a href="http://www.battleofdestiny.com/>Battle of Destiny taking place at London Metropolitan University's Rocket Complex. It's the European qualifying event for the massive"Evolution fighting game tournament, celebrating its tenth anniversary in Las Vegas later this year. Even if you're not interested in seeing expert brawlers (what? why?), there's a casual zone where you can play Super Street Fighter II HD and... Street Fighter IV! They'll have six arcade machines linked up for VS play - the first chance for UK gamers to play the coin-op version this way.
Ah, Street Fighter - almost all gamers of a certain age have fond memories of playing SFII on the SNES. Later, one of my best ever reviews was an epic six-pager on Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha for Games Master. I painstakingly accessed the special attacks for every character, screen grabbing them all - a process that took me several hand-cramping hours.
It's great to see how XBLA has revived interest in traditional 2D fighting. Capcom's PR chap Leo Tan got it right when he explained why SF HD has been such a huge success on the platform - "Street Fighter II is the business. And also because we all got home drunk one night and downloaded it". Before the likes of Dance Dance Revolution and Singstar came along, SFII was the ultimate in post-pub gaming. Bouts are fast and frantic, the sound effects are great, the collision detection is pixel perfect providing instant visual gratification for successful moves. And it's fun to watch.
So, which Street Fighter character do you compete with and why?
