Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition

[Insanecyclone]

http://www.siliconera.com/2011/06/08...et-is-so-high/


This Is Why Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition’s Budget Is So High

Capcom has made a big deal about how much time, effort, and cash they’ve been pouring into the development of Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition, and after my hands-on with the game, I can tell why. Associate producer, Derek Neal, says that the game is "everything that the community wants," particularly stressing that that included implementation of the very popular GGPO netcode. However, even without being able to test the titular feature on the show floor, the changes and additions that have been made to 3rd Strike are impressive.



From the main menu screen alone, it’s apparent that Capcom went all out on this overhaul, commissioning new character art from Stanley "Artgerm" Lau, which is randomly chosen to add a bit of flavor to the main menu whenever it is opened. Even cooler is that the game looks at your play history to give your most-used characters a higher chance of being in the background. It’s a totally unnecessary, but cool little addition indicative of the love that Capcom and Iron Galaxy have poured into this new edition.



If you’re at all worried that Artgerm’s new stuff would replace Daigo Ikeno’s artwork, don’t be. For the character select screen, Capcom has taken the original artwork and re-scanned it, so it looks incredibly crisp. Now that we’re on the subject of the character select screen, Capcom has taken one of my favorite features from BlazBlue: Continuum Shift and added it to 3rd Strike Online. You can now press Select (or Back, if the 360 is your preferred console) on the character select screen and map your buttons on the fly (which, from experience, is really helpful if you keep have two friends over and one prefers a pad and the other an arcade stick and they keep swapping with each other). They’ve also finally added a random select option to the game, mapped to the start button.



There are a ton of options that can be fiddled with mid-round, too. You can adjust display options from the in-game menu for switching from a standard 4:3 aspect ratio, to a wide one, to one that’s even further stretched to fill the whole screen, and (my personal favorite), one that bows the screen to look like an arcade cabinet monitor. You can even add scanlines to it to further the arcade feel. Honestly, I’m partial to scanlines, but if you like your sprites looking smooth, there are also a two sprite filters in the game, Crisp and Smooth. I spent most of my time on Crisp, which gave the sprites kind of a painted look. Honestly, I’ll probably keep the sprites unfiltered, but the filters both seem pretty nice, if you’re into that sort of thing.

If you happen to be in a non-widescreen aspect ratio, you will see "Dynamic Challenges" in the sides of the screen. These challenges will start out simple, such as winning a short streak or getting a single perfect, but as they are completed, they level up, becoming more and more challenging the more the player completes. Each completed challenge yields "Vault Points," which (appropriately) allow players to buy unlockable stuff from "the Vault," that features over 200 pieces of unlockable artwork (some fanart, some official), and new remixed character themes by Super Sledge with vocals by Adam Tensta.

Then (there’s still more stuff!) there’s the Trials mode. While there are trials that teach you combos for each character a la Super Street Fighter IV, there are also trials to help players get to grips with universal game mechanics like parries. While these start simple (parry a one-hit hadouken), the challenges get pretty in-depth (such as recreating Evo moment #37). While I probably couldn’t ever do some of the later challenges, the fact that they’re even included in a downloadable game is pretty cool.



Bear in mind, this is just the offline stuff. From what Derek told me, the online modes will have matchmaking, tournament support, the ability to record matches and upload them directly to YouTube, and the ability to search for other peoples’ matches. Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition will be out this summer for $15 on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network.


Read more stories about E3 2011 & PlayStation 3 & Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition & Xbox 360 on Siliconera.

[Correction]

(such as recreating Evo moment #37)

I hope they have a sample of the crowd noise to play as you progress through this challenge.

[Charismatic]

Won't be complete without a "Let's go Justin!" as the super starts.

[Lucavi]

I'm such an idiot. I had no idea the character select loop was part of an entire (pretty badass) song. Just heard the full thing today and its damn nice.

[Insanecyclone]

[Kipling]

Won't be complete without a "Let's go Justin!" as the super starts.

Should add the "Rare footage of Daigo actually mad" remix in for that challenge.

