The Sims 3: Generations Review

Today I’ve got something special for you all, a guest review by someone who is very dear to me. Without further interruption, here’s the review.

 

“The Sims Generations” expansion review: Written by Faye

 

The Sims 3 just recently celebrated their second birthday just about the same time they released the Generations expansion pack. The idea was that this was going to focus on important moments over the entire lifetime of a Sim as well as the more mundane but typical lifestyles of people.

 

Before generations, babies were an exercise in frustration, toddlers were little skill builders, children were larger skill builders who had to do homework, and teenagers were skill builders who could make money if they got a part time job. Of course then the fun meter was at almost a perpetual zero because on top of that there was still homework to be done.  Generations aims at enhancing the Sims’ lifetime experience at every age, but the ages most affected are the children and teenager stages.

 

The school experience is added to quite a bit. Students can now attend a handful of different boarding schools in addition to the school in town, there are after school activities available (which build skills) and there are field trips. For teen sims, there is also prom and graduation upon becoming a young adult. At prom you can be voted prom king/queen, have a date, be rejected for dances, have a great time, have an awful time, just like in real life! At graduation you can get “awards” like class clown or honors like valedictorian.

 

Upon birth, a mysterious relative sends the baby a doll which can become an imaginary friend. They are terrifying in appearance and demanding. Sometimes I felt I had to keep a closer watch on the child to make sure homework got done and showers were taken. For example, immediately upon waking, the first thing the imaginary friend wants to do is play pillow fighting. Even if you have a morning schedule set up for the child (I like to watch their needs and make sure they are in the best mood possible when they go to school, so I’ll line up actions such as eating, bathing, etc for them upon waking) it will be disregarded in favor of a pillow fight with their best friend. You don’t have to build a great relationship with the doll/imaginary friend, in fact you can make them do stuff for you like bring you snacks or clean up for you. The imaginary friend is most useful in the toddler stage for when the child is lonely, because playing with the doll ups their social interaction bar, allowing the parents to fulfill their own needs, like sleeping, eating or going to work.

 

With the chemistry set, you can learn how to make a potion to bring your imaginary friend to life! How exciting! Except then, they’re real children now living in your household and under your direction. I recommend this if you have one child, not two because now all of a sudden you have an extra household member to look after.

 

Where the game really shines is in childhood, despite the creepy imaginary friend. Children are given a wide array of new things to do and play with. There are now tree houses, dress up options (which are actually really adorable to watch) such as prince, princess, dinosaur or astronaut. Once in their costume, they can play pretend. There are also new furniture options that are child oriented, like a ship shaped bed, a castle like bed, bunk beds, castle or space themed bookshelves, a kitty shaped boom box, and many other things. You can put a sandbox in your back yard, slip and slides, and hopscotch. Even the adults love the hopscotch and slip and slides. Now there are many things to do to make managing a child in your household more interesting and new ways to build skills that are more natural, (as I mentioned before with the after school programs).

 

Teenagers now can wake up moody and have rebellious “wants” pop up. These hormonally driven wants are in red and usually involve some form of prank pulling, sneaking out, or snubbing a friend or school mate. The moodiness lasts a certain amount of hours and then will pass. You are free to select the wants and act on them or ignore them and make your teen sim toe the line.

 

And now your sim can have a midlife crisis! Some sims, upon entering true adulthood have a several day long midlife crisis. Similar to the teens’ moodiness wants, there will be midlife crisis wants. However, if you select one of these wants, it will NOT go away until you fulfill it or the midlife crisis ends. Sometimes they are reasonable, like wanting to color/cut their hair, get a makeover, or buy a fancy new car. Sometimes they are more extreme, like quitting their jobs or divorcing their spouse. Also, the sim will spend a LOT of time looking in the mirror at their wrinkles, male or female. If all this wrinkle looking at or car buying gets to be too annoying, you have the option of getting therapy at the hospital and getting your sim through his or her rough time.

 

Getting married? Now you can have a bachelor or bachelorette party! You can spray each other with champagne, make toasts, and oh yeah, a dancer shows up. Clothes stay on, and the dancer…dances. Also, for the big day, they brought back wedding arches and a big ass wedding cake.

 

Romantic reputation is now a thing. Nosy neighbors everywhere rejoice! If your sim is out skanking it up in public (or not in public in some cases, just if they get caught by the spouse) they will get a cheater reputation. If your sim is true blue, they get a faithful reputation. These things appear as moodlets, and can also impact your sim’s ability to get dates and lovers.

