The list of Games for Windows Live games grows ever-smaller, which is a good thing, as—if their brief (and subsequently deleted) support update last year was correct—it'll be closing in July. Capcom had previously revealed plans to transition Street Fighter IV and Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition, and, for the preposterously initialled SSFIVAE at least, have now announced when that switch will take place.
By Will Uhl
The cascading waterfall in the background doesn’t distract me from my opponent as I dash and twirl, dancing for my life. My character, the acrobatic assassin Pure, has only managed to land a few glancing blows, while the towering juggernaut I’m fighting, Judgement, has devastated me with only a few well-placed strikes. I’m buzzing around him like a fly around a bull as I try to figure out a way out of this.
Whereas he wields the basic longsword, I chose the katana, which removes my ability to block, but strikes twice as hard after swords clash. I disengage and move several meters away – he wants to finish this, and the wide berth I’ve given him is the perfect opportunity.
Bushido Blade is the only fighting I've ever really loved: an outlier in a genre of ridiculous costumes and complicated Super-EX-Ultra meters that dared to strip everything back to the basics. There were no health bars; your opponent's limbs could be permanently buggered just by striking their arms or legs; they could even be killed in a single hit if you were able to strike them in the right spot. Stages took place not in single-screen arenas but in massive multi-screen locations - if you found yourself on a losing streak, or you were just a bit of a coward, you could simply run away until you were in a more advantageous location. It's style of fighting game that lamentably slipped by the wayside - but isometric brawler Kyoto Wild looks like it might be bringing it back. It's a four-player, weapons-based fighting game featuring an open, Feudal Japan town setting and one-hit kills. Yes please.
ith both the Tekken and SoulCalibur series to it’s name, Bandai Namco clearly knows how to make a fighting game. It’s not a genre that gets a lot of traction on PC, which is why the announcement of Rise of Incarnates, a free-to-play fighting game exclusive to the PC, is so intriguing.
Capcom have released a new trailer for Hyper Mega Giga Ultra Street Fighter IV. As well as rounding up the four already-announced playable characters set to make an SF4 entrance through this upcoming upgraded edition, it also reveals the fifth, entirely new fighter: Decapre. She's a brainwashed member of creepy-ol' Bison's all-girl Dolls squad, and, as is traditional for the Street Fighter universe, is proficient at the punching.
One Finger Death Punch has been available for a while, but the Steam release feels like something worth highlighting. Like it or not, there's a sizeable group of people for whom PC gaming is accessed entirely through Valve's digital store. Frankly, it would be irresponsible to not tell them about the lightning-quick stickman brawler.
The title is a bit of a lie, in that One Finger Death Punch is best played with two fingers. Your stick fighter stands in the middle of the screen, and waves of enemies approach from both sides. As they get in range, you can hit left-mouse to attack left, and right-mouse to attack right. Through this simple control scheme, the game offers a frantic and varied range of challenges.
Fighting games have a tutorial problem. With such a wealth of information to dispense, too many either overwhelm newcomers or tell them nothing at all. It's a genre that has become too complex for its own good: you can jump in, press a few buttons and have a good time, but one look at what your opponent is doing shows how little you know. In Nidhogg, you can jump in, press a few buttons and have a good time, too. But when you look at what your foe's doing you don't get disheartened. You learn something.
Typing is a dying art, what with everybody communicating via txtspk these days, so it's a relief to see that my school typewriting lessons weren't entirely in vain. The Typing of the Dead games have been carrying the torch for the nascent type-'em-up genre for a few years now, most notably with the recent Overkill, but now a contender has entered the ring. Literally. Skullgirls is set to receive a new mode in a future update that will reward players for their keyboarding skills.
Who would win a fight: Batman or Superman? It’s an age-old question for comic book fans, and the reason a game like Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition exists. We want to see our favorite heroes and villains beat the snot out of each other.
I was surprised to find that half of PC Gamer have encyclopaedic knowledge of Mortal Kombat’s backstory. “Skarlet was originally a glitch!” Chris said as I played the ludicrously bloody beat-’em-up.
“Do you know how Ermac got his name?” esteemed production editor Tony asked, as Ermac himself summoned 20 green wisps and used them to cut a quarter off my health bar. It’s an abbreviated reference to error macros, apparently.
I was surprised because Mortal Kombat’s backstory is so shit. It’s cheap, tawdry and exploitative, in a world where spines are ripped out regularly and all women are courtmandated to have 75% of their breast skin on display at all times. This Komplete Edition has a story mode that spans the plots of the first three games, told between bouts in weirdly compressed cutscenes, the grainy video of which betray the Kollection’s console roots: it came out on 360 and PS3 in 2011. This version is that one plus the DLC released later.
Ultra-kill! The ultra in question being Ultra Street Fighter 4, Capcom's most superlatively titled version of the game to date. The kill? Games for Windows Live, which has again been sent flying from a series in a slow motion KO arc. The removal of the unpopular service was confirmed, via Twitter, by Neidel “Haunts” Crisan, an employee at Capcom.
Extravagant, cel-shaded fighting game Skullgirls is heading to PC next month, as announced on the game's Facebook page. That's the 22nd of August, between you and me and Skullgirls' bizarre kicky/punchy cast, though Steam pre-orders will begin earlier on the 1st.
Since seeing Iron Man 3, I've been plagued by the vaguely disturbing image of Robert Downey Jr. gyrating to funked-up Christmas tunes as Iron Man parts fly at his body. That's nice and all, but I want some badassery again. It's pretty convenient, then, that Marvel Heroes is having a free open beta weekend to celebrate the film's release. Time to experience what superheroism is really about!
I’ve been in Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition’s training room for about an hour, but I reckon I’ve learned enough for a montage. A montage of me making coffee and filling in Post-it notes with guides to Guy’s advanced moves. I’m going to break a man’s will with this eight-hit combo.
Street Fighter IV is an unusual prospect for us PC gamers, but that doesn’t make it any less brilliant. SSFIV: Arcade Edition is widely regarded as the best fighting game on the planet; thanks to the PC’s power, we get the best version of it.
Imagine if Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat were addicted to drugs, then had a child together while under the influence of narcotics—wait, that's a bit too obscene—imagine if all the Asian WTF videos you've ever watched on the internet got together and starred in an arcade game. That game would be Dong Dong Never Die.
