I've never been great at beat 'em ups - 9 times out of 10, I usually start off with some vague sense of tactic and by the 2nd half of the 2nd round, I've ditched that approach, in favour off inanely bashing the buttons in the vain hope my character will do some spectacular and bring the fight to their opponent.
It rarely happens though. Most of the time, when facing off against either the computer or a real opponent, my character is usually outclassed in every way possible and slumps to the ground in complete shame.
If we're going from previous experience, the Street Fighter series is one of those that I should avoid like the plague. I didn't get on with the first game on my old Atari ST, I was pretty appalling at the second one down the local arcades and I didn't have the courage to play the third one until I saw it for sale in a bargain bin on the PSP.
As for the fourth game, it slipped by me. It was one of those games that I always thought I'd pick up one day, but I just never got round to it. It also didn't help that Capdom decided to release another version of the game with more characters and bells and whistles shortly after.
But my mind changed when I got my Nintendo 3DS - it seemed like a no brainer that I should get Street Fighter 4 3D edition to go with it.
In my opinion, the very nature of Street Fighter makes it the perfect hand held game. The plot is nonsensical and the fast paced fighting gives the game that instant pick up and play quality.
With the simple controls the game is as welcoming as you could hope for, making fans of the previous games and newcomers to the series instantly familiar. It's not all perfect though - using the L and R buttons to perform special moves is a bit of pain.
However, to compensate this, players can set up to four hotkeys on the touchscreen for moves and combos. To enable them, you simply have to tap them and your character will perform a killer move. Needless to say, on the Pro setting this option is removed.
Visually, the game is quite strong and by now it is sure to be a show piece for many Nintendo 3DS owners out there.
The developers have clearly cottoned onto this and have included an option to play the game from an over the shoulder perspective. While it looks great, especially in 3D, I couldn't get used to it and quickly returned to the traditional view.
Aside from the standard Arcade mode, players also have the option to play online and against other Street Fighter IV players locally.
Overall, it's a pretty solid fighting package and while I am still as useless at it as I was when I played the original game back in the late 80s, I'd still recommend picking this one up.
Verdict: 9 out of 10
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