A week or two back, Xbox Live’s gallery leaked a screenshot that showed M. Bison and Ling Xiaoyu’s portraits as tag partners, which sparked some new hype for me and Garv – some of our favourite fights being between Ryu and Bison, and Xiaoyu being a childhood favourite of mine from playing Tekken 3.

Anyway, this week rolled around and Capcom suddenly announced that they would be unveiling 6 new characters, as well as 2 “secret” announcements – and now, here’s what they announced on Tuesday morning:

Street Fighter

Juri – Introduced in Super Street Fighter IV, this is her first time participating in another title – C. Viper having beaten her to a spot in Marvel vs Capcom 3. Bringing her Feng Shui Engine powered fighting style into SFxT, I’m looking forward to seeing what little changes or new moves they’ve implemented into her style. She’ll also make a fine partner to Bison – evil purple auras for the win!

Vega – One of Street Fighter’s more iconic villains, Vega’s claw weapon is infamous – as well as his unpredictable fighting style. Good to see him included as he’s a personal favourite of mine, and I’m glad to see his Bloody High Claw move makes a return from Street Fighter IV. I’m personally going to team him up with Poison for one hell of a crazy team.

Balrog – Not totally unexpected, what with him and Vega completing the set of classic Street Fighter villains – and a perfect rival for Tekken‘s boxer, Steve. Balrog is one of Street Fighter’s heavyweight characters, and with projectile-free move-set I’m sure he’ll fit nicely into the mix with all the Tekken melee fighters joining the fray.

Tekken

Xiaoyu – No surprises here, with the leak and all – but a welcome addition for me all the same. Xiaoyu is a quick-hitting character with the capability to create long attack chains. She’s looking good and seems to be having a bit of a rivalry with Juri going on, as well as her old friendship with Jin – more on that in a minute.

Law – With Street Fighter’s Fei Long and Tekken‘s Law both being very obvious homages to Bruce Lee, I was wondering how Capcom would handle them. Would they both be included for some epic Bruce Lee fight-offs? Would they pick only one? Or would they ignore both. Well, we’ve now got Tekken‘s Bruce Lee in the game, and I must say he is looking very similar to Fei Long in terms of fighting style (which isn’t a surprise, of course). I do hope this doesn’t mean that Fei Long is out of the game as I’m a big fan, but I doubt they’ll actually include both. Either way, Law is looking awesome, and I can just stick a “Fei Long” name sticker on my screen.

Paul – Competing for most hair gel with Guile comes the hard-hitting American from Tekken – who I can also see being confused with Ken Masters by a certain overweight warrior. He’s seen tagging with Law and reminds me a lot of Ryu now he’s rendered in Capcom’s style – albeit without the projectiles. His super punch move (I forget its official name, it’s been a while since I was into Tekken) has been shown in his super art, but otherwise I’ll be very interested to see what tricks he has up his sleeve to turn the tide on his projectile using rivals.

While there were only 6 characters “announced”, the latest in the series of full CG trailers has also been released, featuring M Bison and Jin squaring up to one another, while Juri and Xiaoyu also fight. Both Jin and M Bison have been hinted at already in the past, but this pretty much confirms the two of them (unless Capcom are insane), so that’s looking good. Check out the trailer below – looks like Devil Jin will be making an appearance in this game, too.

Last but not least, at the end of the gameplay trailer (featuring the 6 officially announced fighters, shown below), there’s a short section about the Vita version. At the end of that, there can clearly be seen the silhouettes of Pac-Man, and what appears to be the terrible old box-art version of Megaman. I seriously hope this is Vita exclusive, as I’m no fan of these characters that are neither part of Street Fighter or Tekken – with the Sony exclusive characters already pushing me into going for the Xbox 360 version to avoid Cole, Kuro and Toro. And if that really is Box-Art Megaman… I have no idea if Capcom are actually trying to troll Megaman fans (or perhaps they actually are insane).

All in all, it’s been a good announcement and it’s got me excited for Street Fighter X Tekken all over again. A nice batch of characters, and hopefully Capcom will keep the info coming over the next few weeks.

