In Third Person

For the last few months, PGR 4 has been my go-to "bored game". When I don't feel like playing any other video game in my collection, I pop PGR 4 into my 360. Not to say that PGR 4 is a bad game, but racing games aren't really my scene. I get bored quickly of any arcade racing game that isn't Mario Kart and realistic racing games such as Gran Turismo and Forza frustrate me to no end due to their demand of precision driving control skills that I just don't have. The only reason I even have this game is because it came free, along with a chat pad and headset when I bought last year's subscription to XBOX Live.

I am not one to be trusted for a definitive judgement on PGR 4 if you haven't already played it. I just wanted to write down a few impressions I have on the game after playing it for a few hours.

While not as demanding control-wise as the GT or Forza series, PGR 4 does demand the precise use of the gas pedal, brakes and emergency brake for drifting. There are a number of different cars and motorcycles for you to choose and unlock, which allows you to try and find the car that best fits your driving style. I much preferred to drive the motorcycles, though I still don't think I'm playing this game properly. I don't think it's so much a fault with the game as it is a fault in my ability. When I drive through corners, I almost never make a smooth turn, which usually ends in me either going too slow and having to smash the gas half way into the turn, or crashing into the wall because I approached it too quickly. I know that I suck at this style of gameplay and have accepted that. However, on easy difficulty, I have been doing at least well enough to make progress in the arcade and career modes.


Speaking of modes, the game comes with an arcade mode, a fairly extensive career mode and a number of online modes, which I haven't dared to attempt. I'm sure they're fun for driving fans, but I know that I'm not good enough to do any better than last place in any given race. With that said, I've spent most of my time in arcade and career modes.

Regardless of which way you go, you will encounter a number of different race types and cars the game rewards you with when you score enough "Kudos". Maybe I would get into it more if I had more of a vested interest in these cars, but unlocking cars isn't all that fun to me. It's just a mechanic I do in order to keep up with everyone else.

I've been having enough fun with the game to come back to it in short doses every now and then, but beyond my lack of driving skills, the biggest hurdle I'm running into is that the game lacks "soul". Everything about the game just feels so stock and standard that I couldn't pick PGR 4 out of a group of other major driving games. The presentation of everything is very bland and I just feel like I'm being shuffled along from one race to the other with no real excitement behind it. It's hard for me to personally invest in a game that isn't really doing much to grab me.

Once again, I am by no means an expert in this entire genre, so my opinion may be useless to you. I still think that PGR 4 is a good game to check out if you're into this genre thanks to its great graphics and relatively solid gameplay. For driving newbies like me, I don't think PGR 4 does anything to convert you into the next racing sensation. As a game I got for free, I'm glad to have it as a go-to "bored game", but it won't ever make my main rotation.

As far as I know, I am currently not a father. I'm not done living the "free" adult life at this point in time. However, at some point I would totally love to be a father. I don't really think that much about it, but when I do, I often think about how I would introduce video games into the life (or lives) of my future little ones.

When I first started thinking about it way back when, my initial stance was almost anti-video game. I had this idea in my head that I can somehow shelter my children from video games long enough for them to value such things as human interaction and playing outside. Realistically, that's not going to happen, considering that 99% of boys and 94% of girls nowadays play video games. If my kid is in the minority that doesn't play video games, I won't force them down their throat.

Realistically, I'm still going to be a gamer when I'm a dad, and I won't be able to hide everything I have. If my kid gets curious, how do I introduce this medium to them?


The "nerd-romantic" answer is, "Start them from the beginning." I'm just old enough that the first video game system I ever owned was a hand-me-down Atari 2600. For the most part, I've been able to experience this medium in its entirety. I love the idea of starting my child at the beginning and having them see where this medium came from and where it's going. That in itself is probably too much to ask from a child ages 3-4. The other advantage of starting out with the old stuff is that (to an extent), old games were simpler back then.

There are a number of holes in this logic though. For one, you wouldn't introduce your kids to film and music with early Charlie Chaplin works or Gone With the Wind. Why do that with video games? Also, the moment your kids see other children playing "Hot Game Y", it doesn't matter how old or new it is. They'll just want whatever everyone else is playing.


