Video Games
Ellyn, the kids, and I went today to see the new "Street Fighter" film at its very first showing in our town! In our modern age of dead culture where the last first-order innovation was Minecraft back in 2009, very rarely do I get excited for some piece of popular media.
I was only vaguely aware of the original title when I was a kid-- so like most people, I became familiar with the series when the second game initially came to arcades. I was mesmerized by the giant characters, all of the colors on screen, how "tight" the gameplay felt. "Up" jumps, and "Away" blocks? What a novel idea!
I watched with envy as the Super NES got a home conversion, while I had to wait a whole year for the eventual Sega Genesis port of "Turbo"-- which was called "Special Champion Edition" of course, due to legal reasons. In the lead-up to that release, I had the issue of "Game Informer" with screenshots on the school bus.
When the game finally did come out, I sat there for two hours on the first night trying to figure out how to throw a fireball! I bought the Genesis port of "Super" at Funcoland the day it came out. Later on in 1994, seeing the longbox of "Super Street Fighter II Turbo" on the shelf at Software Etc. was the final straw on the camel's back that made me had to have a 3DO. To this day, it's my second favorite video game of all time.
I played the "Alpha" series all through high school, along with "EX Plus Alpha" on the PSX, which I loved too. I remember calling in sick one day to my first IT job in 1999 because I had sat up all night marathoning the world tour mode with Ken in the PSX port of "Alpha 3".
I didn't care for III-- and that was the final mainline entry; all of the subsequent ones up through VI are actually part of the "Street Fighter EX" series, being polygonal. But that period from "II Turbo" all the way through "Alpha 3" were incredible.
So I'm a sucker for the series, and its characters and world are tops. So how about this new film then?
Well, it's one of those dopey 2020's movies which will age like junk and have everyone laughing at it in twenty years: "Oh, it was from that era of cinema... yuck." But for what it is-- a silly CGI movie with corny Marvel-esque one-liners-- it was well done. By 2026 they've sort of mastered the art of how to make bad movies.
I was surprised by the hipsterish animated sequences throughout-- not a fan of that style, it's sort of artificial, like "this is what you think animation used to be like, not like it actually was". It was also weird having some of the characters, especially Blanka, be human faces sort of "glued" to CGI models-- a little uncanny valley.
In terms of canon, it takes place between the original "Street Fighter" and the first "Alpha". I won't say more than that. On the vein of not giving away any spoilers, they big-time set it up for a sequel. So I'm sure we will have "Street Fighter II: The Movie". Then maybe we can get "Street Fighter II: The Movie: The Game", and get Van Damme to be Guile's dad, or something.
It would be fun if our culture would ever come off life support and start making serious, first-order movies again. But "Street Fighter" scraps are better than starving to death.
I was only vaguely aware of the original title when I was a kid-- so like most people, I became familiar with the series when the second game initially came to arcades. I was mesmerized by the giant characters, all of the colors on screen, how "tight" the gameplay felt. "Up" jumps, and "Away" blocks? What a novel idea!
I watched with envy as the Super NES got a home conversion, while I had to wait a whole year for the eventual Sega Genesis port of "Turbo"-- which was called "Special Champion Edition" of course, due to legal reasons. In the lead-up to that release, I had the issue of "Game Informer" with screenshots on the school bus.
When the game finally did come out, I sat there for two hours on the first night trying to figure out how to throw a fireball! I bought the Genesis port of "Super" at Funcoland the day it came out. Later on in 1994, seeing the longbox of "Super Street Fighter II Turbo" on the shelf at Software Etc. was the final straw on the camel's back that made me had to have a 3DO. To this day, it's my second favorite video game of all time.
I played the "Alpha" series all through high school, along with "EX Plus Alpha" on the PSX, which I loved too. I remember calling in sick one day to my first IT job in 1999 because I had sat up all night marathoning the world tour mode with Ken in the PSX port of "Alpha 3".
I didn't care for III-- and that was the final mainline entry; all of the subsequent ones up through VI are actually part of the "Street Fighter EX" series, being polygonal. But that period from "II Turbo" all the way through "Alpha 3" were incredible.
So I'm a sucker for the series, and its characters and world are tops. So how about this new film then?
Well, it's one of those dopey 2020's movies which will age like junk and have everyone laughing at it in twenty years: "Oh, it was from that era of cinema... yuck." But for what it is-- a silly CGI movie with corny Marvel-esque one-liners-- it was well done. By 2026 they've sort of mastered the art of how to make bad movies.
I was surprised by the hipsterish animated sequences throughout-- not a fan of that style, it's sort of artificial, like "this is what you think animation used to be like, not like it actually was". It was also weird having some of the characters, especially Blanka, be human faces sort of "glued" to CGI models-- a little uncanny valley.
In terms of canon, it takes place between the original "Street Fighter" and the first "Alpha". I won't say more than that. On the vein of not giving away any spoilers, they big-time set it up for a sequel. So I'm sure we will have "Street Fighter II: The Movie". Then maybe we can get "Street Fighter II: The Movie: The Game", and get Van Damme to be Guile's dad, or something.
It would be fun if our culture would ever come off life support and start making serious, first-order movies again. But "Street Fighter" scraps are better than starving to death.