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When
I first read my review schedule for this quarter, my initial
thought was GODDAMIT!!! Since the release of the original Street
Fighter I haven’t been a fan which I’m sure will be to many
regular readers disgust. For some reason I’ve never been able to
pull off the moves/specials attacks. I never had a problem with
other one-on-one beat-‘em-ups such as Mortal Kombat or Soul
Calibur. So I begrudgingly picked up the controller, and began
what is often referred to as “work”.
To
my surprise I found that the game was a lot better than I had
anticipated. Although the action seems a bit clunky, it smoothes
out after a while when you adjust to the speed. Capcom bundled
together five different fighting games to makes this title,
characters from Street Fighter II, Street Fighter III,
Street Fighter Alpha, Dark Stalkers and Red Earth
appear with a wholly new variety of backdrops.
While
playing the game you find that the buttons feel just as
unresponsive as you remember from Street Fighter II on the
SNES; so you have to learn to adjust your tactics so you can pull
off the moves.  During gameplay the backdrops are very nicely drawn
but poorly animated, with multiple characters standing still while
the occasional arm moving or a head turns here and there. The
special effects are fairly cool and the title features large
character sprites, which allows you to see what you are doing and
makes for a few wincing moments.
As
stated above, the title features a nice variety of characters from
Ryu from Street Fighter II to Pyron from Dark Stalkers
to Kenji from Red Earth. However, it appears that the
characters may not have been particularly well balanced, meaning
certain characters clearly have the edge over their competition,
with different Special Meters for the different guest games
allowing you to  build specials to different degrees.
With
an extensive history of fighting games, its hard to make a game
that will not only live up to the 2D beat-‘em-ups of today, but
that will also please the fans whilst staying true to the original
intention for developing such a title. I think Capcom have honoured
the industry by releasing this game on the Xbox, the system is a
lot more capable and although there may not be such a wide audience
on the system the title definitely feels more suited than on its
opposition.
When
you play on XboxLIVE! you find there is a lot of lag time,
which makes the moves harder to pull off, and can get quite
annoying. Although it’s enjoyable to paste some unknown opponent
from half way across the globe, it doesn’t really make up for
that dodgy lag time.
Since
the evolution of the  home console’s the arcade industry has
dropped off. With most games going straight to the home consoles,
there’s not a lot of support for arcades, that’s why arcades
are filled with 2p pusher’s and fruit machines. Although there
are a lot of other fighting games on the market, most games of
today are 3D, does that mean there is no room for 2D games anymore?
Compared to earlier Capcom fighting games it’s a lot faster. The
graphics are sharper, special effects are a lot more impressive and
the character sprites are nice and large. It’s such shame that
the same level of attention clearly hasn’t been used on the
backdrops; although looking gorgeously hand-drawn, the distinct
lack of animation falls behind competitors. The title features a
terrible sound track, which doesn’t sound like it should be part
of a fighting game.
With
Street Fighter III: Third Strike already released on the
Xbox it seems hardly worth while releasing this game on the system.
Street Fighter III: Third Strike is far superior to Capcom
Fighting Jam, but that doesn’t mean this game isn’t worth
buying, despite all its bad points it’s still a pretty good
beat-em-up.
 
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