The most anticipated XBLA game and possibly the most aniticpated 360 game has finally arrived.
Here is the problem I have with the game. Some of the sounds are incorrect.. not that big of a deal but still annoying. Especially the elephants in Dhalsims stage... almost every version of SF2 and up has failed to emulate the arcade versions Dhalsims stage. Seriously try all the ports to consoles none are exactly like the arcade?! Ok but my biggest gripe is the difficulty level of the single player mode. They really ramped this up and lowering the stars doesn't help at all... it's like they went with one difficulty level and added some stars that do absoloutly nothing other than give you an achievement when you beat it after selecting seven of them. I own the actual arcade version and I can beat it damn near everytime without losing a round. This game runs at the diffculty of the arcade version turned all the way up to munch your quarters. It's very frustrating and it makes you want to throw your controller at your TV.. or at least thats how i've felt anyway.. I do great up untill the 4th or 5th fight... I'm sure i'll eventually get to th epoint where I can own the cpu after I learn it's patterns and habits. I've only played single player a total of 3 times now.
Wich brings me to the online mode.. this is where i've spent most of time. After downloading the game the minute it was released.. I played 4 or 5 hours that night. I must say there was some lag but very little... I was able to find several games where they were lag free. And they were in quarter match with 3 other people to boot! I did find it hard to get in a ranked match when you just do quick play.. it timed out more often than not, but when you create your own match it seemed like cake to get new competition. So far i've really enjoyed the online portion of this game. I've got a pretty decent net connection 6MB DSL so that may help a bit. It is by no means perfect but when you find those good lag free games it is a treasure.. it's SF heaven. I would have really liked it if they had allowed at least 6 people in quarter match instead of 4.. 4 doesn't seem like enough. I remember playing at the arcade with more than 10 players standing around the machine.
Overall i've really enjoyed this game and I'm itching to go play it right now. Without the few minor complaints this game would have been a solid 10. It's just a shame Capcom has gotten lazy in it's old age.. this series is what started a revoloution in video gamming and they kinda crap all over the franchise.. by not making their ports up to snuff with the amazing arcade version... one last thing to mention that is that the graphics are kinda pixelated in HD.. all the talk about them upscaling the graphics to look better in HD was a lie. Gotta say though i'm still loving the xbox live portion of the game and will for some months if not years to come.