With Ultra Street Fighter 4 smashing its way onto the PC sometime early next year, key changes to the next iteration of the venerable fighting game series are starting to be surface. Capcom is altering the game’s battle system with some tweaks to combos as well as working to eliminate the chance of landing a so-called unblockable attack on an opponent.

Two major changes that Capcom have in mind for USF4’s battle system are the Ultra Combo Double mechanic and the Red Focus Attack. As Street Fighter producer Tomoaki Ayano revealed in a new dev blog yesterday, they’re adding a third option to the existing Ultra 1 and Ultra 2 combo system which should yield some new tactical possibilities.

“As the name suggests, once you’ve built up your revenge gauge you’ll be able to use either Ultra combo,” Ayano writes. “The downside to this is that the Ultra will do less damage than it normally does.”

Likewise the Red Focus Attack is an update to the already existing Focus Attack.

“ uses up Super meter, but can absorb multiple attacks,” Ayano writes. “Since it uses meter you’ll have to put some careful thought into how you use it. Just like the regular Focus Attack, the Red Focus Attack can also be dash canceled.”

We already knew USF4 was adding new characters and killing off Games for Windows Live dependency, but as we can see, both in the announcement video below and in Ayano’s blog, it’s clear the upcoming version of Street Fighter 4 is also looking to give players new and different ways to take on their opponents.

“Our vision is that Dual Ultra Combos will give you more offensive options, while the Red Focus Attack will give you more defensive options,” Ayano writes.

Hat tip, Eurogamer.

Publisher birthday parties are the best. Rather than forcing you to debate whether a $25 gift card is a crappy gift, publishers simply discount a bunch of games and tell players to have at it. It’s like buying discounted party favors, but with fewer tote bags. Capcom just hit the big 3-0, and has shaved the price off many of its larger Steam titles in celebration.

The list includes Bionic Commando: Rearmed, Lost Planet 2, Resident Evil 5 and 6, Dead Rising 2 (along with Off the Record), and Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition. Buying all the games in that package will cost you a cool $59.99, which isn’t too bad considering you’re getting eight games for the price of one. Of course, you can always buy the games individually if certain titles aren't to your liking.

Devil May Cry 3, 4, and the excellent Ninja Theory remake are also up for grabs at a lowered price, though they’re not included in the bundle. Still, if you’re looking for a good beat ‘em up with paranormal nonsense and cheesy one-liners, this is the sale for you.

Capcom says there will be new deals with each passing day, so keep an eye out if you can’t find your game of choice on the list. I’ll be searching for that elusive copy of Dino Crisis 2 in the meantime.

An update to the Age of Empires Online support page revealed that Games for Windows Live will shut down July 1, 2014, and with it, at least some of AoE Online's features, if not the whole game. The announcement has been removed and replaced with the original text, but here's what it said:

"Games for Windows Live will be discontinued on July 1, 2014. Although it is available through Steam, Age of Empires Online requires features of the Games for Windows Live service. You can continue to enjoy all the features of Age of Empires Online as the service will remain 100% operational until July 1, 2014 when the server will shut down."

Microsoft announced last week that it's shutting down the Games for Windows Marketplace. Games for Windows Live is something else entirely, a DRM and multiplayer infrastructure formerly used by Microsoft, Rockstar, Capcom, WB Games, 2K Games, and others. If you've had to use it, you know why few will mourn the loss.

If this deleted update is accurate, however, there is one big concern: presumably, any game currently using GFWL will need to patch it out and replace it with Steamworks or its own system to continue working after the 2014 shut off date. That's Dark Souls, Street Fighter IV, BioShock 2, Grand Theft Auto IV, and more. Eep.

We'll let you know when Microsoft officially confirms or denies the news.

Thanks for the link, /r/Games.

Crossover fighting games are often just about the characters – WHAT will HAPPEN when TWO worlds COLLIDE and so on. Rarely are they true crossbreeds like Street Fighter X Tekken, a game that takes the peerless Street Fighter IV as its base but adds a huge Tekken character roster and key mechanics from Namco’s series.

Most Street Fighter games have eventually found their way to the PC, but we’ve been largely spared the winding history of Tekken. There are two key differences, which Street Fighter X Tekken has a real go at bringing together. The first is that in Tekken each button maps to a specific limb on the fighter, as opposed to Street Fighter’s six-button system of light, medium and heavy punches and kicks. The second is the importance of ‘juggling’. In Tekken, when an opponent has been hit and is in mid-air, you can follow-up with attacks that can’t be blocked and will end only when that victim hits the ground. Keeping your opponent in the air can be tricky, but it’s always possible to tag a few extra hits on.