 

For old sims, you now have canes and the opportunity to bitch about everything. You can also reminisce about old times. But mostly you can just stand and around and “harass the world.” That’s really the only thing I found new for old sims. Yawn.

 

CONCLUSION:

Favorites:

• SPIRAL STAIRCASES!! Finally, they’re back. I would get so frustrated having to rearrange a building structure if I wanted to add a basement or another floor to accommodate a big bulky staircase. The spiral staircases are more compact and easier to place.
• The dress up feature for kids. It’s really cute.
• Wedding arches. It makes the wedding parties easier, or if you want to design your park to be a hot wedding locale, you can have lovely outdoor weddings in gardens or fancy buildings of your own designs.

Dislikes:

• The game is still glitchy as hell. In fact, with my first family, the mother had to die because the game glitched out and wouldn’t let her move from her location. She literally starved to death because the game decided that spot on the lawn was where should was going to be staying…forever. Nothing is more annoying than building a character or a household up and having it ruined by a dumb glitch like that. Also, the game decided that even though she was dead, the couple was still married. So when Mr. Sim started dating again, he was a cheater. Even though the wife was dead. Annoying.
• Hover bed. It is a lifetime happiness reward you can buy, but prepare to be disappointed. Hover bed sounds amazing, but honestly, if I didn’t know it was a hover bed, I would have thought it was an ugly bed with little glowing foot stands. It doesn’t move around or anything, as far as I can tell. And it’s ugly as hell.

 

Overall, the game is very pricey for an expansion, but there is a lot of stuff in it. Stuff as in new things to do, a few new traits (nurturing and rebellious) new items, new build items and new lifetime achievement rewards, all age related. If you’re happy with your gameplay experience as it is, feel free to skip. Unlike the World Adventures or Career expansions, the way you play the game is not significantly altered. You just have more things to do and more stuff to do it with.

Steam Summer Sale

For any of you who aren’t aware, Steam is having a summer sale right now. There are a ton of great games to be had at ridiculously low prices, so if there was something you were hesitating to pick up, now might be a great time to go a head and indulge. One thing to note are the awesome daily sales going on right now. You’ll definitely want to check Steam out daily to see what dropped into the bargain bin, because even items that are on sale currently, like Magicka yesterday, may be reduced even further, like Magicka right now! Definitely something that I recommend you all check out. Best hurry though, because the sale ends on July 10th.

 

Hope all of you have a safe and fun holiday weekend. Happy 4th of July to all!

Dead or Alive Dimensions Review

I first fell in love with the Dead or Alive series on the Dreamcast with Dead or Alive 2. Since that game, I’ve really been a fan of the fighting style and the character design of the game. The only hitch in this love affair came with Dead or Alive 4, which had a level of difficulty I ultimately found to be frustrating. With this in mind, I approached Dead or Alive Dimensions with quite a few reservations. I’m happy to report those reservations are unfounded.

 

PRESENTATION

Dead or Alive Dimensions sports some very nice visuals and very clean menus right from the start. Each game option is obvious and easy to navigate to. All the player has to do is pick what they want to do (Arcade, Survival, etc.), pick a course or set of fights, and pick a fighter. There are no unnecessary options and no extra menus to go through. There are also a couple of really nice touches to the presentation, like a loading screen that acts kind of like an augmented reality screen. Some of the loading screens show video of in-game stages, and if you tilt the 3DS or look around with it, you can actually look around the stage. It’s a subtle touch that I appreciate simply for the novelty factor.

There is a story mode to the game, which is nothing new to fighting games, but this is one of the few that I felt was trying to tell a complete narrative. The story mode actually focuses on a few characters, rather than having the player play through the entire roster. Instead, the story focuses on the ninja characters and their efforts against the evil conglomerate DOATEC. The story starts out tight and understandable, but towards the mid-point and onward gets really random and convoluted. This is nothing new for a Dead or Alive game, which has always had a fairly incomprehensible method of storytelling, but it is unfortunate that the narrative did not remain consistently tight.

