With the recent boom of video games and kids wanting to spend money on extra peripherals, like the Wii Fit, the Madcatz SE (read: POS) fightstick and enough Rock Band instruments to fill the GWAR roster, I thought I'd school some kids with a hilarious picture.
Ever have some questions about their relationships? Ever wonder what happened before Street Fighter 2? Well, there's a pretty cool movie about it all. As with any of the Street Fighter non-game media, you really have to take them at face value. Even a lotta the game continuity is rather confusing, but it's a fighter, it's not meant for that.
Here's a preview:
Sadly, this movie has some weird stuff in it that I don't want to spoil for you, but lets just say that there's a character in it, an important character, that never appears before, again, or is mentioned... To my knowledge.
Dan is still silly, Sakura is still a fan-girl of Ryu, while Akuma is still a demon, Chun Li is still a hearthrob, but Ryu is still emo and, thankfully, Ken still steals the show. With his big ass feet.
It does explain 'The Dark Hadou" fairly well, but since this is Alpha (in between SF and SF2) it's not as prominent as we would like it to be... It's worth the watch, though, so is Street Fighter Alpha Generations, which is all about Akuma vs. Gouken and Ryu vs. Akuma, simply put, it's a short OVA dedicated to some important stuff.
The popular Sega arcade mech fighter series is finally set to release on current-gen consoles in the form of an Xbox Live Arcade re-lease of the arcade/Dreamcast hit, Cyber Troopers Virtual-On Oratorio Tangram. The last game in the series, Virtual-On Marz, was released on the PS2 in 2003 with very poor reviews. However, Oratorio Tangram is considered one of the best in the series and probably the reason it was chosen for release over its predecessor.
I have not had a chance to play Oratorio Tangram, but the original Virtual-On on the Sega Saturn was a pure blast to play. I am not generally a fan of mech games, but the arcade feel and overall gameplay was really fun. I have played other series like Armored Core, but it felt more technical and sim-like. In Virtual-On, you take control of a mech called a Virtuaroid, with different models featuring different special attacks, abilities, modes, weapons, and other differences. Gameplay mechanics are similar to other mech fighting games, with the ability to dash, crouch, side-step, and other techniques available.
Cyber Troopers Virtual-On Oratorio Tangram will release on Xbox 360 "exclusively" this Spring, with the high-def re-release bringing online multiplayer for one-on-one matches, a single player mode, and a score attack mode with 14 stages.
Harmonix has successfully managed to transform Rock Band into a great music platform, with just about 600 songs already available across all games, track packs, and downloadable content. While Activision is choosing to spam the Guitar Hero name by saturating the market with incremental releases, Harmonix has been diligent in weekly song releases and making disc-based track packs available as an alternative.
Pwn or Die has a great article featuring graphs that break down where songs come from, dominant genres, difficulty levels, and much more. It's interesting to analyze the data and look for trends or patterns in how Harmonix chooses the type of songs to release. I certainly don't mind the difficulty imbalance, but I hope they start to even out genre and decade song distribution in the future.
Whatever they're doing, I hope they keep doing it because it's working. Only Harmonix could make Snoop Dogg, the Dixie Chicks, and the Beatles make sense all under one roof.
Since Dragon Ball Z first became popular in the US around the late '90s, the series has been constantly teased for its numerous fights, drawn-out battle scenes, and endless filler episodes that did very little to contribute to the story. Toei Animation is changing all of this with an original cut edition called Dragon Ball Kai that more closely follows Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama's original manga story. Due to both the DBZ manga and anime being serialized simultaneously in monthly versus weekly installments, the anime added additional story arcs and stretched out battles to follow the same schedule. Dragon Ball Kai will instead more closely follow the manga and feature a more succinct story pace.
Dragon Ball Kai will also feature a new HD remasterng from the original film source as well as renewed soundtracks, sound effects, and new dialogue recorded by the majority of the original Japanese voice actors. While FUNimation released a remastered version of DBZ on DVD, this will be the most definitive version of the series yet. There was a lot of filler that really bogged the series down, so this new edition should please plenty.
Both critics and fans alike should find a lot to like in DBK when it starts airing in Japan starting April 5. No word yet about US licensing for DVD distribution or TV airings.
