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What do you get when you thrust a controller into the hands of an FPS veteran and push him into the ring to square off against some of the world’s deadliest fighters, both real and virtual?
A palpitating heart?
Cold sweat?
Numb fingers?
I would say all of these and much more, for that is exactly how I ended up once our Editor-in-Chief thrust the latest addition to the Street Fighter franchise into my hands and barked out an order to review it. Now saying I am a newbie to the genre would be putting it very mildly. Having been a PC gamer for the better part of my life, I have always given fighting games a wide pass. So when Street Fighter IV was announced a while back, I wasn’t one among the hordes of fans cheering, fainting or singing hallelujah in the streets, accompanied by frenzied high-pitched screams of “Shoryuken!”, “Tiger Fist” and other guttural noises. Which kinda neatly explains how I’ve remained untouched by all the hype surrounding the game, until the review copy landed in my lap one fine morning.
Phew, we’ve been getting so much of Street Fighter IV love over the days that we just couldn’t bear to tear ourselves out of our game to do the stuff we were supposed to be doing – you know, like, the reviews and contests and all that jazz. With contests raining down every which way at The ANGRY Pixel over the last couple of days, we decided that the best thing to help ourselves and our brain-frozen readers if we ran a (oh god!) trivia contest. So, who amongst you are well versed with your Street Fighter lore? ‘Coz we’ve got one of our resident Transformers-loving, smooth-talking, ass-kicking Street Fighter fan to come up with a list of questions designed to leave you scratching your head as you figure out the right answer. So, what are you waiting for, head on over to our cooler-than-Daddy McCool Street Fighter IV Launch Center to get your shoryuken on, there’s prizes to be won! Chop, chop!
After complaining for months about not getting any love down south in Bangalore from Milestone, we finally got ourselves a nice little launch party for Street Fighter IV this Friday at The Living Room, where fans of the game could just sit back and kick their friends’ butt every which way with punches, kicks and focus moves. In fact, the party was so awesome that we completely didn’t manage to attend it! Don’t ask us why, because it mostly involves our associate editor busy rowing the slave boat and getting whipped good at work. As for me, well, I originally wanted to say I couldn’t make it because I had a brain tumor and had to get it checked out, but if I do, I’ve been promised that I’ll get my neck snapped by Milestone’s friendly neighborhood PR liaise, Payal, who loves nothing more than keeping us on track and, err, “mothering us” to make sure we do what we’re supposed to and don’t go around doing naughty things, like eating sand, spilling cooking oil all over the floor and breaking embargoes. (Ooh, look, Jill Valentine’s dead!)
UPDATE: OK, looks like the original plan’s scrapped. Milestone’s just called us up to let us know that if you’ve got the time and want to take a look at Street Fighter IV, you’re more than welcome to drop in and kick our ass at the launch party. Yes, you heard us – it’s open to all gamers now. So if you’ve got nothing better to do on the 20th, head on over to The Living Room on Residency Cross Road (next to Dena Bank) between 5 PM and 8 PM and get your SF4 groove on!
‘Tis that season again – we’ve all got Carl Douglas’ “Kung Fu Fighting” set to repeat infinitely on our iPods; we’ve dressed up like Ryu, Ken and Rufus – ready to play mock-fights with the unsuspecting passer-by on a crowded street; we’ve used up the spare “Free Karate Lesson” coupon, and soon after, the “Free Plaster Cast” coupon that we had lying around the house for the last three years; we’ve done nothing but watch martial arts movies (and not the wire-fu crapitos) every spare minute we get and dug up and played through every Street Fighter game ever made till date. But wait, what about Street Fighter IV? Unless you’re a game journalist with a cool site like ours (plug away, my good man) and gotten a orgasmic press kit and a review copy, you’re gonna have wait until the game is officially available in stores.
Dejected? Awww, don’t be! Because we’re giving away five special invites to the Street Fighter IV launch party in Bangalore this Friday! You will find yourself mingling with the most devout gamers in the country, where you can pick on our resident associate editor Street Fighter ignoramus, Abhinav, and use your extensive knowledge of all things Street Fighter to subdue him into giving him your lunch money giving you his lunch money. So, what are you waiting for? Send a nice little email to streetfighter4 {at} theangrypixel(.)com and tell us why we should include you in the inner circle of awesomeness. If you’ve got time on your hands, we’ll even take frenzied cellphone recordings of you screaming “Shoryuken-Shoryuken! Hadoken-Hadoken!”, followed by a couple of death gurgles. Preferably in a library or a hospital or any other environment where you’re supposed to keep your trap shut! So yeah, chop-chop, we’re waiting!