For me, the true magic for me happened when I first played Super Mario. Over the years, I have seen a number of kids begin their life-long journeys with later Super Mario games, such as Mario World, Mario 64 and New Super Mario Bros Wii. While the Mario games weren't always the easiest to pick-up-and-play, millions of kids around the world made the effort to figure it out because the games were that appealing. I wouldn't mind at all starting my child off on Mario, but more what I'm trying to get to is the idea of starting them off on games that they find interesting. Mario is very much kid-friendly. I just cringe at the day when my child wants me to buy them "Disney Movie Tie-In Shovelware Game X".

Not to meander too much, but that last sentence brings up the idea of gaming taste. Part of the appeal of being the one to introduce your kids to video games is that you can (to a point) control what your kids play. I would like to think that my future child would have awesome gaming taste, but there's no stopping a determined child from playing "Shovelware Game X" at some point. Sometimes you just have to learn the hard way.


Or how about going in a completely different direction? Nowadays, there are more kid-friendly educational options than ever. Maybe something like a Leapster would be the best way to go. In my day, I wouldn't touch the obviously kiddie stuff with a 10-foot pole, but if you get it in early enough, my future child could have a blast with it and ease their way into a medium I love.

I suspect that I won't have to make a choice on this for at least a few more years. Until then, I'll mull over all of the potential options and keep my Atari working in case I actually want to start my future child from the very beginning. Good luck with my copy of E.T., future kid.

*The post title may be exaggerating, a bit.

Rambo on the original Nintendo is a game I fondly remember for all the wrong reasons. Back when I was no more than 8 years old, I rented this at my local video store. It was the worst video game I've ever rented.

The problem with the game is that it starts out with the most obtuse and confusing hub world I've ever experienced in a video game. I found myself walking left and right across the screen, going into every door and I couldn't find a way out to actually play the game. Never before had I been so stumped as to how to actually start the game. Without the help of the Internet available to me, I never figured out how to get out of that hub world. What a waste of a two-day rental.

Many years later, I tried to play it again using an emulator. I said to myself I wouldn't use a guide to get through that hub world, just to see if I was a dumb kid that didn't know any better. Nope. I played it for a good 20 minutes and still couldn't figure it out.

If I wanted to go back now and actually play through it, I probably could. However, from all accounts I've heard about NES Rambo, they all say it's terrible. For all the things I've said about bad game design, in my heart I still think the Rambo hub world is the absolute worst thing I've ever encountered.

To most people, Air Fortress is a game they've never heard of. According to the Wikipedia page for the game (so the validity of this fact is questionable), only 385 copies of the game came out in the US. In any case, this is not a game anyone will mention, ever. This is a shame to me, because I think it's a pretty awesome 8-bit action game. The game also has a strong sentimental value with me, but first, let me explain what the game was about if you've never heard of it. I've included a video below as well to further explain.



The game was half side-scrolling space shooter, and the other half of the game was action-adventure. Each level started with you flying towards the fortress entrance, shootings enemies and dodging environmental obstacles. Once you were inside the fortress, you would travel around the environment in your jet-pack, looking to blow up the core of the fortress and escape on your ship before the whole place blows up.

At the time, I thought the mash-up of gameplay styles made sense and was highly inventive. In particular, I thought the fortress gameplay was really good. With the exception of the first level, you couldn't play a level straight through. In order to beat a level, you had to blow up the core of the fortress, then find your ship before it blows up. However, you don't want to start looking for your ship after you blow up the core, which forced you to find your ship first, then blow up the core, then try and memorize how to get back to your ship before its too late. It was a unique gameplay mechanic that added a lot to the depth of Air Fortress.

I discovered this game through my cousin. It was a game that grabbed the entire family based on its premise and fun gameplay. Not everybody wanted to save the galaxy, but everyone from my cousins to the parents would crowd around the television and watch whoever was playing. The only other game I think to ever capture my entire family like that was Wii Sports. We would keep a master list of all the passwords and even act as navigators to whoever was playing. Keep in mind that this game had no in-game map whatsoever, which made navigating through the levels pretty difficult.


