Jared Rea

Before I even attempted to get the “No Country for Old Arcades” series off the ground, I made sure to contact the good folks over at Arcade Heroes to pick their brain on the idea. It’s thanks to them that I got this idea in my head that for as much as people love to declare the arcade scene as dead, history has proven that all they really need is just one amazing title to bring everyone back in.

Pong kicked off the 70’s and in the 80’s, Pac-Man proved that arcade games weren’t just a fad. Street Fighter II completely revolutionized the industry at the start of the 90’s and Dance Dance Revolution did the same for this century.

And now, a little over a month after it’s Japanese release, Street Fighter IV has landed in select arcades across North America. From what I’ve seen and heard, it could very well be that one game needed to convince the masses that yes, arcades are very much worth your time. The problem is that it also represents an easily missed opportunity.

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Things have been quite hectic around here as of late and I’ll soon be in a better position to deliver some updates to my blog. The long story short is that I’m finally moving back out (This weekend, actually!) and so all my commuting woes that have kept me away from, well, fun in general, will be going out the window. Until then, check out these two awesome posts that fellow NeoGAF user, MicVlaD, put together to showcase the subtle changes that Street Fighter IV has gone through in the past couple of weeks.

Post #1
Post #2

The new shots are on the right-hand side and while the changes are very subtle, they make a huge impression on the overall look. The details are really starting to shine (Honda has nipples now!), the facial expressions (finally) look great and you can see the beginnings of their advanced lighting and filters going into play. After playing the game at GDC (of which I presented five days worth of features) I looked upon the graphics as acceptable. Not terribly great, but acceptable. We’re definitely getting into that “great” territory now. Enjoy!

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Life isn’t showing any signs of slowing down and this month is packed. Not only am I turning old, but apparently I’m taking a trip to Atlanta as well. The day after I get back it’s Dead to Me at Bottom of the Hill and somewhere between all this, I’ve got to find a new apartment in the city, finally get the new No Country for Old Arcades up and make time to play Lord of the Rings Online. Oh, and play Street Fighter. SIGH.

Speaking of which, last week I wrote a week long feature on my time spent with Street Fighter IV at the Game Developers Conference. If I had to put a number on how many hours I actually spent in the company of that machine, I’d put it somewhere around 12 hours. It was pretty nuts. Anyway, here’s the rundown.

Day One, Impressions: My general thoughts on the game and a proper explanation of the Focus system. It’s actually quite incredible to see how far the game has come in the past two weeks. It’s also incredible to see that despite these improvements, people on GAF hate it more than ever.

Day Two, Interview: I wish I had a video crew for this one as Yoshinori Ono is an extremely animated guy. We talked about everything from his first Street Fighter experience to his work on 3rd Strike. Good times!

Day Three, Characters Pt.1: This has gotten some criticism, mainly from people on the fighting game boards who keep crying about how they want to hear impressions from a “professional.” Unfortunately, they can never know the truth about that week.

Day Four, Characters Pt.2: Something I learned from my blogging days was to embrace controversy without actually doing anything wrong. In this case, it was tiering the characters. They’re actually quite accurate for the moment but even I know that it’s too early to say that kind of crap. Still, it made for great discussion!

Day Five, Meet the Press: A big thanks goes out to everyone who helped me with this article. I pinged a bunch of folks that I saw playing the game that week (and weren’t mashing their pants off) and asked for their opinion on the game. I think it turned out pretty well.

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