Super Street Fighter II Turbo High Definition Remix Beta, better known as SSFIIHDRBOMGWTFBBQ for short, has finally been unlocked for the owners of the pitiful, badly made, glitch filled “funfest” that is the equally long named Wolf of the Battlefield: Commando 3

First things first, it’s another game subcontracted out to the Foundation 9 Factory Farm, Which between their Digital Eclipse and Backbone subsidiaries are probably responsible for about 85% of all XBLA titles.

These range from a bunch of either competently emulated titles (TMNT Arcade), to very, very BADLY emulated titles (most of the Sega Vintage Collection), and the odd original title based on some other company’s IP… Which also fluctuate in quality from the awesome (Bomberman Live) to glitch-filled tat (The aforementioned Commando 3).

This remix, which I have been anticipating for quite a while, falls somewhere in between the 2 categories. Its using the code from Capcom itself (used in the DC port of Super Turbo) for it’s gameplay, with all the graphics replaced with HD versions in a similar way to a couple of the Digital Eclipse emulated titles.

On top of that, Backbone have added a bit more code themselves, which has the potential to ruin the whole game so badly it goes back in time and makes every iteration of SFII before it just as shit.

Question is, have they fucked up the goodness?

In all honesty, its not really early enough to tell. It’s a beta. You can only play Ryu and Ken, and the main purpose of this test is to test the online vs mode.

But just because I’m a negative cunt, here’s what I hate so far:

• I spotted jarring drops of speed in the middle of gameplay where shit starts jerking like crazy, and not in a “faithful to the SFII engine” way, and that was in LOCAL mode where network latency isn’t an issue. Fucking fix it.
• The graphics, although pretty in high def, are utterly soulless when animated. Take Ken and Ryu’s ready stance, the same drawing of his head is copypasted into every frame. Nothing moves in it. although the same can be said of the original version, the fact that the resolution is now so high you can see the face detail, they look like mannequins wobbling on the spot. It just smells of a time and work saving measure.
• Not anything to do with the development of the game, but the current choice of controllers is… Crap, at best. The 360 pad is awful, even with a bit of fixing it’s still not great, and then the button layout is hardly optimal.

  While my little impulse buy of the Hori Fighting Stick EX fairs a whole lot better in controls, has terrible fucking “Japanese-style” buttons, which I’m sure are great for the delicately small-handed Asian population, but over here, we’re used to more hard wearing arcade buttons, for giant meat-slab hands to pummel on.

So we must wait. Until the trials of beta testing bear fruit, things are fixed, and someone plucks up the balls to release a PROPER fucking controller, preferably based on the Saturns.

Then maybe I’ll be able to formulate an opinion aside from, “meh”, throwing the controller aside, and going back to Street Fighter III.

Not bad at all, I can’t wait for the full version.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EeMc2GM7GS8

Overall: 11/10

Score: 11/10