Street Fighter IV review (PC)

Training mode aside, one of the single best features of Street Fighter IV is the Challenge mode, which is made up of several sub-modes. Old faithfuls such as Time Attack and Survival mode make an appearance and see you completing fight after fight to best your rival before the timer runs out or you empty your vitality bar. The new addition to Challenge mode is Trial mode, a multitiered training tool that will teach you not only how to perform moves, but also how to string them together to best deal damage. Although the Training mode gives you the full arsenal and space to try it out, in Trial mode you'll need to perform a specific manoeuvre or combo to continue. The five normal difficulty levels cover basic character-specific moves such as dragon punches, charge moves, and throws, but they get significantly tougher as you progress to cover specials, cancelling attacks with focus, and stringing multipart combinations together. If you can get through these and feel up to the challenge, there are an extra five levels of bone-crushing general-purpose moves designed to help you improve your competitive play.

Street Fighter IV supports both online and offline multiplayer modes, though cross-platform play with consoles is not available. In offline play, you'll be able to go head-to-head with a second player using your unlocked characters. Online is handled through the Games For Windows LIVE service and registers and runs without a hitch. For matches you'll be given the choice between friendly player matches, ranked games, or Championship mode. Winning ranked matches awards you battle points, which are used to both show off your prowess and help with the matchmaking process. Patched in after the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Street Fighter IV shipped (and also available on those platforms), Championship mode adds online play with a tournament-style knockout system. The ranking system means you'll only fight against players of roughly the same skill level as you accrue points and progress through a mock round system on the way to a final showdown.

If you're after the true arcade experience, you can toggle online competitive challenge mode on and off to work with single-player. Just as you would expect in an arcade, if you're battling the CPU and someone issues a challenge, your game will pause and you'll automatically accept the invitation. Once the game has finished and you leave the multiplayer lobby, you'll restart your offline game where you were. You can set it to Player, Ranked or Championship matches as per your preference. We played online against opponents with both strong and weak connections, and even at slightly less than full connection strength, you'll receive an offline-like, seamless fighting experience. Poorer connections are more akin to a slide show, although we did manage to find games with supposedly poor connections that played quite well.

Street Fighter IV's visual presentation is outstanding. The art style appears a lot more adult this time around, swapping the bright Saturday-morning kids' cartoon looks of previous games for large, menacing characters with bulging muscles and environments with more muted colour palettes. The game's pseudo-cel-shaded character-art style uses thick black borders and splattered ink to great effect, while fast, fluid animation sees your favourite fighters dance across the screen with grace. Long hair flows and trails, facial expressions contort and grimace as you deal blows, and eyes bulge as opponents see an ultra attack successfully executed. We observed a few minor character-model clipping errors during play, such as legs passing through each other and the odd missed sweep when we were sure that we should have landed a hit, but these are small quibbles because they appeared few and far between. Battle environments are a mix of old and new, reinventing favourites such as Guile's airbase tarmac (complete with destructible plane wings), Blanka's jungle walkways, and Chun-Li's marketplace alleyway. New environments include a secret science laboratory, a highway underpass, a classic martial-arts dojo, and the rim of an active volcano.

The PC version of SFIV manages to ratchet up the already-gorgeous visuals a couple of notches over its console counterparts by offering resolutions up to 1920x1200, as well as selectable shader and antialiasing options to suit your PC's capabilities. Three new "extra touch" visuals--ink, watercolour, and posterization--add visual effects to your character and the environment. This includes the ability to add thicker borders, though it's purely cosmetic and doesn't alter gameplay. These settings aside, the visuals are almost indistinguishable from those on the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3, and the frame rate is solid even during the most frenetic battles.

Audio is a particular high point in SFIV, and though the J-pop soundtrack and cheesy intro theme will be driven into your head within minutes, it's also worth mentioning the subtle environmental effects that go otherwise unheard in the heat of battle. The cheers of crowds, the rattle of old trains, and the barking of dogs in alleys all help create a genuine sense of immersion. Purists are even given the option to choose between Japanese and English voice-overs during cutscenes and as characters enter the ring.

Unsurprisingly, the PC game includes support for Microsoft's Xbox 360 controllers and handles identically to its console brethren. The analog sticks are easy to use for performing ultra moves, though the Microsoft controller's D pad leaves plenty to be desired. Keyboard play or a mixture of keyboard and pad are supported, and while serviceable in a pinch, it's certainly not our preference for serious play. Button layouts for pad and keyboard can both be mapped to your tastes. Your best bet, of course, is to invest in a good arcade stick or one of the controllers designed specifically for this game. While not available in all territories, bundles with gamepads and a copy of the game are available from many retailers.

Street Fighter IV will welcome you with open arms, whether you're a lapsed fan concerned that you've been out of the loop for too long or you're dipping your toes for the first time. Amazing presentation, intricate and enjoyable fighting gameplay, and long-term appeal with online play make this a must-have. Street Fighter IV is undoubtedly one of the finest examples of the fighting genre in this generation.