You Know What They Say, The 3rd Strike Is What Counts... The Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition Review

Capcom has had some successes and failures with downloadable games on this current generation of consoles, but their latest effort on Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network is quite arguably their best game on the services. Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike finally goes downloadable, but this is not just your average port. Capcom took their sweet time to make this version the one to get especially for hardcore fans and tournament players that have been playing for many years since its initial arcade release in 1999. They finally met players and fans' demands of what features have to be in this port. There are still some issues that might irritate certain crowds, but Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition is definitely the best fighting game out there to download.

Many people probably didn't remember 3rd Strike when it originally came out. The III series for the Street Fighter franchise was a pretty big departure from the II series and Alpha games. Other than Ryu, Ken, Akuma, and Chun-Li (3rd Strike is her only game in the series), the III series was pretty much a whole new cast of characters to fight as and a big change in core gameplay. Those changes turned many fans off until Street Fighter IV came out. What most people missed with 3rd Strike though that it is arguably the most technical game in the franchise. Players appreciated that it actually took more skill to win than just relying on projectiles and dragon punches. Spacing of normal moves and execution play a huge role when playing these specific games. The most noticeable mechanic the Street Fighter III games were known for is the concept of parrying. Parrying is one of those easy to learn, difficult to master mechanics as it is simple to execute, but on most match scenarios, it can be pretty tough to pull off. 3rd Strike was the pinnacle of the III series, which is why it is a no brainer for Capcom to release it as a download.

Online Edition contains an arcade perfect version of 3rd Strike along with additional features seen in previous Capcom games this generation. Being arcade perfect means the game is untouched balance and gltiches-wise with the same frame data for all characters in the original release. This also means you'll likely see a lot of players using Chun-Li and Yun online since they're arguably the best characters in the game along with your fair share of shotos (Ryu, Ken, Akuma, Sean) since they're second nature to anyone that has played a Street Fighter game before. There have been claims of input lag, meaning the inputs are delayed by little number of frames on the PSN version, but only serious tournament-level players would notice such a big issue like that. The big twist in this version is how in-game achievements are being tracked. If you're playing the game in its default 4:3 state, you'll notice a ticker of sorts on the borders of certain tasks being done for points. These range from doing multi-hit combos, win a round by a super, parry a certain number of moves, and so on. These points can be used to buy things from the vault containing such things as remixed music, character endings, fan-art that have been handpicked by Capcom. There's not really a special item to unlock like an episode of the Street Fighter cartoon from Final Fight: Double Impact, which makes the vault a bit disappointing. The achievement tracker can be distracting for some people even though it wasn't for me, but you can customize the screen size, and filters in the options menu. The various filters, especially the arcade cabinet view, are nice to have, but the default view seems fine personally.

Other than the standard arcade and training modes, the other big single player mode in this new release is the trials mode, as seen in Street Fighter IV and Marvel vs. Capcom 3. If you played that mode in the games I previously mentioned, 3rd Strike is no different with the character trials, but some additional trials are added in for parrying and specific handicap challenges. The parrying trials are nice to have if you're new to the game as this is one way to learn how to parry effectively against certain moves and situations. For example, you can recreate the infamous Daigo parry video in this game, which is obviously titled Evo Moment #37. The character trials let you learn bread and butter combos high-level players usually use in a tournament along with trying out some difficult ones that are not impossible to do as well. Trial mode in 3rd Strike Online Edition is a nice feature for anyone to mess around with whether you're new or someone that wants to be challenged, but let's move on to how "online" this version really is.

