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.
Activision simply doesn't understand. Rather than follow in the footsteps of Harmonix's great work, they instead choose to saturate the market with new games that feature little improvement or changes besides a new track list. Outside of the previously announced Guitar Hero Metallica set for release this month, Activision has already announced Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits for a June 2009 release. GH: GH is a collection of 48 tracks from their previous four titles retooled for band play. Another sequel to their Guitar Hero DS series is set to also release in June called Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits. This is also nothing more than another game with a new setlist of 25 songs.
Besides officially releasing three GH titles this year, Eurogamer reports Activision's plans for a handful of more new "Hero" titles set to release this year. Hard Rock Van Halen (August), Guitar Hero 5 (possibly a working title - September), DJ Hero (October), Band Hero (November), as well as another title in their GH DS series is rumored to be in production. DJ Hero has been unofficially confirmed, but the others are still up in the air. There are also reports of Activision registering Sing Hero as a trademark.
I just hope more people continue to realize the exploitative tactics and inferior products Activision is putting out versus Harmonix's Rock Band platform. With The Beatles: Rock Band set to come out in September, I'm more excited about that than any of the Guitar Hero games. I think their cash cow is going to run dry before they're done milking it.