- Leon

When I was younger, I dabbled in fighting games. First was Mortal Kombat on the Mega Drive – the attraction of the special moves and the gore getting me hooked for hours at a time. When the PlayStation came around, I then found myself in love with the cast of Tekken – I’d never seen a fighting game with such graphics, on a 3D plane, well, on a home console that is. The demo of Tekken 3 was included with the PS1, and me and my sister would play it for ages – even though we could only select Eddy and Xiaoyu – but we were young and penniless, and played what we could.

I remember receiving Tekken 3 for Christmas one year, and spending the whole day repeatedly beating Arcade mode with various characters to unlock the rest of the roster. I found myself growing attached to the cast – Jin being my favourite, alongside Xiaoyu, Heihachi, Yoshimitsu and Julia. I later moved on to Tekken Tag Tournament, but found myself converted to Capcom’s style of fighting with Capcom vs SNK 2, and never turned back. While I loved Tekken’s cast, Capcom opened up a world of a more controlled, less button-mashing style of fighting, complete with stunning super moves to top it all off. I was hooked, and since then, I’ve accumulated a collection of Capcom fighters – from the earliest Street Fighter titles, Street Fighter Alpha, Marvel vs Capcom 2,  and more recently Street Fighter IV and Marvel vs Capcom 3.

With Mortal Kombat 9, Netherrealm Studios have revived my love for Mortal Kombat – taking the best parts of the series I used to love and bringing it into the modern-day with Street Fighter-style updates. It was great seeing my old favourites brought up to Capcom’s standards – but sadly Tekken 6 offered me nothing similar – I only found myself remembering why I love 2D fighters so much, feeling far too unsatisfying and unresponsive compared to Street Fighter IV and Mortal Kombat. It was a shame, since the cast looked great – I was just an outsider to the Tekken style now, and I doubt I’ll ever go back.

But then came the news of Street Fighter X Tekken. A game combining the cast of the two games – however I didn’t really see how good this idea was to begin with – the impending release of Marvel vs Capcom 3 overshadowing it for me at the time. It’s only now that I see it’s true potential – finally bringing my childhood favourites kicking and screaming into an engine that I love. While Tekken purists may hate me for saying so – this could be the best game that the cast of Tekken have been in for a long time, and I can’t wait.

So what do we know? Well, so far SFxT (as it will now be referred to) has an officially announced roster of 18 characters – 9 from each side. Announced first were Ryu, Chun-Li, Kazuya and Nina – first showed in the game’s announcement at 2010′s Comic-con. Since then, Capcom have been trickling out new characters over time - Ken, Guile, Abel, Cammy and Sagat on the side of Street Fighter, and King, Bob, Julia Chang, Hwoarang, Steve Fox and Yoshimitsu. Interestingly, Poison was announced on the Street Fighter side – not strictly from SF, but actually Final Fight, the same universe as Street Fighter – from which Guy and Cody recently emerged in Super Street Fighter IV.

Interestingly, it looks like the Final Fight characters won’t end there. The most recent trailer featured Poison and Hugo, as well as Mike Haggar (who was more of a brief appearance, so maybe not one of the roster), battling against King and Marduk. The end of the clip made me grin from ear to ear – as who should gatecrash, but Guy and Cody themselves. Assuming Hugo, Guy and Cody are in – those are some great additions to the roster. As for Haggar – well, let’s just say I would expect Zangief to be in this game before him, seeing as this isn’t Capcom vs Tekken. But we’ll have to wait and see. Oh, but we should be seeing a lot more characters yet – Yoshinori Ono stated that the 18 characters so far are only “near the halfway point” of the roster.

As for the gameplay – it’s 2-on-2 combat that resembles that of Street Fighter IV – which is no bad thing, that’s for sure. However, I’m actually inclined to say it looks even better. The game utilises the Super gauge from SFIV (renamed the Cross Gauge), along with the EX moves that are activated in the same way. Incorporating Tekken’s style, the game will allow players to chain up larger attack combos than usual for a SF title, and also has an emphasis on character juggling – which ties into the tag-system for chaining up combos.