Since this is called Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition, the online has to be pretty good right? That seems to be the case for the most part with some minor issues that could affect your experience with this release. First of all, the GGPO netcode finally gets put in a console fighting game, so you're pretty much getting lagless matches with no slowdown at all. Playing someone with a bad connection however can still be a problem, in which the game can get all skippy for a bit. An example would be hearing the K.O. sound even though you think you won a round, but you didn't as the fight goes on. Speaking of sound issues, the background music sometimes stops playing until the beginning of a new round during online matches as well, a similar issue found in Super Turbo HD Remix. Most of my online matches ran smoothly based on my time with the game, but there will be those moments where the issues I just mentioned can happen. Online matchmaking is also a problem with the game at its current state now. It can take a while to find ranked matches at times (a while meaning over a minute), which is pretty bad. Well the matchmaking in general is pretty weird in this version as there is no custom match setting in ranked, but is in player matches when making rooms with up to eight players (quarter match settings seen in past Capcom downloadable releases). In ranked matches, the game tends to match you up against a similarly ranked opponent, which they do a good job on that. There's also a bug where a person's disconnect rating goes beyond 100% when being matched up as that could be easily fixed in a future patch. Despite some little issues, 3rd Strike's online works functionally especially with having GGPO.

Other than standard player and ranked match options, 3rd Strike also has spectator mode, a must for online fighting games these days, online tournaments with up to sixteen players, and a robust replay feature. There is a huge database for your unsaved replays of all your matches played locally and online as of course you can save the ones you want to keep. In addition, they can uploaded to the game's match server for others to see and get rated. These match replays can also be upload to YouTube as the gameplay videos you see above are from my own YouTube account. The quality of these videos are not that good when uploaded there as they're in a way lower resolution than it should be. Unfortunately for 360 owners, uploading to YouTube means you're uploading to a master Capcom account compared to uploading to your own YouTube channel on PSN. Other than that, at least the feature works and it is nice to have even though it could of been so much better.

Graphically, 3rd Strike is the same 3rd Strike you have seen for over a decade. No HD remix was done to the graphics, which is a good thing because the 2D sprites still look great even on 360 and PS3 to this day. As mentioned earlier, there are various filters to mess around with and screen size to adjust especially if you're the widescreen type of person these days. The art has been redone for this new version as well as they are seen in the menus and the character select screen. The soundtrack is still one of the best fighting game soundtracks around even though this online edition defaults to the arranged versions of the tunes. There are remixed versions of the themes to buy on the vault, which are done by Simon Viklund (popularly known for the Bionic Commando Rearmed soundtrack). These remixes are basically hit and misses as the popular theme songs ended up being the most disappointing. The new menu rap song is tolerable, but you can change to the original menu music as well. Other than that, the in-game sounds are as arcade perfect as it gets.

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition is definitely a great package for fifteen dollars driven by fan-service. Many wished features that previous fighting games didn't have such as GGPO netcode, arcade perfect gameplay, and YouTube uploads are finally in. The in-game achievement tracker is nice to have, but I can see it be distracting for some players. Other than functional online play, there is still tons of replay value from completing the vault and tearing through trials mode when playing offline. There are still some nagging issues that affect online play, but it is still a good time to return to one of the greatest fighting games of all-time with 3rd Strike. Newer players may have a tough time since it requires a different learning curve, but it is definitely worth sticking through if you want to get better. This is one downloadable release any fighting game fan should not miss.

Score = 8.5/10

Pros:

• Arcade perfect gameplay (Same 3rd Strike that has been around for over a decade)
• GGPO netcode finally in a console fighting game and works well for the most part
• Feature-heavy for a downloadable release from trials mode, the vault, and a robust replay system
• YouTube uploads are nice to have
• Looks great even in 2011
• Still one of the best fighting games of all-time

Cons:

• Online matchmaking issues - can take a while to find matches at times
• Even when facing someone on a bad connection, skippy moments can happen that can dramatically affect how a match goes.
• Not as easy to pick up and play as you think (especially for first timers... it can be a tough learning curve especially if they skipped this one and recent games like Street Fighter IV "spoiled" them)
• Input lag is a problem on the PSN version assuming the claims by tournament-level players are true (only an issue for that certain crowd)
• YouTube quality of videos when using the game's upload feature to YT is not that good

PSN Demo Showcase for 8/25/11

Some new demos came out on PSN this week and even though I rather play Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition (review on that soon), I did take some time to play through these demos as I will briefly mention my thoughts of them.

