Street Fighter IV returns players to an era of old-school arcade brawling games, but you wouldn't be able to tell from looking at the videos or screenshots. The updated 3D graphics look superb, especially with the PC's support for high resolutions, but beneath the updated look is a game that plays like a classic 2D fighting game. Additionally, the PC version supports three modes that change the appearance of the game to look more like the "artistic" trailers. The posterization is a little more subtle than the watercolor or ink modes, but all help to make the PC version more unique. The game also includes a built-in benchmark system so that players can tune their settings for the best performance. Players have can purchase a special bundled edition that includes a Street Fighter IV themed Madcatz controller, but the game supports pretty much any PC compatible controller, including the Xbox 360 gamepad. It even allows players the option to use the keyboard, which actually turns out to be a decent option and makes some of the moves easier to pull off. However, the game doesn't support more than one player on the keyboard, so at least one person would need a gamepad for same screen action.

There are a variety of gameplay modes, including skill-based challenges, that work to unlock bonus content, but the story based Arcade mode will probably get first attention since it's the only way to unlock extra characters. Players start with access to the core characters from Street Fighter II, along with a handful of new ones like Abel and Crimson Viper, to fight their way to the top. The 2D animated cinematics for each character are fun to watch, even though the plots generally vary between simplistic, befuddling, over-the-top absurd or some combination of each. The game's new boss, Seth, gives players a major challenge even on easy setting, since his moves are devastating and he has access to a variety of special abilities.

Then again, Street Fighter games aren't exactly renowned for their stories, it's all about fast paced fighting action and in this respect, Street Fighter IV delivers. The game has the performance and response players demand from an arcade fighting game. At the same time, the wrong settings can slow the game to a crawl. There's no automatic feature to adjust the game for optimal performance, so players will have to tinker with the settings to figure out what works best. Controls are simple enough for newcomers (and button mashers) to execute most of the special moves, including the devastating combat energy fueled Super and Ultra combos, without an extraordinary amount of memorization. So, players can spend less time in the practice room learning moves and more time in the actual game.

The main draw to playing Street Fighter comes from multiplayer competition, and Street Fighter IV provides plenty of options for players to take advantage of. As mentioned earlier, there's same screen fighting for those that don't mind sharing a monitor. The online multiplayer uses Games for Windows Live for player matchmaking. Online multiplayer performance is generally very good, except that it operates as fast as the slowest computer. So, if one person has his settings up too high, both players fight at snail speed. Players can also learn from the best by viewing online replays of Championship mode matches, complete with an option to display all the moves used. As a throwback to old arcade days, the game can be set so that players can challenge people while they're in single player arcade mode. The game's default mode leaves arcade challenging off, which is a good idea for those that want to unlock the extra characters before delving into multiplayer, but can sometimes leave the game browser looking like a ghost town. Also, there were times when challengers would constantly interrupt us, making arcade mode impossible to play.

Even without cross-platform play with the Xbox 360, Street Fighter IV is an excellent fighting game in just about every respect and it's clear that a lot of care was put into bringing the game to the PC. It's just too bad that PC players can't connect with friends who purchased the console version that released months ago. Street Fighter IV also stands out as one the few fighting games available for PC gamers and it costs significantly less than its console counterpart, so PC gamers are getting a great deal all around.

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