 

GAMEPLAY

The heart of any Dead or Alive experience is the combat. Rather than have a set of two to three punch and kick buttons, the Dead or Alive series has always relied on relatively simple controls. You have one button each for punch, kick, block, and throw. Attack and combo variations occur with the timing of different button presses and hitting different directions on the thumb pad or d-pad while attacking. This sounds easy, and it is easy to learn, but there’s a surprising amount of complexity in the blocking and countering system, which relies on solid timing and knowing exactly where the next strike is going to land (high, mid, or low). This keeps the game from turning into a simple counter battle, and leads to a lot of different strategy in multiplayer games.

The game modes all focus on the fighting mechanics in the game, but all offer different experiences and variations, which are welcome in this genre. Arcade mode is a standard course through a set number of fighters. Chronicle is a story mode that is functionally the same as Arcade, but you don’t get to choose your fighter at all, and it’s unsurprisingly heavy on story and cutscenes. Survival is kind of like Arcade mode, except there’s no pause between the fights and if you screw up you could be facing your next opponent with almost no health bar.

Tag Challenge is probably the most interesting mode of the bunch. Basically, you are asked to select two fighters, one of which will be controlled by the computer, and fight against whatever opponent that particular challenge calls for. There’s quite a bit of strategy involved in knowing when to tag in and relieve your computer partner, who is essentially there to soak damage while you regain health. The AI does a decent job of backing you up but usually won’t be winning the fight for you. There are some moments where the AI will make dumb decisions, like tagging in when you really don’t need the help, but otherwise is decent.

Local and internet multiplayer are thankfully present, but unfortunately there is quite a bit of lag playing over the internet. Sometimes there’s only a little bit, and sometimes it’s completely unbearable, but it’s always present. This unfortunately is a problem, because the combat is very timing oriented, and unless you learn quickly to compensate you’ll get beat easily. It doesn’t help that the lag detracts from the experience considerably, and ruins what otherwise would have been the mode that most players should be coming back to for extended playtime with this game.

 

SIGHTS AND SOUNDS

The Dead or Alive series has always been known for its stunning visuals, and this iteration is no different. The textures are all smooth and nice to look at. Environments are well detailed with different objects and multi-tiered areas to knock your opponent into or off of, and the animations all run very smoothly with no real framerate hiccups. The 3D effect is nice in its sense of depth but otherwise doesn’t pop like other games. This isn’t a bad thing, as the 3D is bearable over a long play period and doesn’t drain the system’s battery like other games can. The thing I did notices though is the framerate seems to be much higher with the 3D off, and I found myself actually preferring this as the game tends to be very fast-paced anyway

The sound effects to their job in conveying the action on screen with the appropriate thwacks and thumps present. The voice acting is tolerable, but nothing special and the cheesy lines are a bit much at times. This doesn’t really detract from the experience but I did find myself switching to Japanese voices simply for the sake of nostalgia.

 

FINAL THOUGHTS

With a few hiccups, Dead or Alive Dimensions is a great fighting experience on a system that badly needs good software. I recommend it with a few reservations. If you don’t like fighting games, or were never a fan of the Dead or Alive style of combat, Dimensions won’t convert you. If anything, it’s a very pure form of the Dead or Alive experience, so obviously it won’t convert anyone who doesn’t like that style. For everyone else, this is a fun experience that I highly recommend checking out.

 

Verdict: BUY

Supreme Court Ruling And An End To The Hacking

Interesting bits of news happening in the world of gaming today. First the Supreme Court has announced its decision on the case involving the California law that would have made it illegal to sell violent video games to minors. In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court has upheld the first ammendment rights of video games, citing that they are protected speech and that there is no current provision that allows the government to restrict violent content from being distributed to minors. This is an important distinction as we know sexual content has been and still is prohibited from being sold to individuals under the age of 18 in the United States. This decision, I think, is a good thing for the industry in that it legitimates video games as a form of expression. I am still of the opinion that more needs to be done to educate parents in regards to what exactly they are buying, but this can and should be done within the existing framework of the ESRB ratings system.

The second bit of news today is the announcement from Lulzsec that the hacker group is disbanding after a nearly two month long attack against various companies involved in the video game industry. This announcement comes after the arrest of an alleged member of the group in London as well as three individuals allegedly connected to the hacker group Anonymous. Lulzsec denies that the individual arrested in London actually had any connection to their group. For the moment it appears that Lulzsec is done, but I would personally find it very surprising if the group did not simply resurface under a new banner, and I think it’s far too early to sound the all clear siren for internet security.