Besides being a great, under-appreciated game and a family favourite, Air Fortress holds a special spot in my heart as arguably my very first video game achievement. I vividly remember the moment I beat the first level in that game, which was the first time I beat any level in any game on my own. I was so excited by my accomplishment, that I ran around the room uncontrollably and actually broke my cousin's Nintendo in the process. Oops. That moment might also actually be the reason my cousin isn't into video games today. I'm sorry.

The Metroid series of games have carved out a weird niche in my memories. I've always felt that the games were really cool and I've always wanted to play them through to completion, but I never do. In many cases, I never get far at all.

When the original came out, I rented it just because I thought the box art was cool. Keep in mind I was probably in Kindergarten at the time I first played it. Back then, I thought that being able to travel left, right, up and down was cool, and the ability to roll up into a ball was neat, but I never got the point of it. I was too young to comprehend how to actually play the game and navigate the world. To me, I ran around and shot monsters until I got bored.

It wasn't till I got older and tried Super Metroid when I finally understood what the game was about. I played through the opening sequence at some event with Super Nintendo systems set up and thought it was awesome. Having world maps also helped me out greatly. I still find it amazing that kids navigated through the entirety of the original Metroid without a map. I've even heard personal stories of people who would draw their own maps on graph paper in order to get through. I only got to play the game for a few minutes at that event, but I really liked what I tried.


I wouldn't buy my first Metroid game until Metroid Prime came out on the Gamecube. The reviews for the game were sky-high. I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to jump into the series at the same time as everyone else. From what I played of it, I thought it was spectacular. I loved how expansive the world was and how air-tight the controls were. I really felt like I was a lone bounty hunter exploring the galaxy. What ultimately killed the game for me though was the same thing that stopped me from playing the first Metroid: navigating the world. Even with the map and the assists, I got to a weird point very late in the game where I had no idea how to actually get to the marker on the map. I would go on to buy the second Metroid Prime game, which I never even opened.

Since then, I have tried to go back to both the original and Super Metroid with no such luck. I still suffer the same problem that I do in every other Metroid game, even with maps and assists. I get lost to the point that I can't play these games anymore. Not to condemn the games, because I know many gamers who have loved and beaten these and other Metroid style games. Maybe I just suck at this style of gameplay that features back-tracking and requires a stronger sense of direction. However, I've beaten both Bioshock and Batman: Arkham Asylum, which do feature Metroid-style elements to it when it comes to navigating the world. Maybe Samus Aran and I just weren't made for each other.

Based on my Google analytics stats, virtually nobody reads this blog. The majority of the hits are from myself, making sure my posts are formatted properly and don't have any spelling mistakes. Every now and then I'll get a few hits from random parts of the world. But for the most part, traffic to this blog is a joke. I admit, I haven't tried very hard to promote it: I infrequently update the In Third Person Twitter feed, which has 0 followers as of this post, and outside of my girlfriend (whom I've kept this blog a secret for about 6 months) nobody I personally know even knows this exists.

With all that said, I love maintaining this blog. I don't write in this blog to get attention, or to engage in deep discussions with others about the medium, or to build a portfolio of work so that I can become a game journalist. I haven't told anybody I know because I don't want them reading this. They wouldn't care and would probably look down on me for it. More than anything, it's a place for me to vent my thoughts about a medium I love, regardless of who wants to read or comment on what I have to say. If no one does, that's fine. It's the act of getting these thoughts out of my head that makes this therapeutic for me in a way.

Ever since I moved away from my original gamer friend when I was 13, places for me to voice my thoughts and feelings about video games have been scarce. While a number of my friends play games, I don't really have anyone to talk to about how beautiful the mechanics are on Super Mario's jump, or how I disagree with what "person X" said on "video game podcast Y". The moment I begin to dabble in more deeper video game discussion is always the moment I weird people out around me. I'm thankful to have a girlfriend that puts up with me talking about video games, but I don't expect her in a million years to care about why I think Fire Emblem is one of the most underrated video game series of all-time. Nor would I want her to care about that, unless she got into that series on her own and loved it as much as I do. I'm totally happy with her being her own person, even if that means we don't like video games the same way.


