Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting (X360)

By GameSpy Staff

Spiffy: Looks and sounds just like the arcade game; offline head-to-head is a blast; it's the same style of fighting that we all know and love.

Iffy:When it comes to fighting games, there's Street Fighter II and there's everything else (for many gamers, at least). The game (and all of its myriad variants) took the gaming world by storm in the early 1990s, and it wasn't uncommon to see lines at the machine from the moment the arcade's doors opened. There have been a number of collections released on consoles in recent years, but the announcement that Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting would be available for download on Xbox Live sent a shiver down the collective spine of fanboys everywhere. GameSpy's editors finally got a chance to play the game for a nice, long period of time, and we decided to share our thoughts with our loyal readers.

Will "The Brazilian Shocker" Tuttle, Console Editor: Well, the months of waiting have finally paid off, as we all got our first full taste of the Xbox Live Arcade version of Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting today. It was clear from the moment we turned the game on that Capcom knew better than to mess with their most prized (sorry Mega Man!) property. The game kicks off with the same brutal street fight (that punch to the face looks unpleasant) that we all saw a million times in our local arcade, and the character selection screen is virtually identical to the original. All of the audio (both music and effects) sounds great, and the graphics look very good, although not quite as crisp as in the arcade, even on an HDTV. The only thing that I wasn't crazy about was the default screen size, which was basically a small box in the middle of the screen. Thankfully, it didn't take long to change that in the options menu.

Miguel "Big Christ" Lopez, MMO Editor: Yup, it's Street Fighter all right. All the sights and sounds ring true (yes, I'm sure there are some off elements that purists will get their drawers in a bunch over, but those people don't count). If you've ever played a Street Fighter game on a console, then you'll know that it can take quite a bit of work to get used to playing it on a control pad, but that's just par for the course. Incidentally, I wish the original model Xbox controller worked on the 360; clunky as it was, it had six face buttons arranged perfectly for the purpose of Street Fighter. Are there any Xbox-control-interface-to-USB adapters on the market? If so, this would be a great time to get one. Incidentally, I wonder if there is a way to make my old Dreamcast ASCII pad work on the 360. That would be fresh. Anyway, enough about controls -- we tried playing online, and boy, was it bad. I'll let someone else open that can of worms, but here's to hoping that the network code in this pre-release version is far from final.

Sterling "Forgot How to Play As Everyone Except Ken" McGarvey, Associate Console Editor: So, yeah, Street Fighter II on Xbox Live Arcade. It sounds so amazing. As soon as word got around that a preview build would be hitting PartnerNet (the Xbox Live for special debug units), we all got really, really excited. The result was a little bittersweet at this point. The online play is pretty laggy, but there's no way that Capcom is close to unleashing this thing on the public, so we're holding our breath for some improvements. I personally had some difficulty getting a hold of the controls, as the flaws of the 360's d-pad become very apparent very quickly, and the analog still feels a little loose. Hopefully, the bars on the sides of the screen can be changed to black, as they were in Street Fighter Alpha Max on PSP. Will figured that out, but I didn't have time since I was immediately thrust into pwnage as soon as the download finished. I like the way that the Achievements have been distributed, though. With emphasis on both basic single-player kudos and rewards for loyal online players, this one should be 250 points to earn and cherish.

Will: I think that Sterling and Miguel both touched on the game's roughest spot so far: the online play. To be honest, I wasn't expecting all that much, as pretty much every fighting game I've ever played has sucked online. It's not unplayable by any means (save for the occasional freeze-ups), but it's far from an optimal experience. We actually asked Capcom about it, and they mentioned that it's still a work-in-progress and that they'll be upgrading the code frequently until it's juuuust right. Hopefully they'll be able to pull it off. One thing that did impress me about the online, however, was the ability to play in "Quarter Mode," which allows players to line up to take on the match's winner, just like in the arcade. There seems to be some pretty robust stat tracking, too, although there are not enough people online to see how well it actually works. Oh well, at least the offline head-to-head action was as good as ever... wasn't it?

