Street Fighter IV (PC)

I know, it’s a bit late. But does it matter? It’s not like i’m paid to make a review or something. I do reviews for friends alike, that’s what i do best for spare times. As you all may know, last week was pretty busy for me and that made me lose my chance to obtain an early retail sale of the game. But i’m back anyway so here it comes~

For some of you who haven’t notice, Street Fighter IV (PC) for the Asian Region was made in EA Singapore. Hence, explaining why the price is slightly cheaper (RM119) than the US/Euro edition which will cost a roughly RM140. Yeah, you know.. the black & white manuals in exchange for cheaper bucks. Didn’t matter anyway since what matters is the online GFWL code. Just like XBL (Xbox Live), GFWL (Games for Windows Live) is quite the same thing. Only it’s for the PC. As you may already know, online PC Gaming is FREE. No monthly/yearly subscription charges. That’s one big reason for you not too miss the PC version. (Well, if you have a worthy pc that is)

Thing’s you should note:

Extra Graphics Shader – The word already explains it, just like special blitters on the emulator. EGS enables “PC Only” graphics for the Street Fighter IV.

Controls – You’ll be using Keyboards, USB Gamepads, Joysticks or even Fighting Sticks. Heck, might as well plug in your Dual Shock 3 if you already own a PS3. With the help of custom drivers, you’ll be able to use it on the PC.

Online Matching – The PC version uses GFWL for online matching. Like i said before, it’s FREE (assuming that you buy an Original Copy). You can match-up against any other players WORLDWIDE, no region restrictions or whatsoever. Granted that, you have a good Internet Connection, all is quite possible. For those who were forced to use sucky ISP’s like me. Don’t worry, there’s tons of our region Players out there to match against. It’s not difficult to find a lag-less partner. Especially when playing at Night.

Some tips to balance out the Frame-Rate for online PC Gaming. Set everything to Default (Except Fullscreen & Resolution). Then change the Frames-Per-Second/FPS option to [FIXED] instead of Variable. You see, console players don’t lag as much as PC gamers coz they have the same hardware spec. So all we need to do to balance ourselves is to use almost the same option for everything.

In order to play online, at least you must have a hotmail account or any online service that has connection to Microsoft. It’s totally free so no excuse to not having one. When the GFWL pops-out for the 1st time. You’ll be asked to use an existing account or create a new one anyway so no prob. Key for the GFWL interface is the HOME button.

Sadly, there’s no active real-time word-chat. You can only send email-like messages which takes time to initiate and be replied. The other best way is to use a Headset complete with a Microphone. Only then you’ll be able to Yap around when fighting. In which case most people won’t find it pleasing to hear your “splendid” voice. Unless you talk in a common tone.

Some Achievements can be achieved online, some don’t coz it requires you to beat the offline game mode. It’s good to see PC Gaming has achievements lately. That’ll make the same gameplay to last twice the lifetime by increasing it’s replayability.

You can track players that you’ve once fought online. Adding them as your friend or Ban them from your personal gaming for good. By Ban, i don’t mean it in whole. You can only De-Prefer the selected gamer so that the CPU chooses other people to fight instead of him/hear that you are discomfortable with. Sort of like Blocking Communication with the selected person.

Since i’ve played the game already. Now i can finally prove the rumour about Street Fighter IV was outsourced & co-developed by DIMPS. Some of you may already know, a large portion of DIMPS staff are previous workers of the original SNK. Even the Executive Producers credit roll states, Takashi Nishiyama. The production leader behind all previous KOF games up to the year 2000 and the creator of Street Fighter itself.

If interested. Do look at some of the creation process of street fighter IV:

http://www.softimage.jp/user_case/street_fighter4/index.html#chap2