It’s a more fluid system than Street Fighter’s more rigid hierarchy of combos. There, a snappy input pulls off a devastatingly smooth series of moves. In Tekken things are a bit messier: there are fixed high-damage combos, but it’s possible to interject other moves, especially when your opponent’s not fighting back.



This finds its way into X Tekken in a brilliant way, one of the game’s shining successes, as the ability to combo from any low-damage attack into any higher-damage attack. For example, light kick into medium punch into heavy kick will produce a combo using any character, providing you get the timing right. Not only that, but this system is the basis of tagging in and out properly – which we’ll come to in a second.

First, the rules. Street Fighter X Tekken is a 2 vs 2 fighting game, with two fighters on screen at once and the ability to tag your team members in and out. Both fighters have their own health bar, which recharges to a degree when they’re off-screen, but the first knockout on either team decides the round. Learning when to tag in and out is by far the most important trick in the early stages of SF X Tekken. Although there’s a button combination for a straight switch, it leaves the incoming fighter vulnerable for a split-second and usually means eating a mega-combo.

The name of the game is switching mid-combo, which sounds complex but is easy thanks to the ability to combo into higher-damage blows. If you execute a combo with the strength of blows ascending, the last blow will be a heavy launcher attack (fighting jargon for ‘knocks them into the air’) and after it hits the characters instantly switch out – and the incoming fighter, if swift enough, can start juggling the airborne opposition.



In full flow Street Fighter X Tekken can turn up some incredible fights. There are back-and-forth grudge matches ending in Super combos, blood-and-thunder offensives that bully opponents to death, and knockdown- drag-out wars of attrition where the final blow is a light tap on the ankle. Sometimes whole flurries are exchanged without anything breaking at all, both fighters pirouetting away from the maelstrom in a brief second of calm before charging headlong back in.

More than anything else, it’s about team play, with the fights constantly punctuated by character switches. At its simplest this means launching an enemy when low on health, and storming in with a charged-up dragon punch. Often it can be used mid-combo, if you can manage some extremely tight timings, to pull off ridiculously long strings. At its most complex, or so it seems initially, switching can mean health-bar chomping multitasking where the victim doesn’t touch the ground.

It’s the most eye-catching aspect of Street Fighter X Tekken, and it also ends up as its Achilles’ Heel. When two fighters are facing each other, poking away and looking for an opening, it plays in a similar manner to Street Fighter IV. But as soon as that first hit lands all bets are off – you could be in for a few smacks around the chops, or 30 seconds of watching your guy get battered from pillar to post without a chance of intervening.



It doesn’t sound like fun because it’s not fun. The chaining aspect of Street Fighter X Tekken’s system is implemented with a huge amount of skill, but it badly needed the brakes put on it beyond a certain stage. As it is, almost half of the online fights I have degenerate into watching my poor saps get pummelled in the corner. Rolento and Rufus are among the worst offenders, capable of turning a landed jab into an endless string of blows that regularly removes over half your health bar – and these strings are not particularly difficult to execute, which makes them incredibly common.

This is not sour grapes. I’m not amazing at Street Fighter IV, but have sunk over 200 hours into it and am well-versed in the art of losing graciously. In Street Fighter X Tekken you’re often just left watching a fight rather than participating in one. Everyone would accept that if an opponent breaches your defences, they should have the opportunity to deal some heavy damage – but here the skill ceiling is so low that almost every combo can end up being a huge one. This is a fighting game where you’re often reduced to the status of punching bag.

It’s a tremendously sad misstep, because in other ways Street Fighter X Tekken is a magnificent beast. Visually it’s an astounding achievement, with more detailed versions of Street Fighter IV’s chunky brush-textured models alongside definitive treatments of the Tekken cast. The marquee characters are superb, and Namco are going to have a difficult time topping Capcom’s Heihachi and Kazuya, never mind the sensitive transformations of characters like Hwoarang. The latter is a Tae Kwon Do expert whose style pivots on the ability to change stance in an instant, which in Street Fighter X Tekken manifests in a fluid range of combo attacks and stunning midchain switches. These characters feel worth learning, worth investing your time in.



The tragedy is that the game lets them down. There are extensive singleplayer modes to practise and refine every single technique for every character, as well as an arcade mode and countless ways to customise fighters. But if the online matches aren’t fun for us to play then all the tournaments, ranking points and video channels are just so much fluff. It’s an impressive creation, but who cares?