That still leaves the Internet as a possible place to let it out. More than ever, there are outlets for people to discuss everything related to games. I often frequent other video game blogs and message boards to see what people have to say. However, I have no interest in joining these particular conversations because I don't like participating in message boards. I just like to lurk. I could even sign up for a video game blog on a site like IGN or 1up, but I didn't feel comfortable with that, either.

For me, this has felt like the best solution. I have run blogs in the past, but none of them were formatted to best suit video game discussion. With that experience, I've just gone all-out to say what I want to say about a medium I've had a life-long affair with. Over here, I can say my piece on my own terms. Having eyes on my writing is secondary. Just getting out of my head is what matters most to me. If others enjoy my writing though, you're more than welcome to continue following me as I spill my release some pent-up gaming thoughts I've held in my head for days, if not years.

1993 was a very big year in gaming for me. It was the year I got a Super Nintendo for my birthday and the year I read my first video game magazine. Both of those moments were key in making me the enthusiast I am today, for better or worse. I won't talk about the Super Nintendo experience this time. I wanted to write about that magazine and how it completely changed my media consumption habits.

On my birthday, my best friend at the time gave me a baseball cap and a copy of Gamepro magazine. It had Battletoads on the cover and featured a pull-out Street Fighter II Turbo guide. At the time, I didn't have a copy of any Street Fighter game nor could I even throw a Hadoken, but I poured over that guide for hours thinking about the day when I could actually pull off those sweet combos or implement this strategy into how I played that game. Truth be told, I never really followed through on any third-party Street Fighter knowledge until last year. In any case, reading about how intricate that game could be played opened my eyes to how awesome that game was.

From that point on, video game media became a part of my life. With a few dollars of allowance or birthday money in hand, I would head down to the local convenience store and pick up a video game magazine. For a while, I would just pick up anything. As my tastes refined though, I was all about Electronic Gaming Monthly. Unlike video game media of today, which is essentially a landslide of up-to-the-minute news, previews, reviews and features that come and go within hours, getting that video game magazine once a month was an event. I would often buy snacks to go along with my magazine reading and often go through the magazines together with a friend and discuss what games look hot in previews and what games we would check out based on their review scores.

In a way, video game magazines also helped me make friends and helped improve my ability to read and write. I never really got into novels, but my love of reading stuff in a magazine form has transcended way beyond video games.


Nowadays, I don't read video game magazines anymore. Heck, I stopped reading video game magazines regularly around 1998. I have been getting the majority of my video game media from websites and podcasts ever since. Often times though, I do yearn to sit down with a video game magazine and read through it. Every now and then, I would buy an EGM just for that experience, but the magazine closed down at the beginning of 2009. All the other magazines out there either don't speak to me or are really expensive.

When the magazine does return this year, will it be any good? What will it do to keep someone like me who gets the brunt of their information from the Internet interested? Whatever the case, I am looking forward to the magazine's return.

Before I invested in an XBOX 360, I was starved for core games as a Wii-only owner. I was going through a drought in games to play, and the Wii version of The Godfather was starting to pick up buzz. I had never watched a Godfather movie or played a Grand Theft Auto game before, the promise of being able to point my Wii remote as a gun or beat thugs down with swinging fist motions seemed really cool. Also, when you don't have that many options to choose from, you're more willing to step outside your comfort zone for some satisfaction.

I picked this up on day one, not quite knowing what to expect really. I had read the reviews and seen this trailer, but not having played this style of game before didn't give me any real context to base my own opinions from.