Ridge Racer 3D Review

Not being much of a racing fan, not to mention the fact that I’ve never played a game in this series, I was a bit hesitant to pick up Ridge Racer 3D. After some early promising previews touting that the game might be the most fully featured and fleshed out at the launch of the 3DS, I decided to give the game a shot. What I ended up finding was at once surprisingly fun and disappointing.

 

CONTROLS

At the heart of Ridge Racer 3D lays a very solid and fun control scheme. Being an arcade style racer, the controls are reasonably easy to pick up for the novice player. The face buttons are used for gas and breaking as well as shifting gears if you use a manual control style, while the thumb pad or d-pad are used for steering. As you race, you build up nitrous for boosting, which can be activated on the shoulder buttons. The controls are mapped adequately around the 3DS and make the game reasonable to control at the levels of speed thrown at the player in the later part of the game.

 

PRESENTATION

I normally don’t talk about menus in a game, but in Ridge Racer 3D they’re so pervasive that they must be talked about. The front menu is split up into a few different modes: single and multiplayer, records, a music player, game options, and the garage. The garage is sort of a strange option. This is where you can purchase new cars and equipment with the in game currency you earn in other modes. This is sort of standard for a racing game that boasts a lot of unlockable content, but is odd in that the player is forced to go through this menu every time he or she starts a race event which ends up becoming a little tedious. Yes, it lets the player make little tweaks to their vehicle or change cars entirely before playing, but before too long I found myself sticking to a particular set of options which made having to go through this menu cycle a bit of a chore. It would have been better if the developers had left this to the garage menu so the player could save a preset of their machine and settings of choice and tweak it as they wish outside of the racing modes.

 

GAMEPLAY

The gameplay of Ridge Racer 3D basically comes down to the player and seven other drivers on a racetrack, the goal being to get to first place by the end of the race. In the Grand Prix mode, these races are broken up into events, each of which has four tracks to beat. At the beginning of the game, the racing is actually a little bit slow, which is helpful for new players but veterans may find it tiresome until they unlock the faster set of cars.

This formula, especially the drift mechanic and the high level of speed later on, can be very fun in small doses. Unfortunately the track list in the game is only 15 different tracks and their reverse equivalents. This normally wouldn’t be a problem except these tracks are arranged four at a time in each race event of the grand prix, which has many race events. This results in the use of the same tracks over and over in a single player mode that ended up feeling like a grind if I played for too long. This honestly made me feel more like I was playing a time sink and less like I was trying to have fun.

Understand though that there is fun to be had here. The races themselves, especially when the speed gets cranked up, are very exciting and I found myself getting into the game to the point where I was leaning my body, arms, and legs to match the way I was turning. This sort of connection is very uncommon for me with a game, and it was a really nice experience, but I really wish the game didn’t feel like such a grind.

Adding to this frustration is a complete lack of online multiplayer, which I think any modern racer, portable or not, absolutely needs.

 

SOUND

The music does its job well in the game, adding to the excitement already inherent in a high-speed race. It doesn’t hurt that the music is actually fun to listen to, and I found myself on more than one occasion tapping my toes to the beat. The sound effects aren’t spectacular, but they do their job, especially in terms of conveying that your car is drifting and sliding when you make a turn, screeching convincingly. The announcer’s voice who narrates your every action during a race will get tiresome eventually, but at the beginning I found her very helpful. This was because the various voice clips in the game are done in a way that clues the novice player in when he or she is doing something correct or when he or she is completely botching a race. I found myself adjusting my play style to fit the encouragement, which actually helped me learn the game fairly quickly. This is a nice design choice in a genre that is normally very inaccessible for the novice and in a game that has no tutorial to speak of.

 

GRAPHICS

The graphics aren’t spectacular, but they do their job just fine, conveying the sense of speed that the game requires. There are quite a few nice little details to the game, such as chips that match your car’s paint scheme that go flying if you rub against another car or object, or the colored flames that shoot out of your car’s tailpipe when you activate a nitro. The 3D effect is actually used intelligently in the game, and made a difference for me when I was trying to judge the distance between me and the next turn.

 

FINAL THOUGHTS

Ridge Racer 3D is a bit of a mixed bag. There is a lot of fun going on in the individual races, and the actual mechanics of those races work really well. The experience is bogged down though by an overly convoluted menu system and a single player mode that feels like a major grind fest. Fans of racing games or the Ridge Racer series will probably find a lot to like because of the gameplay. For everyone else, the game is going to be very hit or miss depending on your taste.