So what new mechanics will we be seeing introduced into the game? Here’s a rundown of some of the cool features we’ll be looking forward to:

Super Charge

Where Street Fighter IV introduced EX attacks, SFxT has the “Super Charge”. The general idea of this is that each character has one special move that they can charge into various stages. For Ryu, it’s a Hadoken. If you charge the move a little, to Level 2, it will become the EX Hadoken – dealing more damage with a nice flame effect. Charge it the whole way to Level 3, and Ryu will unleash a Shinku Hadoken. Best of all, going to the effort of charging these moves means they don’t consume any of your Cross Gauge to perform. That’s if you can pull them off, of course…

Tag Supers

This is something that Capcom have been a bit quiet about lately, but we’ve seen a few bits here and there. Perhaps one of the best things you could implement in a Tag title – the Tag Super utilises both characters to pull off a special attack that does a huge amount of damage to your opponent. An example of this is the Ryu/Ken tag, which has Ryu throw an opponent to the floor, then punch them into Ken’s spinning kick ultra as he launches the poor soul into the air. These moves are looking to be the most powerful combinations in the game – and I expect they will cost the entire Cross Gauge, as single-character Supers cost 2 bars.

Cross Assault

The last feature I want to talk about is one of the newest that has been revealed – the Cross Assault. While tagging in fighting games is not a new concept, SFxT looks to emphasise it more than most. The idea of Cross Assault is that you can actually fight with both characters at the same time.

Of course, it’s impossible to completely control both characters at once (unless they both followed the same inputs, which would be a bit of a cop-out), so how it works is this: when activated (the pre-requisites are a little unclear on the exact method at the moment), the health bars of both of your characters merge into one, and both characters are on-screen at the same time. You control one at a time, and can switch between the two by returning the control-stick to a neutral position. While this mode is active, your super bar drains, and the Cross Assault ends. This looks like brilliant fun, and could be a whole new level of gameplay to master.

And that’s about all I have to say for now. Although I hope you’d agree – it’s plenty to be excited about. It’s going to be a long wait, however – the game’s not due till March 2012. But here’s hoping we’ll be seeing more at Eurogamer.