If you haven't played this, or have played the non-Wii versions of the game, you're probably wondering how the controls perform. While they are not perfect, I thought they were very satisfying, especially in combat. I loved the ability to aim the gun with my hand and beating guys down by actually throwing punches did add to the experience. In particular, I liked all the things you could do when you grabbed a guy. Most famously among my high school friends, I grabbed a prostitute in the game and threw her off a balcony. Yeah, that wasn't the most gentlemanly thing of me to do.

At the time, I thought the game was really fun. I can't really speak on how closely the story followed the movie, but there weren't any missions that stood out to me as annoying, boring or bad. I liked the side stuff where you could shake down local store owners to take control away from rival gangs. This process was kind of repetitive, but I enjoyed it enough to shake down every store and bar owner in New York. Having played a number of GTA games since then, I thought The Godfather: Blackhand Edition stacks up fairly well. It's ultimately not as good, but if you're looking for more open-world goodness, it was a good game to check out.

The only glaring flaw I remember clearly about the game were its visuals. Unfortunately, the graphics aren't the greatest, especially when playing on an LCD or plasma TV. One weird thing though is that I found the game to look just fine on a CRTV. Regardless of what TV you have, the art style does not cover up the technical deficiencies put on the system due to the large open-world.

If you're still looking for core games to play on the Wii, I recommend you check out The Godfather: Blackhand Edition. I'm sure you can pick this one up for dirt cheap used.

Due to the varying interests and skill levels, finding games for my girlfriend and I to enjoy on the same level is difficult. Every now and then she'll play one of "my" games and I'll play "her" games, but I can only really think of one video game series that we can really call "ours". That series, is Boom Blox for the Wii.

If you're not familiar with the critically acclaimed and lukewarm selling Boom Blox series of games, I'll give you a very quick rundown of what it's about. Boom Blox has a number of different game types, all of which revolve around interacting with blocks. This includes throwing baseballs at a stack of blocks, skillfully removing blocks Jenga style, hitting blocks into multipliers and more. Sure, that description sounds really lame and even watching videos of the game doesn't sell the game that well. But when you get that Wii remote in your hand and you knock down a giant stack of blocks to the chagrin of your opponent(s), you'll get it.

Your girlfriend will too. Well, at least mine did. And a few other girls I know with boyfriends got it as well. Heck, pretty much everyone I've put Boom Blox in front of has loved it. It's a shame that Boom Blox has not caught on with the masses, because it's awesome for everyone. But I'm not here to talk about everyone. This post is just about Steff and I.


What makes this game universally appealing is the gameplay. It is extremely easy for anybody to figure out almost instantly, but tricky to master. Most of the game modes also do not require twitch reflexes, which takes out another layer of difficulty. Where it lacks in twitch gameplay it makes up for in strategy. During that moment when you've figured out the absolute best way to handle your situation and the reward is watching a hundred blocks fly off into oblivion, it just feels good.

As a competitive multiplayer game, both Boom Blox games are a blast to play. They're almost as easy as Wii Sports in terms of universal pick-up-and-play appeal with a steeper learning curve for anyone looking to take it to the next level. My girlfriend and I often duel in Boom Blox and the competition is always heated. Unfortunately for me, she wins more than I do. Even as a single player game though, it can be fun to work out levels together. One person can be in charge with the Wii remote and together you can form a plan of action.

Whether we're battling to the death for Boom Blox champion supremacy or working together to solve crazy block puzzles, the Boom Blox series of games are awesome to play together.

I can't go anywhere without my iPod Touch. As my all-in-one mini computer, I use it for everything from media consumption, note-taking and games. While I was swept up in Peggle fever a few months back, one game has remained a staple in my iPod Touch game library. That game is Drop 7. It's by no measure a new game. I bought the game months before I started this blog, and even then it wasn't new. However, I have consistently gone back to this game and play it almost daily. It's a great and simple game that is perfect to play on the go.

If you haven't tried it yet (you have no reason not to, because there's a free demo available), the game is sort of like a mix between Tetris and Sudoku, though that's not entirely accurate either. I have a very hard time articulating how to actually play this game, but within two plays, it just clicked for me. From then on, I was hooked on dropping my numbered tiles into the well to make other blocks disappear. It has a very similar appeal to Tetris in a way. The big difference, besides the matching of numbers and column/row lengths, is that you have complete control over when you drop your pieces. This makes the game much easier to jump into or jump out of, because you can play it at your own pace.

