Check out these pics of Nina and Jin Kazama! Granted they look like they were taken by a crew member’s phone camera but it puts many of my fears to rest. Tekken has never even really had a much of a storyline to stay true to: A bunch of badass lookin’ people get together for some sort of “Iron Fist Tournament” thing to get whipped by an 80 year old man and his demon son. From the looks at those cell phone pics the character costumes look like they pulled every stitch straight out of the video game.

There’s absolutely no reason visual faithfulness and serious storytelling have to be mutually exclusive when it comes to adapting properties like video games and comic books. My unending gratitude to the costume designers of Spider-Man, Iron Man, Watchmen, Tomb Raider, Mortal Kombat and now Tekken.

I’m a long time Nina Williams and Bryan Fury fan. Here’s a bonus pic from a Maxim pictorial of Candice Hillebrand who’s playing my girl. (more…)

The Street Fighter series has been all but stagnant for the better part of 15 years and finally after countless iterations and 3D attempts Street Fighter II’s true successor has hit the streets. For some reason Capcom always had trouble marrying the fast and furious nature of the series and the flexibility of the camera of their 3D forays. Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha and Star Gladiator, while fun, always felt a bit floaty. It wasn’t until they made Viewtiful Joe soon after the advent of cell-shaded graphics did I see the potential of someday experiencing swooping camera animations during 3D specials.

Today is that day.

Street Fighter IV is everything a fan has dreamed of from the series. Tight control, balanced gameplay, flashy finishers, gorgeous character models, stages and online play. HD Remix gave us a taste of what could be in a current online Street Fighter and it’s all here. In fact it’s just about more than anyone could ask for.

They even incorporated anime intros and endings and in-game mini-cutscene character interactions. Died. In Heaven. I understand most these types of games are all about the fight but those kinds of things are what encourage a player to try out different characters and rewards them for beating it with everyone.

I do wish they hadn’t made grapples’ input commands as simultaneous light kick/punch. I assign those to shoulder buttons and that’s just weird. You can assign throw to R1 or R2 but those might be bettter suited for 3x punches/kicks. Ah the conundrum. Oh well I can forgive them. I can also forgive them for putting some crazy Justin Timberlake sounding pop song peppered throughout the game but whatev. This game is the supreme dopeness regardless.

Go buy it. Play it. See me online and let me flash kick you into oblivion and love it.

Score: 10/10

So booth babes are coming back to the Electronic Entertainment Expo. I long pondered E3’s Hitlerian Booth Babe Prohibition Act of 2006. I mean, why? This was a pathetic attempt at making the convention more professional and businesslike. What they forgot is that it was a party to celebrate that which was fun: video games! It’s OK to not have to take it too seriously. They took away all the glitz and glamour and left a husk of an event now a completely sterile environment.

Who wants that in a video game expo? Bring the fireworks, fog machines, laser lights, skimpy shorts and celebrity appearances.

The whole time I was disappointed in the booth babe ban I thought that it was just me being a perv. But that’s not the case. Well, I am a perv, but the point is that they took away the hype that we Westerners have that can anywhere near compare to the Tokyo Game Show. It wasn’t just girlies they took away, it was the spectacle of it.

A once hot hype machine reduced to a cold turkey that used to serve as a launching pad for so many developers now just foldout table with coffee and doughnuts. Something tells me the massive hit the gaming industry took last year has convinced the E3 overlords to possibly bring back some fun to the event. To bring back every bit of promotion back to the gaming biz and forget these foolish notions of professionalism. Integrity’s overrated anyway.