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Street Fighter Anniversary Collection Review - Xbox

Street Fighter II revolutionised the fighting game genre, revitalising a waning arcade scene in the early nineties and became the most ported game in the world. It's also Capcom's biggest cash cow. Few updates have made their way into this version, but the game mechanics are as solid as they ever, because they are the same games we have been playing for years.

Street Fighter Anniversary Collection contains two games, Hyper Street Fighter II Turbo and Street Fighter 3: Third Strike, both with online play. It also contains the 1994 Street Fighter II Animated Movie as an added bonus.

Gameplay - Hyper Street Fighter II Turbo

The premise behind Street Fighter, in all its incarnations, is familiar to anyone who's ever played a fighting game before. Fight opponents in a series of one on one, best of three battles until you a) get win or b) get dead.

The story is involved and complex, and much of it differs from the original SFII story of yonder past. With the release of Street Fighter Alpha series, Capcom retroactively changed much of the storyline to fit the new timeline. Now, M. Bison (Vega in the Japanese version) is holding a tournament to get revenge on those who stood against him in the Alpha series, whereas the original Street Fighter II tournament was held as a recruitment drive for Bison, who was looking for the strongest fighters to join his Shadowlaw crime syndicate.

Each character has their own reasons for entering the tournament, and though it isn't covered well in game (which is merely a series of fights, on after another, the only story element coming into play after the final boss falls lifeless to the blood soaked arena floor), information can be found and devoured by the hard core fans. Of course, the singular purpose of the story is to give you a reason to beat the living snot out of your opponents, and this it does admirably.

Beating said snot out of said meatbag's is done with mathematical precision. Eight directions and six attack buttons (three punch and three kick) is now the standard Capcom fighting system. It works wonders. Of course, most people like to bash the heavy buttons, which is all well and good, but often times you won't have the time needed to land a heavy blow, and a quick jab is needed to set your opponent back and give you the opening you need.

Standard attacks are all well and good, but they aren't very flashy. Throwing punches is fun, but throwing fireballs is better. Using combinations of D-pad gymnastics and attack buttons, special moves are pulled off, landing damage and giving you interest possibilities. Choosing the Super Turbo characters (more on that in a moment) gives you the option to pull of Super Combos, which deal heavy damage in impressive ways. Other than that, control options are limited. You can block by holding back, and you can jump, but ... (continued next page)