There are three modes of play: Normal, Hardcore and Sequence. I played normal for a while, but got good to the point where a game would last me 45 minutes to an hour. Now, I play almost exclusively Hardcore, which can be over and done with in five-minutes or less. Sequence is a mode I never really got into, because it's been the same puzzle for me every time.

Not much else to say other than that. Drop 7 is a great puzzle game that has such a solid gameplay concept around it that it could last you forever. There is a free demo on iTunes for you to try out as well.

In November of 2007, Super Mario Galaxy was released to great fanfare. It received eye-popping reviews and a number of awards. I bought the game on day 1, but for a number of reasons, didn't actually play it until a few months after the fact.

When I finally did play it though, I found myself in the midst of Nintendo magic. Even without the benefit of HD, Mario Galaxy is pretty to look at. The orchestrated soundtrack is excellent. For the most part, it controls really well. Most importantly, the game's unique take on 3D platforming was highly refreshing and creative.

However, I got about 40 stars before I just stopped playing the game. Up until recently, I hadn't played the game in years and forgot why I stopped playing it in the first place. After about an hour of playing the game again, I remembered why.


For everything that this game does right (which is just about everything), this game just didn't hook me in. I never felt the urge to keep playing or the inability to put the controller down. When I really like a game, it becomes like cocaine to me to the point where I will spend every minute possible with it till I beat it. I liked what Nintendo did with this game, and wouldn't really ask them to change anything about it, but I'm having a hard time finding the motivation in me to keep playing this game.

I don't think it's necessarily a fault in the game. I think it might have something to do with me at this point in my gaming life, though I'm not so sure about that, either. Sure, I spend most of my time playing more mature content, such as Modern Warfare 2, Street Fighter IV and the Mass Effect series, but I still managed to finish New Super Mario Bros. Wii in a matter of months rather than a matter of years. And it's not necessarily a 3D bias either, because Super Mario 64 holds a very special place in my nerd heart.

Regardless of what it might be, I don't know where Super Mario Galaxy went "wrong" with me. I'm still aiming on beating it before Super Mario Galaxy 2 comes out later this month, but I won't make any promises.

I'm still playing (and for the most part) enjoying Skate, which I'm playing at a very leisurely pace. While it's a lot of fun to just cruise around the world and bust tricks, there are some very awkward design choices that can annoy the heck out of you when you play Skate. The inability to walk can be infuriating due to the way the world is designed. Bystanders always seem to get in the way of your objectives, which leaves you skating into them more than you would like. But I wanted to talk about one very specific case of poor game design that drove me nuts.

Three things I need to tell you to set the scenario up for you:

1) Skate exists in one persistent open world. You can skate anywhere in the city seamlessly. However, should you want to warp to different parts of town, you can go to a subway station and use the train. When you do this, you're faced with a loading time while the game loads in the new area.

2) Much of the Skate experience is trial and error. It gives you a challenge, and you try and try again until you get it. To make the process faster, the game allows you to mark your own starting points that you can instantly warp back to the point should you need to.

3) There is a challenge in the game called "Gap It Up". In it, you have to skate over a bridge, hop onto a ramp, then jump over a huge gap. If you need to visualize it, I'll put a video in below.



This is where the game design weirdness takes place. The game starts you off pretty far away from the actual jump. You can set your own marker closer to the jump, but you then won't have enough speed to get past the first bump, which you can see in 0:04 of the video. At 0:06 of the video, you have to make and land that jump while scoring a certain number of points to complete the objective.

In the video, the player nailed it just fine. If you screw it up though, and you want to snap back to your starting position, the game actually takes you out of the game and drops you into a 15-second load time before you can retry the challenge. I don't know if this is happening because I'm too far away from the starting marker, or because the starting point and the ending point are between seams of the world that need to be reloaded in when jumping from one place to the next.