First off is a demo of Bodycount, published by Codemasters and made by the creators of Black (Criterion). In a nutshell this first person shooter is pretty much Black 2.0 with a different storyline and setting. The gameplay premise is still similar to Black in which there are lots of destructible environments and you shoot at explosive barrels to kill enemies. As a shooter, Bodycount has some unique ideas such as leaning while aiming with your ironsights at any spot. This mechanic feels a little of sluggish when you're shooting as it should of been something done while in cover, which you can do as well. As a shooter, the core is unoriginal from a pointless scoring system, guns lacking that umph when it comes to sound, and unpolished graphics (then again, its a demo so who knows if the final game improved that). At the end of the day, Bodycount is just another FPS trying to be competitive with the other juggernauts, but you rather play those than this one, which is indeed the case.

The other demo of note to talk about is for Warhammer 40K: Space Marine, which comes out next week. Space Marine is one of the most unoriginal titles for a game yet, but it is not as bad as you think title alone. This is a third person action game with shooting and melee elements as it was known as "Gears of War without cover." Hordes of Orcs will come and attack you as you can easily die if you're not careful. As heavily armored as these space marines are, going guns blazing is a bad idea in this game. There are conventional weapons to choose from a pistol with infinite ammo, machine gun, shotgun, etc. The demo sections are pretty linear, but some areas can be really dark as I had to turn up the brightness to the maximum at one point to keep progressing. Other than that, it is a pretty standard third person game with mechanics seen in similar games such as the ability to go berserk (they called it Fury here) for a limited time, rechargeable health, but you gain lost health by executing enemies Gears style. The jetpack level in the demo is a nice touch allowing the main guy to rock a jetpack to pound on enemies from the air. Space Marine is not really doing anything new, but it is not that bad of a game people think at first.

Other than those two, there's a NHL 12 demo out this week as well, but there's nothing to note other than its hockey and the it is still gonna be the hockey game to get this year (well the only one basically since 2K Sports doesn't make NHL2K anymore). I have the Pro Evolution Soccer 2012 demo as well, which I still need to try out. That demo is also self-explanatory because its soccer and those games tend to control the same as it comes down to you preferring that or FIFA 12, which is arguably EA's best sports franchise now (you can argue for NHL 12 as well, but we'll also see with the Madden reviews tomorrow). Since I don't have Playstation Plus anymore, I didn't play the Resistance 3 multiplayer beta even though I heard bad things about it.

Mega Music Roundup for 8/25/11

I got a lot of albums to talk about, so I'm going to try to keep it short what I think of them.

Lil Wayne - The Carter IV

Weezy's latest album is finally out after numerous delays and after the crazy success of The Carter III, did magic strike again? I think so from a mainstream perspective as you're getting successful singles with "6 Foot 7 Foot," "John" featuring Rick Ross, and his latest one being his ballad "How to Love." The current ballad single can be easily hated since it is Wayne getting all poppy and of course you rather hear him rap in hard beats, which there are some. "She Will" featuring Drake (likely the next single), "President Carter," and the "Outro" are among the current favorites among the masses. Weezy will probably never bring back his earlier days before his mainstream success, but The Carter IV is an okay album with some hits and misses.

David Guetta - Nothing But The Beat

This is Guetta's second major US album after taking the country by storm with One Love. That album was filled with bangers from "Sexy Chick" with Akon, "Memories" with Kid Cudi, and others that found mainstream success. His new one is no different, but this time Guetta racked up more of today's stars rather than unknowns making the album more feature-filled. However, some songs feel like I heard them before in a different form such as the first single "Where Them Girls At?" featuring Flo Rida and Nicki Minaj. That song pretty much is Sexy Chick 2.0 in a nutshell using similar sound effects. His current single "Little Bad Girl" featuring Taio Cruz and Ludacris is a little better than the unoriginal first one. Other high profile artists in the album are Usher, Snoop Dogg, Chris Brown, Lil' Wayne, Afrojack (for a Daft Punk-y track called "Lunar"), Akon, and more. Not every song is a hit though as Guetta's song with Timbaland is a real disappointment as I expected something more with the two together. If you want more mainstream clubby stuff, Nothing But The Beat is worth blasting at parties and other places that pop off loud music.