Don’t take that to imply this is a particularly good PC version, either. Street Fighter X Tekken is, as Capcom cheerfully admit, a functionally identical port of the Xbox 360 version. Bad enough, but the 360 version was inferior to the PlayStation 3’s in the first place, lacking local co-op play (in a team fighting game!), and your five gigabyte download includes a bevvy of characters locked until Capcom graciously allow you to buy them at some point in the future. Regardless of whether Street Fighter X Tekken is the best game in the world or not, that’s a scummy tactic – and Capcom’s money-obsessed form with Street Fighter IV suggests there’s a lot more to come.



None of this would matter if the fighting was better. There are stretches of X Tekken where it seems to work perfectly, with the right combinations of characters and similarly skilled players resulting in tense standoffs where every hit counts. But it’s never too long before the loading screen shows your opponent has picked Poison and Hugo, and you know before the fight starts that they’ve memorised these characters’ simple back-and-forth chains of combos. Those low expectations are duly realised. You should be excited when a fight’s starting, not resigned.

It feels almost incredible to say it, but Street Fighter X Tekken is a bad game. It doesn’t seem like a bad game, because everything looks amazing and in your hands the controls are fluid and punchy. But as soon as you start playing online, patterns are quickly spotted, and soon they become dominant themes. Such is the time you spend unable to influence the on-screen action that Street Fighter X Tekken just feels like a big drag.

Played offline or with a mate, this is a decent scrapper. But going beyond casual play is impossible, because Street Fighter X Tekken’s clearly deep combat system is riven by an all-consuming flaw that rapidly smothers your interest. This game was given an easy ride on consoles, but don’t be taken in. That’s not a gi Ryu’s wearing – it’s the emperor’s new clothes.

I’ve been in Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition’s training room for about an hour, but I reckon I’ve learned enough for a montage. A montage of me making coffee and filling in Post-it notes with guides to Guy’s advanced moves. I’m going to break a man’s will with this eight-hit combo.

Street Fighter IV is an unusual prospect for us PC gamers, but that doesn’t make it any less brilliant. SSFIV: Arcade Edition is widely regarded as the best fighting game on the planet; thanks to the PC’s power, we get the best version of it.



Hubris. My online opponent, playing as Abel, has sensed my eagerness and blocked the opener to the combo – two jumping kicks – effortlessly. I mutter something offensive under my breath and try for a third time. I’m plucked from the air with an outstretched arm, whipped over a shoulder, and smashed into the ground. It’s a humiliatingly well-timed move – the kind of timing you develop when someone tries the same thing three times in a row. Time to reassess.

This is the ‘Super’ ‘Arcade Edition’: the silly extra words in the title represent a decent amount of tweaks, including 14 extra fighters since 2009’s SFIV. Granted, that roster includes Yun and Yang, who enter battles on humiliatingly hip roller blades and skateboards, but they are the most requested fighters since their SF3 debut. It seems Capcom are only restricted by their imagination and their vocal fanbase. Elite players will also appreciate the balance tweaks and online modes that make Arcade Edition the most fully-featured fighting game ever.

This is a serious e-sport, and comes with an infrastructure to match. There’s always someone to spar with in the online modes, whether it’s a competitive rank-obsessed player or a casual button masher.



Hand cramped like a crab due to too much play? Take a break and visit the replay channel to watch top players go mano-a-mano. Street Fighter works well as a spectator sport, thanks to the unpredictable fights, the purity of one-on-one matches, and the constant visual rewards. You’ll probably learn something from stalking the pros, too. Over time, my opponents’ defences have become tighter and my list of moves wider, but Street Fighter is still primarily a battle of wits. The timing-based inputs are generous and the flow of battle intuitive. It’s condensed, competitive, accessible and visceral – just how fighting games should be.

A perfect victory then? No. SSFIV:AE uses Games for Windows Live and requires an online connection to save progress. Depending on your experience with GFWL, that’s either a point-blank Hadouken to the face or a harmless but unnecessary taunt.

The newest additions to the roster also bring caveats. Unlike the other characters, Yun, Yang, Evil Ryu and Oni don’t get a set of trials for the challenge room or a story cinematic. The latter is just lazy, but the four missing trials are a painful omission: a list of combos gradually increasing in difficulty is a valuable tool for newbies to learn.