In every other scenario that I have encountered in Skate so far, I can hold the left bumper and press up on the D-pad and instantly warp back to where I started. However, in this one instance, the game completely breaks its flow by forcing you to sit through load times every time you screw up that trick. The loading is actually longer than the time it would take for you to even attempt the trick and if you screw up a lot (like I did), then you'll be watching a lot of seemingly pointless loading.

This is not a game-breaking flaw in Skate, but I think it was a poor design choice to let this happen. If you're going to give the player the ability to snap back to their starting position from the beginning of the game, it should work that way always. Making me then sit through 15 seconds of loading to retry an 8-second trick is nothing short of infuriating, especially when I have to see this load screen 4-5 times in less than two minutes.

If you reach this site through http://www.inthirdperson.com, you probably already know this move happened. However, if you access this site through Blogger or through an RSS feed, I need to let you know that I'm now at http://thirdpersonblog.wordpress.com. Please update your information accordingly.

Why did this happen? A few days ago, my blog got shut down because Google robots flagged it as a spam blog. Apparently, they did not take too kindly to my blogging etiquette of giving credit and links to people I use images from. Because only IGN had decent Street Fighter IV iPhone images, I used a bunch of those and gave them multiple credits.

I immediately requested a review to have it unlocked, which I was told would take two business days. It did not. A few more days passed, I began to freak out, and then Google reset my lock and I had to re-request an unlock. It was at this point where I became scared for my writings. I didn't want to lose them because some robots thought I was polluting the Internet.

So, I moved everything to Wordpress. Ironically, just as I finished the process, Google unlocked this blog. Thanks.

It's kind of a bummer that I've done a bunch of extra work to essentially do the exact same thing, but I was very disappointed in how Google handled the situation and frankly, I prefer the extra blogging features that Wordpress provides that I can't easily implement here on Blogger. I think the move will be better in the long run.

With that said, I will not be posting anything else from this particular address. Please continue to follow me at www.inthirdperson.com and update your RSS feeds accordingly.

"...like the thought of eating a steak topped with ice cream, the recently announced Street Fighter IV iPhone port has made me throw up in my mouth just a little bit. I can't imagine this being anything but an absolute nightmare to play." - Me.

Up until the recent release of Street Fighter IV on the iPhone, I expected nothing less than garbage from this mobile port. In my previous post, I provided a bunch of reasons to support my initial feelings towards the final product. But then, the positive word-of-mouth online began to bubble. As a Street Fighter IV junkie, this was enough to push me over the edge and give this $10 app a shot. To my surprise, Street Fighter IV on the iPhone does very well considering the platform its on, providing players with a fun fighting game that controls well enough. This opinion is coming from someone with over 3,000 online wins on the XBOX 360 version. I'm definitely not the Diago or Justin Wong of the scene, and you don't have to trust any of what I say after this, but I've played enough Street Fighter to say that this version of it is really fun and I can't put it down.

Let's the get the obvious out of the way: no, this version does not have the best controls. The on-screen joystick does a good job of moving your fighter around the screen, but the precision to pull off special moves consistently isn't there. I could throw fireballs and hurricane kicks relatively easily, but executing a dragon punch is something I still can't do consistently. Charge moves were a bit easier for me, but I've read that some people have issues with that as well. I think if you really wanted to dedicate yourself to being an iPhone Street Fighter champ the "legit" way, you could practice on that interface and get pretty decent. For everyone else, I recommend enabling the "SP" button.


Speaking of the buttons, Capcom made some concessions to the controls to make the gameplay better suited for an iPhone. Instead of using a six-button layout, users get four buttons: punch, kick, focus and special. The game comes with three different button layouts, but you're free to customize the location of the buttons and joystick, as well as the opacity of the buttons. You can get some variations in punches and kicks depending on your situation and what direction you hold the joystick, but the game basically goes with the best or most likely button you would press in that situation. For instance, as a Ryu player, I appreciated that when you jump in and hit the kick button, the game responds with a forward kick, giving me the ability to cross-up my opponent. If you come into this game knowing how to play each character properly, for the most part the limitations don't matter. When you manually do special moves, you will always do the hard punch or hard kick version of that move. Die hard players will notice and maybe be disappointed by this lack of depth, but I think within the context of this particular version, it's good enough.