Natalia Kills - Perfectionist

You probably heard of Natalia Kills with her feature in LMFAO's "Champagne Showers," but she has her own solo album out with some good old pop music. There is a lot of catchy stuff from "Wonderland," "Zombie," and "Mirrors." This album is longer than I thought with more of a hour of decent pop. She is not really making a big splash in the mainstream scene as I thought she would as her songs are pretty radio-friendly. It probably goes to show how radio stations play the same popular songs over and over again to the point they get annoying. Hopefully Natalia doesn't get the one hit wonder treatment as with most female pop artists in recent years.

The Game - R.E.D. Album

Another album that had numerous delays was The Game's latest. Personally, I'm not really that much of a Game fan other than his debut album The Documentary being a classic hip-hop album at its time. I didn't had any expectations for this one and ended up not caring after listening to it. You'll probably find some songs here and there in this album, but out of the high profile rap releases this month (Watch The Throne and Carter IV), Game's new album falls a bit short compared to those two.

Red Hot Chili Peppers - I'm With You

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are back after a long hiatus and a new guitarist. Their signature sound is still intact in this album, which is not really a bad thing considering their age. The fact we have a new album by this band in 2011 is actually pretty crazy after delivering chart-topping singles for almost two decades.

That's it for the music roundup for now. There is MTV's Video Music Awards this Sunday if you wanna see another Britney Spears love fest with the tribute they're planning for, Lady Gaga going crazy as she always does when she opens the show (hope she performs a song that is not yet a single in Born This Way), Bruno Mars doing the same ballad YouTube wannabes have doing for over a year, and more. It is probably going to be another crappy show and a reminder that it had its glory days (mainly the late 90s and early 00s).

Kirby Returns to Dream Land on October 24

A double dose of Kirby is coming out this fall with Kirby Mass Attack on the regular DS next month (or as I like to call it - Kirby Massive Attack... shoutouts to Nicki Minaj) and Kirby's Return to Dream Land on October 24 for the Wii. After the critical success of Epic Yarn and also being one of the cutest games out there, Kirby returns to his roots at Dreamland sucking enemies into his mouth and absorbing special powers such as the signature sword power-up. This is pretty much as old-school as it gets along with four player co-op similar to New Super Mario Bros. Wii as other players can join in to play as Meta Knight, Waddle Dee, and King Dedede. Familiar bosses will return like Whispy Woods as well. It is nice to see Nintendo making good Kirby games as of late as if he stand up to the upper echelon of Nintendo's character hierarchy (Mario, Link, Samus, Donkey Kong, etc.). Return to Dreamland will be another reason to dust off that Wii unless you're still waiting for The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword's November 20 release.

VF5 Final Showdown Finally Getting a US Release...

Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown has been out at Japanese arcades for at least two or three years already and it seemed like Sega never wanted to bring the latest version of their fighting game to the US until today's announcement. It is now coming to Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network next summer, which is ways off for a downloadable title. This is the first time a Virtua Fighter game has gone downloadable since Sega probably knew its not smart of them to release this on a retail price, so at least we are getting a 15 dollar VF game. Yeah, this franchise does have its audience, but it is not as mainstream as the Street Fighter series is today. It is still one of the most technical and deep fighting games around as I'm been playing them casually since the PS2 version of VF4 (I owned VF4, VF4 Evo, and VF5 360 at some point). It is also about time Sega does something with this franchise over here at the States to capitalize on the recent fighting game boom.

