Fanboys Anonymous

As any faithful fighting game fanatic, I owe much of my passion for the genre to Capcom's Street Fighter series. Not only was Street Fighter II the first video game I ever played, it also introduced me to the concept of the competitive aspects of video gaming as a whole while igniting my love for laying the smack down on my friends and relatives. The phenomenon that Street Fighter II started propelled gaming in a brand new direction throughout the 90s, as arcades quickly became the place to be to assert dominance on everyone in your neighborhood.



As the fighting game genre started to become slightly saturated after Street Fighter II showed the world how it was done, Capcom began to consistently update Street Fighter II to appease fans and stay a few steps ahead of the competition, and fans across the world continued emptying their piggy banks and wasting away their time at the arcade as well as plunking down hard earned cash for every single version of the title. I myself had 3 different versions of the game at once including the original for the Super Nintendo, the Championship Edition for the Sega Genesis, and Super Street Fighter II for the Sega Genesis. Luckily back then I wasn't buying these games with my own money.

Nowadays, I like many gamers out there am an adult who has to invest in his own hobbies. Street Fighter has never been taken off my priority list as far as said hobbies go. Being an avid Capcom fan for over a decade, the fact that the company will always update a game before releasing a sequel is more of a concern now considering that if I want to play it, I'm going to have to pay for it myself.

Being the sucker that I am, I bought the original version of Street Fighter IV on launch day back in February 2008. In fact, Street Fighter IV was initially the sole reason why I purchased an Xbox 360 (although I currently am a PlayStation gamer). Of course the "Super" update eventually came and I bought that too along with the original Marvel vs. Capcom 3 (which Capcom updated a mere six months later) and the subsequent Arcade Edition update to SFIV. I have spent over $100 on Street Fighter IV alone at this point, and that number is just ridiculous to spend on one game. So the news that Capcom will be yet again updating SFIV five years after it's intial release came as a a bittersweet notion.



How dare you, Capcom?! This update is COMPLETELY unnecessary and gratuitous. The new characters are all copy/pasted from Street Fighter X Tekken with the exception of the unannounced fifth character that apparently has never been in a Street Fighter game previously. We have been promised new game play modes, but considering Capcom's track record for actually following through on promises (*coughSTORYMODEINMARVEL3cough*), it's hard for this gamer to believe that said new modes will add anything to the mix even if they exist.

Street Fighter IV has been out for five years now, and Capcom is still tweaking, updating and most importantly taking money from our pockets for it. Personally, I am a freak and a weirdo which means I will purchase it and most likely enjoy the hell out of it but that does not mean I have to be happy about drinking the proverbial Kool Aid once again.




What do you guys think? Leave a comment and keep it at www.fanboysanonymous.com for more fighting game news from yours truly.