These are minor issues in an outstanding package. Note that playing with cursor keys, or even a pad is good for curiosity and severe handicapping only. A sturdy fighting stick is essential.

Remember the tingly sensation when you first saw Daniel-san’s crane kick? Balboa vs Drago? McFly’s Biff-spinning punch in Back to the Future? Street Fighter IV is that feeling. Buy it, learn your Ultra, and get online. Have no fear. You’re going to love the result.

I love e-sports. I mean, I really, really love e-sports. I love e-sports so much that when IMNestea played the then-named BoxeR in the Global StarCraft II League's season 2 final, I woke my girlfriend up at some unearthly hour in the morning and crowed at her about marine splitting until she had to physically leave the room. I've organised parties based solely around the activity of watching other people play games, many thousands of miles away. I say it here, on this wide internet, and I don't care who knows – I love e-sports.

But I didn't always love e-sports. If I went back in time to exactly one year ago, found myself, and said “YOU WILL LOVE E-SPORTS IN A YEAR'S TIME!”, year-younger me would've scoffed in my face. I've been aware of e-sports for as long as I've been a PC gamer: I lived through the false dawns of the early 21st Century, the Sujoy Roys and the Jonathan Wendels coming so close to pushing the activity of pro-gaming into the spotlight, then falling short at some intangible hurdle. Time and again I was promised the rise of Quake, or Counter-Strike, or some other competitive game in the televised market; time and time again they failed to ignite among the wider gaming community.

I could well have reacted like Kotaku's Jen Schiller did, when she repurposed an interview between Team Dignitas' David 'Zaccubus' Treacy, and top-end PC hardware types Alienware. Her post treats e-sports as weird and unnatural: a vestigial limb on the wider gaming animal that we'd all do better to hide under a coat. She makes her feelings about pro-gaming clear:

“Don't get me wrong, I love watching people who are better than me at video games play them for money, especially when I don't know those people.

Oh wait. No I don't.”

Jen penned another response, after seeing the reaction her original post dredged up from the e-sports community. Jen defends herself by claiming ignorance of the scene. A year ago, I could've claimed the same.



For me, that year's length – and the month of July in particular – are key. StarCraft II came out on July the 27th, 2010. I bought a copy, installed it, and left it alone. I'd played the original's single-player for a spell, and had become vaguely aware of a kind of mad, otherworldly pro-gaming industry that had built up around in off in South Korea. It sounded strange to my western ears, like those Japanese shows we see Youtube clips of where a man attaches himself to a bungee rope and tries to run at some meat. Why would they play StarCraft, of all games? Have they not heard of TF2?

I can't remember what it was that called me to StarCraft II's multiplayer - boredom, sirensong, my overtly competitive nature – but I'd built the mythical South Korean scene into a monstrous mass of talent, all ready to smash my tiny face off should I step into the online ring. Something weird happened. I won my first game. I won more. I lost lots, but I lost because I failed at completing an observable task. Here was a game I could demonstrably get better at.

And I did. Perhaps the defining moment in my attitude switch toward StarCraft II – from multiplayer timewaster to genuine practice – was my first foray into e-sports.



I began to watch other people play. People better than me, people playing videogames for money, people I didn't know. I had no illusions that I'd ever join their ranks, but the sheer pleasure of nabbing tips and tricks that high-level players used, reappropriating them in my games, and watching myself get better was one that I couldn't replicate.

That's largely in part to the community. The old e-sports organism survived as contained cells – little pockets of internet that the general wanderer would come across, get bewildered by, then quietly close down. With years to get acquainted with their games, the news posts referred to mysterious tournaments, their forums dropped arcane terms like they were real human words. For the outsider, these places were scary. That was old e-sports.

In this space-year 2011, more new personalities have arisen in the world of competitive gaming than (I'd wager, not technically knowing) have ever before. In my personal StarCraft II sphere, we've got figureheads like Day (who I had the pleasure to interview), djWHEAT, JP McDaniel, and commentators like Artosis, Tasteless, Husky and Diggity. League of Legends has a similar range of figures, people like Reginald from Solomid.net, Phreak, and FourCourtJester often allowing other players a window into their world by streaming their games. Even Street Fighter IV – with its focus on the coughspit consoles – has mini-celebs like Mike Ross and Gootecks pushing their infectious enthusiasm and hardcore knowledge.



E-sports is currently the healthiest it has ever been. There's always the fear that these are famous last words, the things inscribed on the gravestone in two years time when the sponsorship deals dry up, but I've been to the future and I can tell you that's incorrect. Here, I brought back facts to back me up.