The focus attack button works just as you would expect it to. As for the special button, it acts as a simpler way to execute special moves. The closest parallel I can think of to the special button is the way Smash Bros. uses its special button. You will get a different special move depending on the direction you hold the joystick. Street Fighter purists may scoff at "nerfing" the inputs, but those people can go into the options and turn this off. By default, this option is off. For myself, I love using the special button. I don't think it breaks the game, because real Street Fighter players know that the game isn't really about your ability to do special moves, but rather your ability to combine all your moves together into a cohesive offense. The special button will not turn a newbie into a grand master.

Working within the limitations of the platform, I much prefer enabling the special button. I don't feel like I'm cheating using it. I feel like it allows me to play this game more like I would on the 360 or the arcade, because it increases the likelihood of me properly executing my special moves. With some practice, I was even able to consistently hit Ryu's classic shoryuken FADC into ultra on the iPhone; a combo I can't consistently do on the 360 controller.


All things considered, I think the controls work well within this particular version of Street Fighter IV. If you can get over the fact that some concessions were made to streamline the experience, that manually pulling off special moves can be tricky and that activating super or ultra moves will take a bit of practice when in the middle of a combo, it's fairly good for what it is and it's surprisingly, a lot of fun to play.

Enough about the controls. How does the rest of the game stack up? As far as graphics go, it looks great for an iPhone game. To make this experience work, Capcom chose to go with sprites instead of 3D characters, and all the backgrounds are static images. It looks great nonetheless. I don't think the frame-rate is 30 frames per second, it does stay steady. The audio is identical to the arcade and home ports, making this feel like home for any seasoned Street Fighter IV veterans. The only major omission is the song "Indestructible", but that may be for the best. The game engine is 100% Street Fighter. Everything behaves the way it does in the other ports, meaning that all of the move properties and priorities are in place. With the exception of a few missing normal moves, you can still pull off most of the combos and juggles from its counterparts, which is pretty amazing considering the platform it's on.

The game comes with eight characters: Ryu, Ken, Chun Li, Blanka, Abel, Dhalsim, Guile and M. Bison. It's a bummer that less than 1/3 of the Street Fighter IV cast is represented here, but I guess Capcom had to make cuts somewhere. Maybe they'll add more characters via DLC. Considering the eight choices they made, they were all pretty safe bets and odds are you already play one of those eight. I main Akuma, but Ryu and Ken are close enough, and my secondary is Abel, who plays just as I would expect him to here.

The game doesn't have the more frivolous options such as time attack or survival modes, but it does have a main single player mode (that lets you save replays of any match), a training mode (with most of the options you would expect), tutorials on how to play the game as well as a challenge mode to strut your combo skills. There is no wi-fi or 3G play in this one, but it does support Bluetooth local multiplayer. No online play is a bummer, but I'm sure that any attempt at online Street Fighter on a phone at this point would be a total mess.

The only other bummers I wanted to mention are the loading times, battery consumption and sound options. The game does feature some loading times, which does hamper the quickness of the experience a bit. This game will also destroy your battery, as it is a processor-heavy game. I love the sounds of Street Fighter IV, but not giving me the option to listen to my own music or podcasts while playing it is a huge letdown. My biggest pet peeve when it comes to applications is when apps don't let me listen to my own music while I use them.

Overall, this version of Street Fighter IV on the iPhone has me eating my words. Capcom brought in the right amount of Street Fighter IV goodness onto a mobile platform, making it a lot of fun to play for lapsed Street Fighter fans or Street Fighter IV enthusiasts like me. At $10, it's a bit pricey as far as apps go. For me personally, it's a great game at $10 and I will definitely get my moneys worth. If you still can't stomach paying $10 for it, wait for the moment it inevitably goes on sale. Street Fighter fans will not be disappointed with this one.