- Leon

	Name: Ryu From: Street Fighter Weapon: Unarmed While Ryu isn’t really the most unusual of characters, he still maintains to be one of my favourites. It’s due to his good all-rounded nature with his never-changing moveset that means I can always pick up a controller and get right into a brawl – his mix of projectiles, uppercuts and spin-kicks being very versatile, while his Shinkuu Hadoken is always a satisfying special to pull off in a pinch. Ryu is also one of the only traditional martial-artist style characters that somehow manages to feel interesting despite his simplicity. A classic, but Ryu never lets me down. A student of a non-lethal fighting style, Ryu is generally a pacifist – but when the dark hado takes over, he turns into a total beast – I’m looking forward to playing as Evil Ryu once I get my hands on SSFIV: Arcade Edition later! - Leon
	Name: M.Bison From: Street Fighter Weapon: Unarmed In the Street Fighter universe, M.Bison is my favourite character for a couple of reasons. First off he is deliciously evil (I always go for evil as Leon goes for good just to be the perfect opponent).  His evil nature fuels his ego, and I really like the fact that he that knows he’s powerful. With that confidence he comes across as a force to be reckoned with. Secondly he is a charge character, and I tend to go for the charge characters more in Street fighter for a couple of reasons.  A) They aren’t shoto. I have noticed a lot of people who play street fighter play as shoto characters and when it comes to fighters I really like to go down the road of mastering a different character just to make fights a little more varied. B) I tend to generally get on better with charge characters, I somehow manage to nail the timing better when it comes too pulling of combos. -Garv
	Name: Terry Bogard From: Fatal Fury Weapon: Unarmed Debuting in “Fatal Fury: King of Fighters” in 1991, Terry Bogard is the front-runner for SNK’s Fatal Fury series. While I’ve never been a big fan of SNK’s fighting engine (always favouring Capcom’s style), they do have some cool characters in their roster – so when Capcom were given control over SNK’s roster for Capcom vs SNK, it was a match made in heaven – Terry brought into a Capcom engine and quickly becoming one of my favourites. With his iconic hat, kick-ass attitude and shockwave attacks, I’ll never get get tired of Terry screaming “Bustaaaa WOLF!” While I still believe that Capcom vs SNK 2 has the best version of Terry, I’m really hoping King of Fighters XIII will come to Europe – XII had amazing visuals, but it was a lacking in content. Let’s hope they fix that next time around! -Leon
	Name: Yoshimitsu From: Tekken Weapon: Katana A very unique character as he appears in both Soul Calibur and Tekken. For some reason though it isn’t the back story that draws me to him, in both games he doesn’t have much of a back story, or even a huge personality. It’s his fighting style that draws me to him. In Tekken he is the only character to be armed with a sword. His moves are a mixture of punches, kicks and sword attacks which fit surprisingly well into a fighting game that isn’t sword/weapon based. His moves are powerful meaning he is not the quickest character of the bunch but he uses his sword to aid his punch and kick attacks making for a very unique fighting style, which is a pleasure to watch. What is surprising though was he debut appearance in Soul Calibur. I personally though he was a character with just the same name, but his move set and style were pretty much a port of his Tekken counterpart, which didn’t feel strange in the Soul Calibur universe. Making for a character I can kick butt with in two games. -Garv
	Name: Kitana From: Mortal Kombat Weapon: Metal Fans Of course, all fighting games have female characters as well – both as skilled warriors in their own right, and of course often making the game a little easier on the eyes for the male gamers as well! Kitana manages to do both – a princess born of the realm Edenia, she’s athletic and beautiful, whilst simultaneously deadly. Wielding her metal fans as deadly weapons, she can dominate her opponents with lightning-fast attacks and the ability to trap her opponents in the air using currents created by her fans. She’s one of the good guys – but I still wouldn’t want to get on her wrong side. Kitana is usually accompanied by Jade and Mileena, originally just palette swaps – but lately they’ve been evolving into more unique entities. Kitana will always be my personal favourite, though. -Leon
	Name: Noob Saibot From: Mortal Kombat Weapon: Unarmed Fun fact for those of you who don’t know;  Noob Saibot backwards is Tobias Boon. The surnames of both creators of the MK franchise, but that isn’t the only reason I like Noob. His backstory really interests me, I like the fact his former life was one of the many sub zero’s that pop up in the MK story line. The MK creators could have easily made Noob into a Sub Zero clone but they turned him into a totally different character, which is a bold move – so my hats off to them. I also like the fact that his time in the Netherrealm has turned his personality into something dark and powerful which in turn fuels his need to defeat his opponents. His fighting style is pretty unique, as his combos use a shadow double which makes for some cool looking attacks. If timed correctly some his offensive maneuvers can catch even the best fighters out. Some say that Noob is a cheap character as you can spam his portal move, my answer to that. Don’t spam his portal and try to mix his moves up a bit, a good fight against Noob Saibot is really a good fight -Garv
	Name: David From: Battle Arena Toshinden 3 Weapon: Chainsaw (and hidden pistol) Sadly Battle Arena Toshinden 3 on the PlayStation 1 was a bit of a hidden gem with no real successor in modern gaming. But in the late 90’s, Toshinden 3 was one of my favourite fighting titles, with a weapon-based combat system (a little like Soul Calibur) and a huge roster of 32. Amongst the cast was David, a young chainsaw wielding warrior decked out in a trench-coat. With his wild fighting style accompanied by the constant whir of the chainsaw, David was a deadly force to be face off with, while always keeping his cool. There was nothing more satisfying than hearing the words “It’s all over for you!” before David unleashed hell on his opponent. David also had a little trick up his sleeve. Pressing the taunt button would result in him pulling out a sneaky handgun from his coat and shooting one of six bullets he had per battle. A great way to put down an opponent surviving on the tiniest bit of health! If there’s one long-lost fighting game character I’d love to see brought to life in the current gen of gaming, David would be my choice. -Leon
	Name: Deadpool From: Marvel vs Capcom 3 Weapon: Katana and Dual Pistols Now I know I said I wasn’t one for using the most popular characters from fighting games, but when it comes to the Marvel universe, Deadpool has to be one of my most favourite characters. So naturally to see him in a fighting game like Marvel Vs Capcom 3, I jumped at the opportunity to use him, even if he is used by most MvC gamers out there. Capcom have nailed his attitude and combat style down to a tee which is fantastic. But surprisingly enough it’s not just about the fact he is Deadpool. He is actually a very varied and fun character to use. He has his entire arsenal at the player’s disposal, from his duel katanas to his faulty teleportation device. Mixing grenade throws with shoryukens that take the mick out of everyone’s favourite SF character makes for some tight combos which are hard to break out of and hilarious to watch. Deadpool translates well into the fighting genre, and hopefully we should see more of him in the future. -Garv
	Name: Dante From: Marvel vs Capcom 3 Weapon: Arsenal of weapons from Devil May Cry 3 While not primarily a fighting-game character, Dante appeared recently in Marvel vs Capcom 3 and didn’t disappoint. The hero of the Devil May Cry series is one the coolest characters in gaming, and I was thrilled to see his inclusion in the long-awaited sequel to the MvC series. But the thing that makes it even better is that almost nothing was lost in Dante’s conversion to fighting game – he still maintains his huge arsenal of weapons and combos, having one of the widest selection of moves in a fighting game. His widespread popularity and versatility did bring around a bit of a stigma to his selection as a fighter, but I can’t help it – Dante’s one of my favourite characters, and he lost nothing in his conversion to 2D fighter. I do hope that Dante will return in another Capcom vs title in the future – perhaps Tatsunoko vs Capcom 2? But even more so, I’d love to see his brother Vergil join the fray for some epic battles. -Leon
	Name: Spawn From: Soul Calibur II Weapon: Axe Speaking of comic book characters, my last favourite character of all time is the only reason why to this day I still own the original Xbox Version of Soul Calibur II.  Spawn was my first ever comic book character I fell in love with. So his appearance in Soul Calibur satisfied the geek in me somewhat. You could tell that Namco did their background work, his moves were very loyal to the Spawn character as a whole. His powerful axe attacks mixed with his hellspawn powers made for some unstoppable combinations. Some people who fought against me stated that Spawn was way too powerful. I think it was down to the fact that to this day he is still one of the only character I ever truly knew inside out. It is a real shame that he never made an appearance in another Soul Calibur game – I can only hope he’ll return in SCV. -Garv

