I remember this relatively clearly. Somewhen during the early 90s my little posse would take the bus to some club (Tanglin Club?), where we would walk through the dark car park into this empty corridor. Down the corridor was this dinky little room. It was all very shady, really, like an underground gambling parlour. In a strange sense, it actually was.

The dinky little room’s width was barely enough for, say, one person to stretch their arms out fully. But the room was long, and along that length was a row of arcane machines. The dinky little room was full of dinky little kids like myself, all clusterfucked around a single machine.

Long before Dead or Alive’s revolutionary physics astounded us, there was Street Fighter II.

Life was simpler back then, before it got complicated by having to work for food. The sum of desire was to slot some coins into a machine and beat the crap out of the next guy.

Street Fighter II’s release in 1991 was a defining moment in gaming history. It transformed arcades from a place to hang out to the place to hang out. Never before have I stood at a machine to watch someone else play. While Street Fighter II’s main innovation – “special” or “combo” moves (↓ ↘ → Ⓟ – yeah, you know it) – actually started with the original Street Fighter, the original’s lackluster gameplay never brought it the popularity of its sequel.

The first Street Fighter also brought some things previously unseen in “vs fighting” games – blocking and the six button controls.

But it was Street Fighter II that brought a memorable cast of characters (the original only had the cosmetically different but otherwise identical Ryu and Ken), great graphics (a limited scrolling background giving an illusion of 3D) and a distinct aural experience – “Show-ryu-ken!”.

The character I used most, and, in fact, the only character I’ve ever completed Street Fighter II on, was Chun Li. Yes, even back then, I fight like a girl.

Chun Li herself is the first female character in a vs fighting game, and was amongst the first female video game characters to achieve widespread popularity. The first Tomb Raider would come five years after Street Fighter II.

Watch the totally awesome trailer.

Street Fighter II had one of the first video game movies, the 1994 Street Fighter, which crashed at the box office in spite of a relatively high profile cast, including Raúl Juliá in his last role, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Kylie Minogue. The movie also spawned, in one of those strange meta-chains, a video game. A video game based upon a movie based upon a video game.

The latest movie, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, released earlier this year, similarly crashed and burned.

And yet, such is the Street Fighter legacy that CollegeHumor’s parody series of short clips, “Street Fighter: The Later Years” was nominated for YouTube’s 2007 Video Awards (all nine parts are embedded in the post before this).

It’s been over 20 years since the original Street Fighter debuted in 1987, and eight years since the last iteration of the series, Street Fighter III Third Strike.

But all this is history.

What isn’t history is this –

Street Fighter IV is out now on PC.

TagTeam [ gaming PC X360 PS3 Capcom Street Fighter ]

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