Miguel: Yeah, it's hard to hate on the offline mode, but you know… it isn't really that special given the fact that we've playing Street Fighter II with a person standing next to us for a long time now. I'm saying it now: I want a good online fighting game experience. Why has this never happened? Why can first-person shooters play brilliantly online, but not fighting games? I'm sure there is a legitimate technical reason for this, but I have no idea what it is. I'm just hoping that Capcom or Microsoft or whoever can finally make it happen. The Capcom vs. SNK games on Xbox were pretty shaky as far as the online experience goes. Ditto with the DOA games. This madness has to end. But yeah, anyway, it's fun to mash on your friends in the same room, as it has been for many, many years. But I can already do that. Please, Capcom and Microsoft, make sure this goes down smoothly.

Justin "Crouching Guile" Speer, Associate Console Editor: As someone who's always ready to go a few rounds anytime someone mentions Street Fighter, a working online version of Hyper Fighting is definitely the kind of thing I'd throw down a few bucks for. Aside from it being a great game, and the fact that fighting games these days ain't what they used to be (as much as I respect Guilty Gear and modern 3D fighters like Soul Calibur), I honestly miss the arcade experience of my youth -- which often involved me talking smack to guys twice as old and three times as big as me after sending their post-pubescent butts back to the change machine. Being able to actively share the nostalgia as opposed to having an overpriced game "collection" lying around gathering dust makes a lot of sense to me. And hey, downloadable arcade games could be just the thing to pass the time until the "next-generation" of gaming gets off its ass and gives me something new and different.

Gerald "Used to Play Street Fighter with his Feet" Villoria, Associate Console Editor: Justin makes a lot of sense for someone who hates games. Street Fighter II is my second favorite video game of all time, behind World of Warcraft. So I was jumping out of my seat with excitement at the idea of having an arcade-perfect translation of Hyper Fighting that I could load up for some heated competition from the comfort of my living room. But as is far too often the case, when nostalgia and reality meet, the results can be disappointing. It's hard to pin down exactly what I wasn't happy with. My fond memories of Hyper Fighting are vivid, and the game holds up remarkably well after all this time. Perhaps it was my struggles with the Xbox 360 controller -- this game really needs an arcade stick or six-button pad to be played to its fullest. While I found that it was still fun to throw down for a few rounds, the simpler days of Street Fighter are hard to defend when the Alpha series offers a far deeper and more satisfying game. Latency issues aside -- and I'm quite confident they'll be cleared up when this is made available to the public -- the most exciting aspect of this Xbox Live exclusive release for me is the idea that Capcom is testing the waters, and we'll see more faithful arcade-to-Xbox 360 translations coming to us if this experiment does well.

Sterling: Well, again, Capcom has mentioned that they're going to keep the updates coming. I'm confident that they wouldn't shoot themselves in the foot, especially with something this potentially huge. I think, though, that there's still nothing wrong with couch warfare, because I don't have a copy of Street Fighter Anniversary Collection, and I don't believe it's on the BC list yet (please, someone, make this happen, too; I needs mah 3rd Strike). All around, issues aside, I think that this sets a strong precedent for what we're going to see out of Xbox Live Arcade over the rest of this year. As time goes on, we're going to see certain high-profile downloadable titles get the same fanfare that a sixty-dollar title will get. I, for one, am very excited for Lumines Live, as I considered Lumines one of the reasons to get a PSP last year. Plus, it's another line in the sand as to what we're referring to as next-gen transitions into current-gen over the next year. We didn't hear much about Nintendo's Virtual Console for Wii during E3 (which disappointed me, personally), and we can only hope that Sony's got something up their sleeves in their line of defending charging a month's rent (if not more, for the average person) for their console. Street Fighter II on XBLA is the opening salvo for Microsoft, due to its high profile.

There you have it, our thoughts on the upcoming downloadable version of Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting. There were some things we liked, some we didn't like, and some stuff we're just not sure about yet. Will the online play be fixed? Will we ever feel more comfortable with the controls? Can any of us beat Miguel when he's constantly spinning back and forth across the screen with M. Bison? Only time will tell.