Fact one! We're currently blessed with a set of triple-A quality games that at an early stage in development set out to be sports. These games – with StarCraft II, League of Legends, and Street Fighter IV leading the charge – were tested to the ninth plane of hell, and came back near-perfectly balanced (quiet with the “imba!” chatter). Previous e-sports darlings weren't. Counter-Strike was a great mod that got lucky. Blizzard never knew StarCraft would explode in the east like it did. And Quake III – while it has the best claim – didn't benefit from the on-the-fly game adjustments today's internet connections allow.

Fact the second. Most previous pro-gaming titles were shooters; modern heroes aren't. It's incredibly hard to present footage of a classic team deathmatch game. As the observer, you're either tied to a player, or stuck floating around the map like a flustered ghost, late to the action. Recent pro-gaming vehicles are strategy or fighting games: much easier to watch from a detached, overhead view while still receiving all pertinent information.

Third fact. Current e-sports are bright, colourful, and surprisingly easy to read. Take StarCraft II as an example: common sense says ten men kill five men when they've both got the same guns. A child could make the connection, and see why one player is doing notably better than the other. A particularly alert dog probably could. There is, of course, infinite layers of nuance behind each unit, action, and decision - but for the basics you don't need a rulebook. Man shoot, other man fall down, everyone cheer. Yay!



The Kotaku article references a downturn in e-sports. Zaccubus – who I've had the pleasure to get absolutely robo-pwned by – has a history in professional shooters. This corner of the market was propped up by pro-gaming behemoths Counter-Strike and Quake III: both of which are now well over a decade old. A mild lull, while players get reacquainted with new games, set their talents loose on similar mechanics encased in prettier games, or move onto new sectors, is to be expected. Jen, in her article, equates the slow decline of games released in the 20th Century with a general death of an entire sector of entertainment.

To suggest e-sports is declining is empirically incorrect. Not when companies across games and across oceans competing to give away the largest prize pot – Riot Games handing $50,000 to their season 1 LoL winner, GomTV giving $100,000 to GSL winners. Not when 1.7 million people tune in to watch the very first televised League of Legends professional season. Not when 15,000 people turn up in the city of Columbus, Ohio, to attend the travelling Major League Gaming event - joined by 22 and a half million stream views from people across the globe. This kind of basic research undermines Jen's point that it's not something she's interested in, and therefore has no exposure to it: these tournaments have pushed so far into the mainstream space that they're no longer confined to their own little hospice wards.



Gaming's rapidly shedding its social stigma. Over half of the people in the UK are considered active gamers: our hobby is not the preserve of the maladjusted or socially weird. Why then, articles like Jen's feel the need to disparage a rapidly growing, incredibly exciting offshoot of general gaming, purely because it's not a traditional prism through which to view games?

When I spoke to Sean 'Day' Plott about the social attitudes to gaming, he said that he'd always responded to any insults with genuine enthusiasm: “oh, do you play games? Let me tell you why they're great.” This is the approach we should take – particularly us as PC gamers. I am so very glad I discovered e-sports. The pro-gaming community is passionate and knowledgeable like few others, and they grew from our platform. A year ago, gaming at large could've claimed ignorance. To do so now is inexcusable. Watching people 'better than you at video games play them for money, especially when you don't know those people' might not be your cup of tea, but dismissing the subject out of hand is exactly the kind of closed-minded reactionary behaviour we rail so hard against when it's directed at gaming as a whole.

You never know, you might grow to love e-sports. I know I did.

Capcom are changing Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition's restrictive DRM measures with a title update due "shortly after launch. According to a post on the Capcom Unity blog, feedback from websites, blogs, and message boards prompted the developer to change the restrictions.

Thanks to the update, players will no longer be restricted to just 15 of the 39 characters when playing offline. You'll be able to choose any fighter to "practice your combo timing, have some fun with friends on a laptop, or whatever."

Capcom decided to tweak the DRM thanks to the argument that "legitimate users would have a worse experience than pirates." The DRM is still present - you won't be able to save challenge room progress or unlocks when playing offline - but it's a decent compromise. Arcade Edition will still use Games for Windows Live, which sucks.



We reported on the DRM last week, saying: "hackers and pirates are damn scary dudes, but we’re a bit sad to see legitimate players taking a hit because of bad people doing bad things two years ago."

