Crease fighter

Leg spins on six buttons…

I’ve never liked fighting games. Once, in my youth, I spent a whole 20 minutes playing the arcade version of classic beat-’em-up Double Dragon. Then, when the PS2 came out, I won a copy of Tekken Tag Tournament, which I immediately traded for EA Cricket 2002. So you can imagine it was with considerable indifference that I approached this, the Official Street Fighter™ 15th Anniversary box set.
     If other fighting games don’t come packaged like this, they should. The whole kit’s about the size of a lunch box. On the lid is an iridescent print of some guy called Ryu (who I probably should recognise), which flips back to reveal a fire engine red controller beneath a plastic window, and a ‘signed’ certificate telling me that I’d just bought an Official Street Fighter™ 15th Anniversary controller.
     Any true game addict would go weak at the knees just looking at this. Trust me, you won’t want to open up the box any further.
     If you do, you’ll discover that the controller itself is delicious. It’s got a D-pad for the left thumb, six buttons for the right (one for each primary action), a trigger on each side and a lenticular hologram in the centre, animating this Ryu bloke when you tilt it… by which time you’ll know just how comfy it is to hold. It’s light, too, having no vibrator function. Perfect for fighting games.
     Finally, there’s some novelty stickers and a gorgeous Street Fighter comic that seems to follow the adventures of Ryu, who goes to America, counter-intuitively ignores loads of busty, half-naked women and punches somebody in the face. Or something. Perhaps I’m out of touch.
     The game disk—which, by the way, is blue on one side, like the PS2 games of old—boots straight into a wicked, 10-frame-per-second cut scene, complete with chunky Amiga 500 backgrounds that make you feel like it’s 1989 all over again. That’s capped off by what’s undoubtedly the best part of the whole kit: a Japanese bloke yelling the name of the game. ‘ESS-VAY-SI COW-OSS!! ESS-IN-KAY VUSSUS CAP-A-COM,’ he says, with no shortage of enthusiasm.
     As for the game, well, it’s a fighting game. One-on-one Double Dragon, with fewer mullets. A title guaranteed to see the purists combo themselves into a frenzy.
     Meanwhile, with this new controller, it’s never been easier to bowl leg spin into the off stump.

Words: Adam Davies
Photography: Drew Taylor