[Sonomaa]

they said this was based off the A code, since people didnt like the old code. I played this on dreamcast a metric fuckton and I also have the xbox version of the game, though something sticks in the back of my mind that I didnt like it as much as I did the DC version

I need to get a fucking stick, I just cant play on a controller long enough before my fingers start to shit themselves

[Charismatic]

Still learning new tricks, dash up Makoto SA3 at the start of the round? lol, obviously you can only probably pull that one off after playing a few sets with SA1 but I fucking lol'd when this shit worked.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0J9J87JL7s&#t=18m19s

Can't wait, this is going to be the most awesome version of the game. I don't think I'll be seen online ever but I will definitely be playing.

[Correction]

Still learning new tricks, dash up Makoto SA3 at the start of the round?

I love Makoto shenanigans

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM0HizkcBuQ#t=5m00s

probably the sexiest thing I've ever seen Makoto do.

[richardd]

Still learning new tricks, dash up Makoto SA3 at the start of the round? lol, obviously you can only probably pull that one off after playing a few sets with SA1 but I fucking lol'd when this shit worked.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0J9J87JL7s&#t=18m19s

Can't wait, this is going to be the most awesome version of the game. I don't think I'll be seen online ever but I will definitely be playing.

god, he has no respect for the chun. i on the other hand, fear them for my life in this game


you find the best videos, man

[Correction]

Just subscribe to TheShend on youtube, he gives you all the best 3rd strike matches going on in the world.

[Charismatic]

Just subscribe to TheShend on youtube, he gives you all the best 3rd strike matches going on in the world.

best advice you could ever take, and one of the greatest things I've done on youtube. always finding good shit since subbing to him

[Cheerios]

If anyone wants a cheap wireless fight stick for the 360/PC, the Tekken 6 LE Wireless bundle is on sale for $40 right now that comes with Tekken 6, Wireless Hori Fight stick, and an art book. You can sell Tekken 6 back to a store for ~$25-30 and keep the $15-20 fight stick.

[Callisto]

That stick is relatively decent for how cheap it is too, only downside is that the default button placement is goofy as shit so for pretty much every non-Tekken game you need to change all the button settings. Minor inconvenience at worst, you can't really mod the stick without a soldering iron as far as I know, but it's not bad at all.

[Cheerios]

I figure it's a cheap investment for people who are unsure if they even want to get a fight stick in the first place. If it's not their cup of tea, then at least they just use it with a MAME emulator or sell the stick and make a profit on the whole thing.

[Insanecyclone]

http://www.siliconera.com/2011/06/15...nline-edition/


Why Didn’t Capcom Rebalance Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition?

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike has graphic filters, single player challenges, and new music. What it won’t have is rebalanced characters. Capcom tweaked Super Street Fighter II HD Remix and even added new moves like a fake hadouken for Ryu, so I was curious why they didn’t rebalance Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition.



"We had discussed it, actually, somewhat extensively," Seth Killian, Strategic Marketing Director of Online & Community, answered. "The first time I wrote this document for this game was probably, maybe, two and half years ago. When we put together the basic pitch, we did have as part of the potential budget a rebalance. In order to achieve some of the other things I felt were absolutely necessary for the game to be released – budget was going to be an issue, playtesting in terms of time, and balancing was going to be an issue"



"Third Strike had over ten years of a competitive history," Killian added. "For anyone who wants to say the game is ridiculous in terms of balance or anything like that – there are very few games that have that kind of history that are actually as bad as they say they are. But, we do understand where they are coming from and it is something we considered."



Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition will have a training mode to teach players how to parry. And for the pros you can upload replays directly on to YouTube. Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Online Edition will also have downloadable content, but Capcom has not revealed what kind of content at this time.

[Correction]

Posting this for 3 reasons:



In case you need help getting hype about a 3rd strike rerelease

In case you still haven't subbed TheShend on youtube

In case you were worried that high level 3rd strike was strictly a Ken/Chun/Yun affair.

[Charismatic]

I need the tominaga factor if I do decide to go online with it.

[Charismatic]

EDIT: double postin like a mofo

[Kipling]

Rebalancing it would have been a huge mistake.