Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

After some coercion from a co-worker, I decided to forgo waiting for Street Fighter IV to be on sale and picked it up last night. Even after discussing it at some length, I was still leery at the depth of the whole game. Thus far, Capcom has done a substantial job in impressing me, and making the $60 purchase worth every penny.

Coming into the game, I was worried that SFIV was going to follow in the pitfalls of SF3 and SF Alpha. Both of these games were nothing more than re-hashes of SF2 with new graphics, some different play mechanics, new characters, and some loose story to try to bring meaning to why all these people wanted to jump in fight each other. This is not so with SFIV. Starting with the intro movie, the game presents itself as having a more cohesive story to tie the game together. Unlike previous iterations, the opening movie is a amalgamation of dynamic fight scenes with impressive artistic displays that transform what almost appear like in game demo rounds into intense battles between characters. The flair added to the video transforms it from a high-school drama class presentation to a triple A acted movie. Now my interest has been piqued but I was still leery to see if it continued past the opening movie.

As with all fighting games, SFIV now has a whole slew of unlockables. Some of those are unlocked in Network mode and some are found in Arcade mode. Most importantly, unlocking hidden characters comes from playing through Arcade mode. So I quickly dived in to start unlocking characters before my first online battle. As expected, you’re presented with similar selection menu for choosing your character. After selecting your character, you’re then presented with an anime video with English voiceovers depicting the story about your character and them getting ready for the tournament. Already I’m now impressed that Capcom has decided that the story belongs in the game, and not just presented at the end after you defeat the final boss.

Before each round, the characters now have an in-game introduction video that plays at the fight site. After each battle, the winner’s after-fight statement has been tailored to the character just defeated. There’s also an announcer doing voice-overs during the fights, as well as at the world map when the next stage is shown. These little things shows that Capcom has put heart behind the game by emphasizing that there really is a tournament, and reason for each character to be there.

The online play has been well executed as well. The voice chat is available all the time, and with no lag or drop outs. They have a network connection meter that shows how well you are connected to another player. I played quite a few rounds against the same co-worker last night, and our connection was depicted as yellow, or what I’d call moderate. During the gameplay we had no lag whatsoever. Clearly Capcom has improved the networking code from SSF2HDRemix. All of this was tested on the PS3 and its PSN, so if anyone knows of it being different on Xbox Live, I’m interested to hear about it.

From a controls standpoint, the game is much more forgiving in the motions that its predecessor. Capcom has also added a ‘All Three Attack’ button for both punches and kicks, since it’s an essential part of the new moves added to the game. This really helps those of us who don’t own an arcade stick. The graphics in this game are outsanding with a mixture of 3D models and an excellent 2D art. Capcom still has some of the best artists in the industry. Unfortunately there is this nagging issue of load times. They are quite unbearable at this lifetime of the consoles. I did notice an option in the Settings menu to install the game to the hard drive. Hopefully that will fix it. Otherwise I’m going to go nurse my sore thumb and then jump back into the fray.