« Capcom Fight Club Impressions »

Only just weeks after announcing Super Street Fighter 4, Capcom held an event in NYC displaying it for the first time in public. While this was a noble attempt, I genuinely think Capcom should have held back a few weeks and maybe have shown off a more complete build that more people could play. Only a lucky few got to play the game up front against strong players such as Marn, Justin Wong, and Sanford Kelly, but it seems this really wasn't enough to satisfy the thirst of most of the players there, leaving an aura of disappointment in the building.

After getting to the venue during the day, there was a small line formed comprised of about ten people, none of them familiar, but all of them were friends of street fighter, over the three hours or so of waiting and conversation with old and new faces, we were let in early to avoid the crowding we were causing on the side walk. The first thing we saw when getting in the venue was a setup for the regular console version of Street Fighter 4.

A few minutes after being let in, and a conversation with Seth Killian later, we all found out that this wasn't exactly like the last event, only a lucky few would be able to play the game, a few chosen ones and some respected tournament players. While we didn't see much, there was a solid glimpse into the new characters, Deejay seemed to have a lot of resemblance to his ST counterpart, with a few new tricks up his sleeves. His normals looked as strong as ever, and he seemed like a pretty solid all rounder for a charge character. T Hawks normals were still as clunky and slow looking, but his damage looked pretty solid, and his horizontal hawk dive attack looked pretty safe, maybe enough to give him a decent pressure game. Juri looked fairly tricky, and perhaps more suited for advanced users, with her high speed, lower stamina, and strange moveset. There was a new mechanic introduced as well: wall bouncing, while not new to the street fighter series, is something not seen in the original version of 4.

While the mere taste of the game was nice, it wasn't enough to keep the crowd satisfied, talking to a lot of friends (and a few strangers), no one seemed to happy with the inability to actually play the game for themselves. There are no fingers to point, but next time, I think Capcom should take a bit more precaution next event and let us actually experience the new characters first hand. New Tatsunoko characters were playable for the second time in public, but most people played the game as a distraction, it was clearly second fiddle to Super Street Fighter 4

The pizza provided was very good for delivery, surprisingly, no one seemed disappointed with that at least. The swag offered was pretty swell too, a small towel, a t-shirt with Juri on it, the same C. Viper figurine in the special edition of Street Fighter 4, a comic book, two posters, and yet another Ryu headband is nothing to scoff at for a bunch of free goodies. The venue felt more narrow compared to the year prior, which lead to some cramping problems when they showed off footage of the game.

Overall the event, while not as stellar in content, was pretty solid for everything else, there wasn't anything bad, but I think Capcom shouldn't headline the event with playable Super Street Fighter 4, and a few people play it, but hey, at least the pizza was tasty.