Street Fighter 2 is one of my all-time favorite games; Thus, I was pretty damn psyched to get Street Fighter 4 last week. How is it? Well, it is Street Fighter. Capcom was smart enough not to mess with the game too much. All the old characters and their moves are there, so if you remember how to do a hodoken, yoga flame, and such you can pick up the game and start playing. The biggest change in game play is the focus attack and ultra moves which are pretty easier to learn and add an extra level of strategy to the game. The focus attacks are moves that you power up usually while blocking and unleash as a counter move. The longer you power them up, the harder you hit your opponent. The ultra moves are super special moves that can only be performed once you ultra gage is filled. The gage is filled the more hits you inflict and attacks you block; here is where some extra strategy is added. The ultra gage thingy increases from round to round, so it is important to use your ultra attack at the right time. For example, lets say you won round 1, and are losing in round 2, it might make sense to concede the loss in round 2 and not try to use an ultra attack then and save the ultra attack for the final round. The game starts off with 16 playable characters (12 classic old ones and 4 kinda bleh new ones) but you can unlock 9 more by completing certain task that range from winning in arcade mode with ryu to unlock school girl fighter Sakura, to winning with 24 characters to unlock the final boss Seth as a playable character. Seth is the new boss character and can pretty much do any move any other character can do. In addition, Seth gets harder and tries a larger array of moves the closer you get to beating him. Unlocking the extra characters and locations and seeing the cheesy/funny story scenes as you progress through the tournament adds replay value to the game. However, the game is at is most fun when you are fighting against another person. The graphics of the game are very detailed especially the face, and the characters are all more muscular then in the past (more on that tomorrow), but still the basic 2D game play remains. Overall Grade A-