With Blanka as my street fighter of choice, I set about recreating many happy memories of old, quickly feeling the Street Fighter memories flooding back to me. Electrocuting my opposition, I soon found myself getting incredibly into Street Fighter IV, finding it to be a very enjoyable video game.

If you were a Street Fighter fan in the past then you’ll no doubt still be one today. Many of the old characters still remain, and you’re quickly able to get down to gaming as you get used to the controls. You can spend many hours truly mastering the game and its huge variety of moves; alternatively you can just pick the game up and play however, and the option is there to get as much or as little involved in the game’s intricate workings as you like.

The aesthetics here are brilliant, with the traditional 2D screen scrolling included, with a nice modern touch in the way of the 3D graphics. The graphics here really do work well, and the game has been brought up to date to still be as relevant in 2009 as it was back in the nineties. The gameplay is as fun as ever, and although the years have quickly passed; Street Fighter is still yet to lose its cool.

The controls are incredibly responsive, and you’re happily able to play the game and get your moves in when you want to. There’s no waiting around for your character to catch up with your move selections, and this therefore provides for a very smooth and much enjoyable gaming experience.

The music here serves its purpose, adding to the gaming experience as a whole as you look to conquer your opponents. Everything about the game has just come together very nicely here, and it’s clear that much time has been spent in trying to make the game as perfect as possible.

Street Fighter IV is not a game that tries to bring anything new to the fighting game genre; Street Fighter is an unashamedly old school name, and as such the game therefore reflects this. Capcom doesn’t try and reinvent the wheel here, it instead opts to provide the quality Street Fighter game that we were all hoping for, and in doing so has provided many people with a lot of happy hours of quality gaming entertainment.

If you have played and enjoyed a Street Fighter game in the past then I really do urge you to go out there and purchase Street Fighter IV; it’ll definitely not be a decision that you regret, and you’ll no doubt spend many happy hours playing this one. Street Fighter IV is most definitely a game that has impressed me, and I can’t really provide any reason not to buy this game; it’s just a very good fighting game, and one that would sit very nicely in your collection.

9/10