Sonic Boom, Sonic Boom, Sonic Boom... coming to XBLA/PSN

If you're wandering why I'm posting the awesome intro of Sonic CD here with that "Sonic Boom" song, its because what is arguably still the best Sonic game ever, Sonic CD is finally getting a release on Xbox Live Arcade and likely Playstation Network as well. Like most people, I never owned a Sega CD when this originally came out, so this release will make me finally play it and see for myself why it is the best Sonic game.

A LTTP "Review" of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II

Note - Spoilers will be mentioned, so you are warned if you still want to play this game and don't want the story ruined (Same goes for the Endor DLC too)

I played through Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II last weekend, but it is more like one afternoon with the main campaign since it was so short. This game came out last fall and it promised to fix the problems the first one had, but I didn't think they did and added along more issues that seemed like a rushed job on LucasArts' part. Then again, you probably can consider how the game ended up the way it was with the whole team being let go by LucasArts shortly after its retail release. At the end of the day, The Force Unleashed II is simply not a good game and even having the Star Wars name does not help either.

If you played through the first game, this sequel follows the light side ending from that which Starkiller, the protagonist of this series and apprentice of Darth Vader, sacrifices himself in attempts of defeating the Empire and forming the Rebel alliance that is in the good trilogy of movies. Vader comes up with a plan to clone Starkiller in the Force Unleashed II in which that is who you play as. This clone is supposed to have no memories of his personal connections with the Rebels, especially his love interest Juno, and able to follow Vader's orders . However, those visions and memories slowly come back to this Starkiller's mind and the game starts out with an escape from the Kamino cloning facility. The whole cloning business feels like a lazy way to have a story arc and let LucasArts to say let's have a sequel since the first game had successful sales. It makes you wonder if it is really that necessary for this whole idea of a Starkiller clone to make some sense. Even with that clumsy story arc, Starkiller has to regroup with the rebels (mainly General Kota) to forge a plan to get rid of Empire and reunite with Juno as well.

The way Force Unleashed II's story plays out until the end is filled with questionable and absurd decisions by LucasArts. Going to Dagobah just for Starkiller to rethink of the whole situation feels like a waste is and basically a filler moment for the sake of pacing (even Kota agrees about being rescued). Dagobah itself is a pointless level with no action and gives the developers a lazy reason to include Yoda in the game. There is also a lack of memorable moments throughout the game as I can only consider two or three of them worthwhile even for Star Wars fans. Even the good ending that continues the canon feels uninspired with no sense of closure to the game setting things up for another sequel that won't happen because the development team is already gone from LucasArts. The dark side ending is a little better based on how it looked alone. The storyline as a whole is a mess from beginning to end and pretty much ruins anything good the first game had on that department (I felt that the first game ended right and had closure to a degree).

While the story feels messy for the duration of the game, even the game design has its own set of lazy problems and numerous technical issues. I already mentioned earlier how short Force Unleashed II is, which is about five to six hours on normal difficulty. This is due to the lack of levels as you're only going to see four locales throughout the game with Kamino (you return there for the finale), Cato Neimoidia, Dagobah, and the Salvation ship. Speaking of the levels, the level design looks and feels uninspired with repetitive backgrounds and corridors as if you're playing a corridor-only first-person shooter (Doom, Quake days). Basically as in any recent action game, you're just playing through sets of kill rooms and going from point A to point B. The game is as linear as it gets even though there are hidden holocrons that can be found to gain more experience, increase your health/force meters, and saber crystals for various status effects. In addition to the boring level design, even the enemy design is unoriginal too from your normal Stormtroppers, sniper troopers that are annoying, enemies that also use force powers against you, various Star Wars-like mechs like the AT-STs, and so on. All of Force Unleashed II's design issues just makes it boring and repetitive to play through along with other frustrations I will talk about in a bit.

