GC 2008: Street Fighter IV Console - The classic fighter is playable for the first time for home consoles at Leipzig

After making us salivate over the arcade version for some time and finally confirming its perennial fighter would be coming to Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, Konami took the wraps off the console version of Street Fighter IV. We had some hands-on time with the game at Capcom’s Leipzig Games Convention 2008 booth.

Anyone who’s followed the franchise’s rebirth will know that SFIV includes many of the characters and stages from Street Fighter II, while adding a few brand new characters into the mix including femme fatale Crimson Viper, Mexican luchadore wrestler El Fuerte, French fighter Abel, and the generously-proportioned Rufus. While Dan, Fei-Long and Cammy are expected to make an appearance on home consoles, they were missing from the character menu so we’ll have to wait and see if this will be the case in the final version. We managed to snag a Xbox 360 controller, and we found the controls to be as responsive and natural as you’d expect without an arcade stick. We didn’t get to try it with Microsoft’s just announced, revised Xbox 360 controller (complete with a more responsive directional pad), but as it’s apparently a limited run that’s to be expected. Fans will be pleased to know that all of the combo moves from the arcade version will be the same on consoles. Ryu and Ken will still use a quarter circle and punch to execute fireballs, and Blanka will still execute an electric fury with rapid button mashing. Capcom took the time to emphasise the importance of the focus attacks in SFIV, describing it as a “game within a game”, allowing you to pull off quick attacks on the fly. Each character executes it in the same way--by holding down the medium punch and kick buttons--but their attacks and reach will be different, with El Fuerte reportedly having the longest reaching focus attack of all.

There are three tiers to focus attacks, light (performed by tapping the buttons), a medium half-charge (holding the buttons briefly) and a full-charge (holding the buttons down until an attack is performed). You won’t be vulnerable to attacks when performing a full-charge but you will be open to attack before then, so you’ll need to watch out if fighting a quick opponent. You can also quit out of one in the flash of an eye, such as by blocking or dashing.

Fans of the arcade version will be relieved to know that the game looks just as smooth on home consoles and, in our opinion, nothing short of gorgeous. While our preview was shown using a very early build, the characters, animations and background levels all look spot on and identical to the arcade version, as we could tell. Characters look fluid and realistic as they dance around and the amount of detail and animation that’s gone into some of the backgrounds is almost enough to distract you from the foreground action. While all 16 arcade characters were spotted in the selection screen, we were only able to try out a few in our time with the game, namely Ryu, Ken, Blanka and newcomer Rufus. All of their costumes, moves and animations appear to have made it across from the arcades, although we could’ve almost swarn Rufus’ bulbous belly looked bigger than ever before.

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