 

Verdict: RENT

Portal 2 Review

Surprising everyone who picked up The Orange Box, the original Portal proved to be such a smash hit that valve ended up releasing it as a standalone purchase on PC and later on consoles. The quality of the original spoke for itself and resonated with every gamer that had a chance to play it. With the release of the sequel, Valve had some very large shoes to fill, and has attempted to do so with a much longer single player adventure and a newly crafted multiplayer mode in an attempt to recapture what we all felt with the original. While the sense of wonder is gone, the experience here definitely cannot be called lacking.

CONTROLS

The controls in Portal 2 handle identically to the first game with the exception of a few new additions in multiplayer. On the 360, portals are fired from the portal gun with the left or right trigger, depending on which color you wish to attach to the wall. Jumping is on the A button, movement and view are handled with the analog sticks, and you can pick up objects with the B button. In multiplayer, some new emotes have been added. Some are silly, like dancing or high fives, and some are more useful, like a countdown timer. All of this is meant to make multiplayer more manageable without needing to talk to your partner, something that anyone who plays on Xbox Live can appreciate, but for some of the more advanced puzzles I found I was very glad to have a partner on hand that I could talk to and trusted.

GRAPHICS

Graphically the game is very pretty. The environments are nicely detailed and are varied at different parts of the game, which keeps the visuals from becoming overly repetitive. The animations are all clean and well done, and the particle effects add a nice bit of visual flair to the energy based objects in the game.

SOUND

The sound design stands out wonderfully in the game. The effects are all appropriate and lend a nice bit of weight to the on screen action, such as the sound your gun makes when you fire a portal or the sound of the wind rushing by your character as you fly through the air. The dialog and voice acting are an absolute joy to listen to. Both AIs as well as a surprise voice that I won’t spoil are exceptionally well-written and provide some honest laugh-out-loud moments which work well to break up what would otherwise be a very serious and cerebral game.

SINGLE PLAYER

The single player experience is well crafted from start to finish, introducing concepts to the player carefully, preventing any unnecessary frustration. For those who haven’t played the first game, the basic mechanic of Portal 2 involves shooting portals, basically entrances and exits, which attach to specific walls in the facility. These portals are used to navigate the environment, enabling the player get around what would otherwise be impassible obstacles, such as electrified moats, bottomless pits, or lines of machine-gun toting sentry robots. In addition to the first game’s physics based puzzles, Portal 2 adds some new environmental objects to vary up the puzzles and bring something new to the experience. The light bridge, laser beams, and different types of gels all work well with the game mechanics established by the first game and are all fun new toys to play around with in the environment.

The story, which is unique from the multiplayer experience, is well done, and gives some much needed depth to the Aperture Science facility, even giving the player more insight into how Glados came into existence.

The only complaint I really have in regards to the single player is the game drags a bit in the center, and I felt a little like the developers could have sped that part up a bit. One strange bit of annoyance was that the game was seemingly self-aware that this was going on, and used spoken dialog to assure you that there were only X number of rooms left before something new would happen in the story. This was an unfortunate blemish in an otherwise superb experience.

MULTIPLAYER

I was honestly very concerned when I heard Valve was adding a multiplayer component to Portal 2. My fears were fortunately unfounded, as playing this game with a friend is a total blast, and trying to figure out the more complex puzzles with my partner was honestly one of the best experiences I had playing a video game. All of the elements from single player make an appearance with a different story that takes place after the events of the single player game. The difference is with two players the puzzles are made that much more complex, in many cases requiring creative use of all four of your portals to make it through to the next test chamber. I have no complaints at all about multiplayer, save that you will probably want to play this with someone you know, as a game like Portal 2 would be extraordinarily aggravating playing with someone who just wants to mess with you.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I don’t know if it’s possible for me to say enough good things about this game. Aside from a bit of unnecessary length in the Single Player mode, the game is exquisite. All the gameplay mechanics work well, the writing is ridiculously good, and the experience is just outright well-crafted. The only reason a person could have for not picking this one up is if you simply don’t like first person games or if you’re looking for a more action oriented game. There are tense, exciting moments in the game, but this is first and foremost a puzzle game, so understand that that’s what you can expect from the experience.

