Sometimes I feel like a masochist when I’m gaming. There is one particular genre of game that continually kicks my ass, pisses me off, sends me into controller smashing rages, and makes me want to choke nearby living beings, but I keep on playing them; even though I actually don’t like it all that much. From the title you’ve probably guessed the genre I’m referring to is fighting games, and my current abusive girlfriend happens to be Street Fighter IV. Although not actually the fourth game in the series when counting the Alphas, Ex's, and V's, Street Fighter is making a triumphant return with a fancy coat of paint and some slight adjustments.

Street Fighter IV goes out of its way to remind you that its gorgeous, like an extremely hot chick with no personality, but it's what’s on the inside that counts right, right? The characters are extremely detailed, and the art style is unique. As far as game play is concerned, there is only one real noticeable change from the older games: the addition of a block/counter system they call the focus attack. This is an attack that once launched, has three levels of charge. One is a normal attack; a few seconds later it will become stronger and cause the enemy to stagger, and if you charge until the automatic release, it becomes stronger, unblockable, and causes stagger. While charging, you can also absorb one non-guard break attack; this technique is indispensable as you progress through the game.

Another addition is the revenge meter, which in retrospect isn’t much of a new addition, but more of a reworking. For those of you who played the Vs series games, you will remember the three levels you charge to do special moves. The higher the charge, the more powerful attack you can unleash. In Street Fighter IV you just have two different meters: the special meter and the revenge meter, special filling when you deal pain, and revenge filling when you receive pain. The two meters correspond to two different attacks, super for super attacks, and revenge for ultra attacks. The more I think about it, the more I think one meter that can fill several times for a variety of attacks is more suitable than two different meters for different attack types. The roster of characters is less then impressive, 25 characters total, with five being newbies to the street fighter universe and the rest are veterans of the series. Most of the favorite faces make an appearance, as well as my personal favorite, Sakura. Although 25 is quite a bit to work with, after the massive character selection found in most of the Vs series games, I expect a little bit more, but that could just be me being greedy.

The characters are extremely detailed, and the art style is unique. You can see this in the fully animated character intros and outros, but this doesn't take away from the fact that they add nothing to the game. The story is disjointed and doesn't make much sense to me at all. For example, Ryu's intro is him training at a waterfall, shooting a hadoken, and saying "Still no good". His outro is him almost being taken over by the Satsui no Hado, which is basically the dark side of the force in the Street Fighter universe. He then proceeds to Hadoken some machine. That's all; the animted scenes last about 30 seconds each and don't tell much of anything. There is no real closure to anyone's stories. I've unlocked most of the characters and I still have no real idea who Seth is and what his goals are.

On to my favorite section of this review, which I call "Why Street Fighter IV makes me want to choke things." One such reason is charge attacks; these are attacks that require you to hold back or down for an allotted amount of time, then push forward and a button combo. This feels go gimping when in the middle of a heated battle; having to make your character walk backwards to attack forwards makes no sense. This is especially bad when you have to do a special or ultra attack with one of these characters, since the attack usually calls for charge back, forward, back, forward, then button combo. Next up is the difficultly, which ranges from easiest, very easy, easy, medium, medium-hard, very hard, and hardest. In comparison to Street Fighter HD Remix, Street Fighter IV’s normal characters are pretty easy on normal difficulties. I played on medium for the most part and had some trouble, but I’m not that great at fighting games to begin with. My real issue is with Seth, the big bad boss man in Street Fighter IV. He is quite possibly the worst boss ever. Even though I said I’m not too great at fighting games, I’ve beaten pretty much every hard fighting game boss of this and last generation with relative ease after some practice, but even on the easiest mode Seth still manages to beat the crap out of me on many occasions. He can and will teleport constantly; most of his attacks have priority over yours, and he can grab at pretty much anytime. Also, he will not hesitate to spam projectile attacks until you die from chip damage. I can’t reiterate enough that making a character cheap doesn’t make for good difficulty. It will be difficult for sure, but not fun difficult. Seth is difficult in a way that feels like he shouldn’t be able to do what he is doing, but he’s doing it anyway. Good difficulty is a hard fight that’s hard because you felt like you where beaten by a genuinely skilled person, who has weaknesses that you can see, but covers for them well and that’s why you lost. Seth is not this.

There really isn’t much to say about the game that most people don’t already know; for the most part it’s the same old formula with updated graphics. If you’re already a street fighter fan, then you probably already have the game; if you’re a street fighter hater, then you won’t buy the game regardless of what I say. If you're ambivalent, the only option is to try the game yourself. Also, if you haven’t played a street fighter game before, be prepared to have your thumb suffer; I’ve played many street fighter games and I’m still not used to grinding my thumb against hard plastic for hours on end.