Street Fighter began in the arcades of Japan 21 years ago and has since become not just the most famous fighting game of them all but the most recognizable game ever. It's still going strong despite all the competition. You have to admit, that's not a bad run. I have to admit, I haven't played an awful lot of it.
But over the years it has been ever present in my popular consciousness. The arcade, buzz-bop sounds, the anime characters, the crazy game music are easy for me to recall. I also remember the Jean Claude VanDamme movie, but I recall little except Raoul Julia hovering about in his awesome General Bison outfit and mincing the furniture. I also quite enjoyed the animated Street Fighter 2.
Best of all was Jackie Chan's Street Fighter skit in City Hunter.
This year Street Fighter turned 20 in the US and that has been celebrated. In October, Capcom, the creators of Street Fighter, published Street Fighter Tribute; original art depicting characters from the games in various scenes, poses and actions. I guess you can call it a fan art tribute, but the artists are largely professional and all are talented. They bring a nice cross section of styles to the already well designed Street Fighter look, quite nice for any manga, character or low brow art appreciator. All are poster worthy works and are most successful at capturing the pop-myth-iconography of the Street Fighter universe.
It reminds us that Street Fighter isn't just a landmark in interactive entertainment but is a pop cultural institution. Its influence outside the arcades and home consoles is undeniable. Not just the massive influence on game design, but present in graphic design, sequential art, subculture iconography, the development of a swag of Saturday morning cartoons, fashion and even music. Basically, if Capcom stopped producing Street Fighter games tomorrow, its legacy would be influential for a very long time to come.
In short, Street Fighter forever!
You have to admit, Street Fighters is the MOST AWESOME arcade game ever and the most celebrated.
They usually have top notch artists working on ANY Street Fighter/Capcom affiliated stuff... and Udon is cool, their only downfall is their usual lateness relative to their announced release dates.
I'm a die hard fan. It's my favorite game ever and I used to play it for ages against people who equally love it. We still play it.
I stopped playing arcade when SF2hyper version came out and 1st time haxed the game with Vega. down-up + kick --> somersault just destroyed everything or when Gambit fires at you constantly and he's off the screen in MARvsCAP( which btw became illegal move in competitions)
In my experience the most comprehended and the most advanced version of the game would be Cap vs SNK 2 on Ps2 or for hyper fighting check out Marvel vs Capcom 2. both games have over 50 characters and different playing settings which covers SF series and SNK series ( Art of fighting, Fatal fury, KOF, samurai showdown). Hyper fighting styles can be great fun to mess up the game and cause glitches to achieve never ending combos (999hits) or to do ridiculous toggle combos where you keep the opponent in the air without killing him.(takes time to suss it out)SF ex never really took my fancy apart from the fact that super moves could be connected, which you can also have in CAPvsSNK2(mentioned above)
When it comes to controllers, nothing beats PS ones. ( i started with SNES) I know some ppl preffer to play with stick rather then pads, so they try to defend X-box controllers or arcade machines. Thats is all good, but that makes ppl play cheap.
SF4 recently came out. I haven't seen an arcade machine around since Orbit in Barrack st closed down. Youtube vids look shit and can not really comment much simply because i havent played it...yet.
ot. fav character: cammy, Alex, Blanka....and the best of them all..Ken Masters.