Street Fighter IV is set to release in a little more than a week’s time, and I, for one, am pretty excited.  I remember when the original first came out on the SNES.  Some friends picked it up the week of release for something like $70.  We must’ve played it for several weeks before playing another game.

I’m hoping the feeling and nostalgia comes back in a few days when it is released here in the U.S.  And keeping with the tradition, the game is going to cost me some money to get into.  $60 for the game, then $80 x2 for the fighting sticks.  See, I’m picking the game up for the Xbox 360, and there’s no way in hell you can play a serious fighting game with the stock controller Microsoft provides.

The only downside to all of this is that unlike back when SFII was released, most of my friends that would be wanting to play are about three hours away now.  Thankfully there’s online gaming, but that’s nowhere near the same as playing a game in a room with other people cheering you on.  Seriously, something like this just wouldn’t be as cool if it were an online match between two people.

Electronic Gaming Monthly, a staple in the videogame world here in North America, has ceased to be.  We all knew it was coming, but some didn’t think it would be as abrupt an end as it was.

I subscribed to EGM for most of the time I was into gaming.  Elementary through high school, then post college when I wrote game reviews.  It had exclusives I wanted to read about, and the quality of writing was so much better than what I find on IGN, Gamespot and Kotaku, places I have ventured before.

Continue reading End of Gaming Magazines draws near →