Street Fighter for 360 Live Preview

Up until recently, Xbox Live Arcade meant a few Pop-Cap casual games, some 80’s classics and a selection of otherwise relatively dull board games. Gamers have drooled at snippets from Capcom talking about bringing their Street Fighter juggernaut to the console and enabling players to fight online.

Back in January it was revealed that the game would be out this year and have a slew of enhancements. Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting features a special “Quarter Match” mode that tries to reproduce that anxiety one was met with whilst standing in line at the local 7-11 to have your shining moment to beat the snot out of the 8 year old who has been at the machine for the last 3 hours on a single quarter. Players go online and place a virtual quarter in line to compete against the winner of the current match. While waiting, they can spectate the match and root for, against or otherwise discuss the match with everyone waiting in the room at the time. Stats can be tracked and leaderboards are posted via Xbox Live.

Offline arcade, Vs., training and CPU battle modes are offered, but seem to be more of an add-on to the main online event. Xbox Live achievments are a little light, sporting about 10 or so. Controls can be customized which may or may not skew the skillsets, defeating the purpose of competitions. At least in the arcade, everone had the same controls and competed on the same level.

After 5 months of waiting, we’ve now been given an idea of what to expect graphically. These preview shots appear to have come from a development unit, so the title may still go through a few changes. Still, feel free to drool.

*Media Geeks assumes no responsibility for damage done to keyboards, mice or other computer components that comes from drooling.