So, you’re one of those new-fangled gamers that’s just itching to get his hands dirty with Street Fighter IV after everyone that’s cool around you has been talking about nothing but the game the last couple of months. But wait, what happens when you get the game and find your posterior handed to you on a bloody silver plate because you don’t have a friggin’ clue about how exactly you’re supposed to pull off those fancy-schmancy moves that will net you your win? Fear no more, we’re here to the rescue of all those people that want to get ready for Street Fighter IV with a handy character moves guide that you can keep referring to. At least, until you get good enough to score a 100% on a pop quiz if we were to wake you at 3 in the morning and grill you on them. We got this little handy guide along with our little press kit earlier and scanned them because, oh, let’s say an associate editor that’s spent way too much time playing shooters suddenly threw us a curveball by asking which button he should be mashing to block incoming attacks! Yeah, Bruce, fancy that!
Hit the jump for your download!
Well, what more can we say? We’ve confirmed with local distributor e-Xpress Interactive a couple of days back that Soulcalibur IV will indeed not make it to Indian shores, thanks to the fact that it’s an Ubisoft game. Since Ubisoft doesn’t believe in offering any sort of sales concession when it comes to Indian markets, and e-Xpress, like anyone else, wouldn’t want non-existent profit margins, Indian gamers eager for Soulcalibur IV will now have to look at Play-Asia (as usual) for their imports.
Speaking to us about the situation, e-Xpress has clarified that rather than haggle with Ubi and import the games for “an obscenely high price”, they’ve elected to not import the game in all likelihood. But the real terrifying part of the conversation came when Fallout 3 came into the picture. In a press release issued last month, Ubisoft had claimed that it would be distributing Fallout 3 in some PAL territory countries in Europe including Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Which indirectly means that if India’s import were to happen via Ubi, there’s no chance of Fallout 3 ever being officially released for the consoles here.
Ever since Team Ninja’s Tomonobu Itagaki decided to resurrect the Ninja Gaiden franchise, Ryu Hayabusa has risen to fame as the greatest action hero in gaming. Making the transition from the calm seas of 2-D to the vicious 3-D waters was never going to be easy, but Itagaki’s sunglass powered foresight made it happen. It is still a mystery why Itagaki-san bet his chips on Ninja Gaiden instead of making some sort of X-Men game…he is the Japanese cyclops after all (never wondered what was behind those glasses?)
Two remakes later (Black and Sigma), we will finally witness a new chapter in Ryu’s saga until Ninja Gaiden 2 hits the Xbox 360 sometime next year. And who would have thought that the graphically intense, action-heavy, extremely mature Ninja Gaiden will see its next chapter unfold on the Nintendo DS? Doubts fogged my mind as a Ninja Gaiden on the DS seemed almost next to impossible (unless it was another cheap 2-D rendition, that’s what all the other devs do, don’t they…the lazy bastards). But here I am, with an early build of Ninja Gaiden DS tucked neatly in my DSLite. So lets take this Ninja Dog out for a stroll and find out if it only barks or bites as well?
There’s no denying Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden: Black were just awesome (if not ruthlessly unforgiving) on the Xbox, so it pissed quite a lot of people off when Ninja Gaiden Sigma became a PS3 exclusive. However, if GameSpot Korea is right, all that might change with Ninja Gaiden 2, which is rumored to be back for the Xbox 360 and will be showcased at the upcoming Tokyo Game Show. Now our Oriental mumbo-jumbo translations aren’t what they used to be, but it looks like Team Ninja has said that they will demoing the game on the Xbox 360 because of their “strong relationship with Microsoft”. Now the real deal here is that, apparently, there is no news on a PS3 release yet, which means the Redmond boys might be up to their old tricks again, shoving tons of cash into developers’ G-strings to get an exclusive, or at best, a timed exlusive. We’ll have more info for you as this “rumor” takes root in the coming days.