main.

Also, for the record, The Last Ride is a fantastic song. Anyone who disagrees is a jackass.

Everyone knows that the Xbox 360 controller sucks for fighting games, because the D-Pad is so awful I’m convinced they designed it without knowing what a thumb looks like. To remedy this, I invested in one of Hori’s fighting sticks.

Now, I’m no scrub. I wasn’t about to hang out with that stick’s awful color scheme. I did some research on the Shoryuken forums, and saw that a lot of people were modding their sticks, or building completely custom sticks from scratch. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do something from scratch, because I’m kinda dumb, so I decided to fix up my Hori stick.

The main problem I had with Hori’s stick was the square gate for the joystick. What this means is that at the bottom of the joystick, there was a square frame for it to move around in. This makes the “fireball” motion (moving the stick from the down position to the right position in one motion) extremely difficult. So I ordered an octagonal gate to replace it with. While I was at it, I ordered new buttons as well. According to Shoryuken members, Sanwa was the company whose parts were in the actual Street Fighter IV machines in Japan. I ordered those, because having authentic arcade parts in my stick was something I wasn’t going to pass on.

While customizing your stick to perform better is always your main focus, you HAVE to make it look cool. I fooled around in Photoshop (with Christina’s help) and came up with a simple, fun design with Sakura, and got it printed out as a “lami-label,” basically a laminated sticker. I peeled off the boring default sticker, tossed it in the trash and slapped STYLE onto my stick.

Christina’s dad helped me with the inside work, since I didn’t have any experience soldering wires, but by the end of it I was pretty good. Inside the stick is a little sloppy since it was the first time I’ve done a project like that, but the stick controls like a dream. More importantly, though, it’s MINE. It’s not something built and designed and mass produced. I gutted it, rebuilt it, and put my own personal touches on it.

Of course, I still suck at Street Fighter, but my arcade stick is awesome. I’m always down for a match, so if you ever want to kick my ass, my Xbox Live Gamertag is Joe Sunrider.