I went home for lunch today and was surprised to find that I had already received my copy of Street Fighter IV (4) for the Xbox 360! Living in the UK, I didn’t think it was available until tomorrow (20th Feb 2009).

With it being a lunch break I only managed to fit in about 20 minutes of play, but wow! What an amazing and exciting 20 minutes that was! In the time I had, I managed to play through the Arcade mode on the easiest setting (Very Easy). I’ve been playing Street Fighter games since the early Mega Drive games, but felt I may be a little rusty. I also picked Ken as my character of choice.

At the beginning of the Arcade Mode I was treated to a little animated short of Ken and his wife (or girlfriend?) both discussing him meeting up with Ryu. I thought this was a really nice little touch. It’s little details like this which add to the overall experience. It wasn’t long after the introduction that I got my first experience in fighting. I found straight away that the controls and character movement were extremely fluid. I’d read quite a lot on the Internet previously about people’s troubles with the Xbox 360 controller, but I found the analogue controls fine and very accessible.

Street Fighter IV plays very much like the classic Street Fighter 2 games. There is enough familiarity to please nostalgic fans, but there is plenty of fresh content to please everyone. For the first time ever (except maybe Street Fighter Alpha 3) it feels Capcom have finally understood what it’s fan base have been craving for.

The overall presentation of the game is very high. The only downside so far is that on standard definition TV’s the text can be hard to read sometimes as it is very small and thin. Everything else is a compliment to your eyes.

Whilst I managed to complete the Arcade Mode using Ken I had to skip the end sequences, which meant I missed out on the final boss ending sequence and animated outro. That said, from the short time I had playing this game I got a great feeling from it. I can’t wait to get back after work and the gym to sink many more hours into this fantastic game (and hopefully write a better review!).

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Street Fighter IV (4) is on it’s way! I have just checked out my e-mail inbox and found a confirmation that my pre-order has been packaged and sent in the post. I’m so excited!

Street Fighter IV has already received numerous positive reviews. Check out a few examples below.

IGN
“Street Fighter IV is a fantastic game overall and Capcom should be commended for designing a game that can work on so many levels by appealing to both casual and hardcore players.”

Official Xbox Magazine
“If you’re a novice, a training mode and eight levels of difficulty will help you find your way. If you’re a pro, SFIV contains all the depth you’ve ever loved about the series, without compromise. Capcom simply got the feel of Street Fighter perfectly right.” [Feb 2009, p.76]

GameTrailers
“Fighting games have long been out of the spotlight, and Street Fighter IV basically carries the future of the entire genre. It refuses to make itself accessible, doling out tough love in place of true tutorials or simplified control schemes, but by proving to be deep and fundamentally enjoyable, the series has once again proven itself worthy of attention.”

Planet Xbox 360
“The complexities of the fighting systems are incredible to take in. Hardcore Street Fighter fans will have a field day with developing strategies and putting them into effect. It’s deep enough to satisfy tournament loving players who’d rather win by skill, but it’ll also win over the praise of casual players who love to dabble with fighting games when they have a friend to play against and button-smash without worrying about Ultra Combos and Ex moves.”

GameDaily
“None of the modes – Arcade, Time Attack, Versus – scream innovation, and confusing anime-style cut scenes had us scratching our heads, but the wealth of hidden content, online play and addictive combat make Street Fighter IV one of 2009’s most exciting video games.”

Read more at: metacritic.com

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Me and my girlfriend have had many hours of enjoyment by playing Scene It? Box Office Smash on the Xbox 360 (especially online where we work together against other teams/players). Last week we were treated to some new downloadable content for the price of 560MS Points.

The new Scene It “Award Winners” DLC comes packed with loads of new questions, a new game mode, and an added 250 achievement points to work towards your gamerscore. There is also the option to play “DLC only” games, or mix the two.

The new game mode consists of a number of True or False? questions which you must answer within a limited time. These are based on either an actor or film, giving you 2000 points (ingame, not achievement points) for each correct answer. I felt that whilst this added game mode is fairly simplistic, it adds both variety and longevity to the Scene It game.

So, if you enjoyed the original Box Office Smash game, there is plenty of additional content here to help prolong it’s lasting appeal. The new questions and movie clips are great, making the new Scene It Award Winners DLC pack definitely worth purchasing.

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Play during Maw’s six meal times: Breakfast, Brunch, Lunch, Dunch, Dinner, and Midnight Feast.

There are some Xbox 360 achievements that really make you wonder how on earth you will be able to unlock them. I’m not on about daunting achievements like the Gears of War “Seriously?” task, but more the ones that tease you with little information.

Thanks to the great site x360a.org, I was finally able to find out how to unlock the Maw “Six Meals a Day” achievement.

You can mess around with the time zone setting on the 360, load up a level and then quit out so it saves. Keep changing time zones and doing this until the achievement unlocks. You can stay connected to Live while you change time zones. Alternatively, you can keep playing the game at various times of the day until it unlocks.

TIMES: Try 8am, 10am, 12pm, 4pm, 6pm, 12am.

As an added tip, I have heard that this “cheat” only works offline, as the clock can automatically correct itself using the Xbox Live timing.

I hope this helps a lot of you in obtaining the final achievement of this awesome game!

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It’s been 10 days since my last gamerscore update and I don’t seem to have made a huge improvement really. I guess it’s because I’ve mostly been playing Guitar Hero games this past week which are quite hard (or time consuming) to earn achievements on.

The best game for earning achievements this past week has been Lego Indiana Jones. So far I have managed to scrape together 540 points, but I intend to reach the full 1000 gamerscore. For me, Lego Indiana Jones is probably my least favourite out of the Lego series (Starwars: The Complete Saga, and Lego Batman), but having said that it is still fun to play in short bursts.

Another game I have just started to play after a HUGE break is Two Worlds; an RPG which has had some pretty awful reviews. After playing Too Human a lot of you must wonder what attracts me to negatively reviewed RPGs. At first glance (especially after the intro) I was turned against this game, but after giving it a chance and playing through it for a couple of hours I’ve grown to like it (eventhough I can’t seem to find any lockpicks ANYWHERE!). It’s not too bad, and I may review my experiences playing it fairly soon.

Recent Xbox 360 Gamerscore Totals

• Guitar Hero 3 (125/1000)
• Guitar Hero 2 (320/1000)
• Two Worlds (125/1000)
• Lego Indiana Jones (540/1000)
• Bionic Commando (20/200)

Total Gamerscore: 32,525

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