Christian Svensson, Corporate Officer/Senior Vice-President signed off with a heartwarming sentiment: "With that hurdle hopefully now cleared, I hope that we can make Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition the most successful fighting game ever on PC. I’d certainly like to continue to grow our audience on the largest platform in the world."

Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition is due for release in July. Check last week's post for the system requirements and more.

Capcom have detailed lots of PC-centric Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition info on their official blog.

Aside from the anticipated new content (14 new characters, new stages, replay modes and character rebalancing), PC is getting loads of exclusive features - some of which I could actually do without.

The original version of Street Fighter IV had inconsistent online play thanks to players valuing graphical sheen over a consistent framerate; a very silly thing to do in a competitive fighting game. Now framerate will be a deciding factor in the matchmaking process. According to Capcom, the new matchmaking criteria will "Should help to keep experiences consistent assuming enough people are in the matching pool at any particular moment."

Slightly more confusing is the addition of a new setting in the options menu that lets you choose between a smooth, variable, or fixed framerate. I'm not sure whether we prefer our framerates smooth or fixed - what's your favourite type of framerate?

The system requirements have also been detailed. They did mention that "it doesn't take a very high spec PC to deliver a console-like experience," which I agree with. Keep it coming Capcom.



Minimum Requirements


OS: Windows XP/Vista/Windows 7

Processor: Intel Pentium 4 2.0 GHz and up

Memory: 1 GB RAM

Graphics: DirectX 9.0c/Shader3.0 and up supported (operation on-board is not guaranteed)

Video: NVIDIA GeForce 6600 and up (except for NVIDIA GeForce 7300), VRAM: 256MB and up (operation sharing with main memory is not guaranteed) or ATI Radeon X1600 and up VRAM: 256MB and up.

Hard Drive: 4.5 GB free hard drive space

Sound: DirectSound, DirectX9.0c Compatible Audio

Other Requirements: Online play requires software installation of and log-in to Games For Windows – LIVE
 
Recommended hardware


OS: Windows Vista/Windows 7

Processor: Intel Core2 Duo 2.0 GHz and up

Memory: 2 GB RAM

Graphics: DirectX 9.0c/Shader3.0 and up supported (operation on-board is not guaranteed)

Video: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 and up, VRAM: 512MB and up (operation sharing with main memory is not guaranteed)

Hard Drive: 4.5 GB free hard drive space

Sound: DirectSound, DirectX9.0c Compatible Audio


 
As predicted, controllers and USB arcade sticks will be compatible. You'll also be able to remap the hell out of your keyboard if you're using a slightly exotic controller.



The addition of Games for Windows Live is as frustrating as ever - but we expected that anyway. Even more upsetting are the strict security measures that Capcom have implemented to prevent the rampant piracy that hit Street Fighter IV in 2009. Stay signed in to GFWL and everything will be fine. Try to play without an online connection however, and you won't be able to save progress in the challenge rooms or the settings menu. Even more annoying is that you'll only get to use 15 of the 39 characters in local play and won't get to access your DLC. You'll need an online connection to play, basically.

At least, as Capcom put it, "You'll be able to carry on with what you're doing until you come to a logical break point, like exiting to a menu, at which point you'll be asked to sign back in."

I get Capcom's fear of hackers and pirates - they're damn scary dudes - but we're a bit sad to see legitimate players taking a hit because of bad people doing bad things two years ago.

PC wins: Perfect. As reported by CVG, Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition is coming to PC. This is ultra good news. Street Fighter IV is on Steam, but we never got to play Super Street Fighter IV (which featured extra characters and moves) even though it hit consoles last year.

Not to worry though - the Arcade Edition contains all the content PC gamers have missed out on, and will be the most focussed Street Fighter IV yet thanks to balance tweaks, new characters, and improved community features. It's going to be super, hyper, mega-good basically. Mad Catz 360 arcade sticks will also work fine on PC, so you have no excuse to mash your keyboard like large-hoofed cow.

Click more for a trailer and the details.



Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition will feature four new fighters: twin brothers Yun and Yang (lol) who first appeared in Street Fighter 3, Evil Ryu, Oni, and an extra nasty version of Akuma. We'll also get all the characters we missed out on from Super Street Fighter IV, bringing the count up to 39. That's a silly figure, frankly. Updated replay functionality and improved balance will satisfy PC fighters with a competitive edge.

Arcade Edition is due to be released June 24. Do you Street Fight? If so, as which character? I'm a Fei Long/Guy kinda man. Rich uses Crimson Viper, but he actually plays like the cow I mentioned earlier.