Street Fighter 2

Street Fighter II is the ancestor of modern fighting games. Although it wasn't the first fighting game, its huge popularity when it was released in 1991 spawned a worldwide trend that saw kids and adults alike practicing their dragon punches and fireballs in convenience stores, pizza parlors and arcades. This PC version brings the original arcade experience to the desktop.

In Street Fighter II, players take control of one of the original eight World Warriors. Ryu, the game's hero, is a wandering martial artist who seeks strong foes to test himself against. His pal Ken shares Ryu's special moves, including the shoryuken uppercut, hadouken fireball and the devastating tatsumaki senpukyaku or hurricane kick. Their rivals include sumo wrestler E. Honda, tough Hong Kong policewoman Chun Li, yoga expert Dhalsim, Russian wrestler Zangief, American airman Guile and jungle beast Blanka. Each character has a unique set of attacks and special moves -- learning how to combine these into high-damage combos is part of the fun of the game.

The single-player story mode is light on the story and heavy on the fighting; you'll battle your way through a series of computer-controlled opponents until you get to the real bad guys: evil dictator M. Bison and his minions Vega, Sagat and Balrog. Fun fact: in the Japanese release, African-American boxer Balrog was called "M. Bison," a play on the name of boxing champ Mike Tyson, whom he resembles. Fearing a lawsuit, the American producers switched the characters' names around, turning Vega into M. Bison, Balrog into Vega and Bison into Balrog.

The real heart of the game is in the two-player mode, though; for the real arcade experience, you need to be playing against an opponent who will taunt you mercilessly if you lose. At least you won't have to pay a quarter.

You won't find playable versions of the boss characters here; they were added in later additions, along with four new characters -- Native American wrestler T. Hawk, British commando Cammy, Chinese kung-fu movie star Fei Long and Jamaican kickboxer Dee Jay. If you played either Street Fighter II Hyper Fighting or Street Fighter II Super Turbo in the arcades, you may find that the pace of the game is slower as well; in its original incarnation, Street Fighter II was a relatively slow-paced, cerebral game.

Street Fighter 2 is a PC adaptation from the 1991 classic from Capcom. Any fighting game fans will love the nostalgic world of Street Fighter. A successful series that started in the arcades of the 1980s, it is still popular on some of the different platforms. The second installment has a lot of the fun on the PC. Nevertheless, when you compare it to the old arcade games, it still leaves a lot to be desired. The next biggest problem is how you will not have a group of dudes cheering behind you while you play.

The graphics of Street Fighter 2 look okay, but both the sound and background have not been brought up to quality with the PC version. In addition, the speed of Street Fighter 2 happens much slower than in the arcades, even if you have a faster computer. The good thing is that Street Fighter 2 does include the eight characters that you could find in the first game. You can customize the commands, and you can choose to either challenge a friend in one-on-one combat or play in arcade mode.

As an old-school arcade fighting game, it still has a lot of good things to offer. For example, it brings back all the nostalgia of mashing buttons in the arcades. In addition, Street Fighter 2 does have some pretty decent graphics. The one downside is that, as stated before, there are only eight characters, and the overall gaming experience feels slow and basic. There are fancier versions of Street Fighter 2 out there that play better, like the turbo version of Street Fighter 2 which features more characters. When you compare it to some of the other fighting games on the market, the character selection is quite poor. For example, in Mortal Kombat, you can have up to 28 different characters to choose from. In Tekken Tag Tournament 2, you have over 60 characters. Eight seems like a small amount in comparison. Nevertheless, this game first came out when fighting games were just picking up steam.

Where Street Fighter 2 shined was in the arcade battles with friends. Online multiplayer fails to match that same level of camaraderie and connection that you had in the arcades where you were in a heated tournament battle against your buddies. Even 30 years later, Street Fighter 2 has remained a serious brand, and it has been one of the most popular fighting games ever made. Doubtlessly Street Fighter 2 was where the series hit its peak with mainstream popularity. The game was intended for competitions with friends, and it has a lot of excellent one-on-one fighting.