Controlling Starkiller is still fine for the most part especially having two lightsabers at your disposal throughout the game. It is still cool to decapitate enemies' body parts off with your lightsabers and use force powers to decimate the opposition by lightning, push, and force gripping them to bottomless pits. Even all of that gets tedious and tiresome after a while especially near the end of the game where kill rooms become more frustrating than fun. You can't really go nuts with the powers on the later enemy encounters as you think you can considering you are some Jedi badass as you can get killed quickly if you don't have some sort of plan of which enemies to tackle in a certain order. This is crucial on harder difficulties where the enemies deal more damage, so even someone as badass as Starkiller has to pick his spots to fight these battles right. Then there are the platforming elements, which is the only reason I hate about controlling Starkiller. Sure, he has a double jump and a dash, but the game's physics make the platforming more of a nuisance than enjoyable as there are times I feel like I made the jump, but turns out I don't (this gets really frustrating in the playable challenges). Since it is a modern action game, quicktime events are everywhere in Force Unleashed II, specifically in big time moments and the boss fights, which have their own problems. There are really only three boss fights in this game with the last one being one of the worst final boss encounters I played through in a while. The finale with Darth Vader is dragged out for too long as it supposes to be some epic battle transversing through numerous platforms, but it ends up being another lazy design decision by the developers.

While the graphics in The Force Unleashed II look sharp in certain areas, especially the skyline at Cato Neimoidia, the game is a buggy mess at various times with lots of technical issues. The framerate does not stay consistent throughout the game dropping below 30 frames per second at times (its worse on the Endor DLC). Enemies get misplaced at certain times to their death right away. They even pop in and pop out appearing out of nowhere once you activate their presence in a combat section. In addition, my character gets stuck in the environment at certain times too and the frustration really kicks in when you get killed by something off-screen for no reason at all. The checkpoint system can be generous at times, but not as so in the later enemy encounters. The CG cutscenes look fine even though I didn't find any issues with the in-game ones. The sound production is on par for Star Wars standards, which is usually the only thing LucasArts does not screw up with these games. You're getting your expected theme songs when the game starts and whenever Dark side related action happens. The voice acting is okay as the script and dialogue is typical for a Star Wars product with some dumb, cheesy, and hokey moments.

I did play through the one dollar Endor DLC as well, which is not that bad being only a dollar. In this one hour what-if mission, you play as the evil Starkiller clone (if you remember the dark side ending of the main game) to prevent the Rebels from arming the charges to destroy the shield generator at Endor. In other words, you're basically reversing the events of Return of the Jedi assuming you already killed Luke in the first game's downloadable what-if Hoth scenario from Empire Strikes Back. Endor itself is a straightforward level like the campaign levels except with rebels to kill and ewoks to kick, which never gets old. Your Starkiller has different force power stats from the main campaign, but you're able to use any of the saber crystals you found. This mission does include encounters with Han Solo and Chewbacca in the captured AT-ST along with a surprising yet good boss fight with Princess Leia (you can probably guess why she is a formidable opponent at the end). That boss fight is better than the all of the boss fights in the main game because it felt like more a one-on-one duel than an ordinary boss fight with obstacles in your way. The Endor DLC does has its share of technical issues from not allowing to skip the intro, cutscenes, and credits at all along with an unstable framerate as well.

At the end of the day, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II felt rushed, lazy, unpolished, and the game is just flat out boring. That is something to say considering the Star Wars name, but I still stand by that statement. It is disappointing on so many levels from the short campaign, technical bugs everywhere, lazy game/level design, and more that has been mentioned already. The replay value isn't much other than some bonus challenges and harder difficulties to play through for achievements/trophies. It definitely is one of those unnecessary sequels that exists in today's world of entertainment, but since people still love Star Wars and they wanna have the chance to control someone as powerful as Starkiller, LucasArts basically made a cash-in game to feature all of that. There are still some redeeming qualities such as the core gameplay remaining intact and some cool Star Wars-like moments, but those qualities alone can't make Force Unleashed II a good game. Star Wars fans will probably still find some enjoyment out of it, but even I can not recommend getting this game back when it came out last year and even today.

Score I would give it = 6/10