Verdict: BUY

Nostalgia of Zelda

Most likely because Ocarina of Time is coming out for the 3DS, I find myself craving Legend of Zelda constantly lately. I’ve started to go back and replay all the old games I’ve got, and honestly I’m more than a little amazed by them. No, I’m not amazed just because Link’s Awakening DX kept my save files (which is still pretty incredible) or that my Game Boy Advance SP is still working (gotta love Nintendo Hardware). Rather, I’m amazed by the quality of these games, in some cases well over a decade after their release. True, the graphics are extremely dated, but looking past the technical limitations I’m finding an art style that I absolutely adore, characters that I love, and gameplay that is just as solid as it always was. There’s a lesson in here for game developers: at the end of the day, gameplay is king. You can dress a game up all you want, make it pretty, make it fun to listen to, but it’s the actual gameplay that makes a game a classic. Those who have played remember what it felt like the first time they killed something in Diablo 2, used a super mushroom in Mario, or lost Karma in Fallout. These are the sorts of games that stick with us because fun and memorable experiences are going to trump flashy effects every time.

Video Games V. The State of California

For those of you who haven’t heard, California proposed a bill a while back that would make it a fineable offense to sell violent video games to anyone under 18. This is above and beyond the ESRB rating system as well as individual store policy that prohibits the sale of M-rated games to anyone under 18. The bill was struck down by the California Supreme Court and the ruling has been appealed all the way to the United States Supreme Court.

Reading about this bill (which I strongly suggest reading up on at IGN, Gamespot, or Game Informer), I find myself strangely conflicted. On the one hand, I honestly find myself agreeing with the spirit in which it was wrote. No, I don’t think violent content has the kind of detrimental effect on children that lawmakers and others are claiming, and often this impact is over exaggerated. However I can remember my time with games like God of War and Fable 3, and certain scenes like choosing who gets to be executed in Fable 3 or pushing a man to his death while he’s screaming for me to stop in God of War, have left marks on me that I’m never going to forget. It’s these sorts of events in a game that I absolutely do not think children should be allowed to participate in, and I’m honestly glad for the chance for gamers as a community to come together and discuss this.

On the other hand, the bill is poorly written. It doesn’t use the tools that are already in place, like the ESRB rating system, and does not clearly define what violent content constitutes. With the approval of such a bill, I could see the industry being injured and honestly stunted creatively, as game developers now have to contend with a very hazy definition of what constitutes violence in their games in addition to all the other myriad marketing analysis that comes with releasing a new piece of software. Beyond this, I think what’s really at stake here is a first amendment issue.

I think there are a lot of groups out there, in Government and out, that do not want violence at all in video games because the medium is still perceived as something for children (when Nintendo at this point has basically proven that they can be made for everyone), so this can be seen as an actual attack on this aspect of the industry. This does not mean that we as a community should get up in arms about this way of thinking and react as we typically do in forums (f them and their stupid laws!) but rather that we need to open a dialog amongst ourselves and honestly with non-gamers, and rationally discuss how the industry has grown, how the market has grown up, and what should be done about it. This is because, at the end of the day, young children SHOULDN’T be exposed to certain ideas. There are concepts and emotions  that they’re not ready to process, and as much as I would love to say “let the parents handle it,” the sad truth is sometimes parents can’t or don’t for whatever reason. Rather than be reactionary and adversarial, I think it would be more productive if we participated in this dialog and showed the rest of society that we are not the threat and we want to be part of the solution, because our perspective is going to be different and we’re going to bring things to the table that individuals outside the gaming community are not going to see. Just my two pennies.

Thank you for reading.

Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition

Perhaps one of the most long-lived and well-regarded franchises in gaming, the Street Fighter series stole our hearts with Street Fighter 2 in the arcades nearly a decade ago. Now what many regard as the gold standard for fighting games is back with a new iteration for the Nintendo 3DS handheld to try to recapture the same feeling we all had when we plunked that first quarter into an arcade cabinet so long ago.

 

GAMEPLAY

The Street Fighter series has always been known for tight, well-balanced fighting, and the newest member of the series is no different. Sporting classic fighters as well as a few new favorites, Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition has no lack of options in the character department. Where a lot of fighting games would make clones and variations of fighters to round out their rosters, Street Fighter has distinct characters that all play differently. Where this is not the case, such as with Ken and Ryu, the characters still feel subtly different, calling for a slight variation in play style. The characters are all well-balanced against each other, but some are obviously easier to use than others for the novice player.

The game sports a few different game modes.Arcadeis your classic, iconic run through the ranks of the other world warriors as you fight your way to the final boss encounter; this time with a character named Seth, who is a remix of many of the other characters’ fighting styles. Arcade mode also sports a pair of minigames that are exactly like the old-school bonus stages from Street Fighter 2, having the player tear apart a car and bust falling barrels. These are a fun distraction, but really don’t compare to the core experience and seem to be added in for the sake of nostalgia.

In addition to Arcade Mode, the game sports a standard training mode for practicing your moves and getting used to a character’s super moves as well as a challenge mode. The challenge mode is a more directed version of training mode, asking the player to perform various super moves and combos, which is a decent way to learn, but I found myself really wishing that the game would have an on-screen prompt for the moves you’re being asked to perform. Instead you have to go into the menu and look up the move input from your character’s move list. It’s a cumbersome and honestly unnecessary process, but is otherwise a small gripe.

Versus mode of course makes an appearance, allowing for both local and online multiplayer battles, which I’m happy to report function very well. The fighting is all very lag-free, fast, and fun, and allows you to set options for the type of opponent you want to fight, including filters for skill level and control type.

In a nod to the 3D capabilities of the system, Street Fighter also boasts two different camera modes. There’s the standard view everyone is used to with a fighting game, but also an over the shoulder view, which really shows off the depth that the system can convey, though fighting in this mode can be slightly disorienting until you get used to it.

Finally, there’s the street pass feature, dubbed Figure Collection which takes advantage of the 3DS’ ability to send and receive data while in sleep mode. There’s not much to be said for the gameplay here. You can collect figures by playing a slot minigame using points that you earn by playing in other modes. You can then take these figures and organize them into a team that will battle other players’ teams when you pass by them on the street. It’s an interesting diversion, but is not very compelling, and I’m personally hoping that developers find a different way to use the spot pass feature.

 

CONTROLS

This iteration of Street Fighter handles very much like others in the series with some notable additions. Every character has light, medium, and strong versions of kicks and punches which are mapped to the face and shoulder buttons on the system. Movement is handled either with the thumb pad or with the d-pad, both of which are reasonably accurate and handle well. I never felt that I had lost a match because the controls weren’t reading an input properly.

Taking advantage of the system’s touch screen, Capcom has added in programmable touch controls that allow you to map up to four button inputs to the touch screen. These controls come in two versions: Pro and Lite. Lite controls allow you to map any super move or button input you wish, allowing novices to pull off the more difficult moves with ease. I found myself gravitating toward Pro controls, which only allow simple button inputs to be mapped. This allowed me to easily hit all three punch or kick buttons simultaneously to execute certain super moves, which is very difficult with the system’s normal buttons. Both types of controls are customizable and can be tweaked to suit your play style.

 

GRAPHICS

The visuals in the game are very well done, from the crisp menus to the solid frame rate of the actual fights, and do a great job of showing off the power of the handheld. The 3D effects are nice, but not necessary to the gameplay, and don’t enhance the visuals outside of a gimmicky thrill. The caveat to this is fighting using the dynamic, over the shoulder camera, which conveys depth nicely with the 3D effect. The one complaint I do have with the graphics is in the static backgrounds. Ordinarily you’re not going to notice this in most fights, but certain stages that have characters in the background, such as people or animals, stick out as a sore spot, because these characters very obviously should be animated. This is even more apparent using the dynamic camera, as you get a much closer look at the objects in the background in that mode. It’s a small complaint, considering everything else that Capcom has accomplished, but it is a bit disappointing.

 

SOUND

Sound design in Street Fighter isn’t particularly outstanding, but the sound effects and voice work convey the action on screen competently. The English voice acting is actually fairly well-done, though the dialogue can still be pretty cheeseball at times. The music is mostly forgettable, but again does a good job amping the excitement and tension of each match, enhancing the emotional enjoyment of the gameplay.

 

FINAL THOUGHTS

My nagging annoyances with the visuals aside, Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition is an excellent entry in the series. The core gameplay is solid and fun, and the overall package is complete and satisfying. Though the fighting genre is a bit too niche for this to be called the killer app of the 3DS, it most definitely is the best game at launch, and anyone comfortable playing fighting games would do well to pick this game up.

 

Verdict: BUY

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