So there you have it, our favourite characters of all time! Of course, there are a ton more out there that didn’t quite make the cut – but believe me, if there was a real fighting game out there with this bunch all put toe-to-toe, we’d probably never stop playing it.

- Garv and Leon

Last week saw Capcom’s Captivate expo where the infamous japanese developer/publisher announced some earth shattering new info that got every Capcom fan either squealing in excitement or fainting at the very thought of how epic these announcements are.

Even though there is a lot to talk about in regards to what was announced, I am going to focus my attention to the Fighters. Capcom are infamous for their 2D fighters and what has been announced is pretty epic in my opinion, so in the usual fashion sit back and check out what is coming out this year.

Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition.

This has been in the pipeline for god knows how long but it is finally coming to home consoles after what seems like months of waiting. The arcade edition is going to be DLC for those of us who own Super Street Fighter IV. For those of us who don’t then you have 2 choices, either get SSFIV and download the DLC or buy the stand alone disc that is coming out as well.

So what is the arcade edition going to bring us? Well four new characters to start with. Yun, Yang, Evil Ryu and Oni. Also a new rebalanced fighting system to make battles more fair and fun and a replay mode. This is truly going to be epic, and to finally get my hands on Evil Ryu will be a joy. Also for those who don’t want to download the DLC you can still fight against people who have the DLC online…awesome

Street Fighter X Tekken

This is another game that I seriously can not wait for and a lot was reveled about it at Captivate. First off ten characters have now been confirmed. Five from Street Fighter and Five from Tekken. On the Street Fighter side we have Ryu, Ken, Chun-li, Guile and Able and for the Tekken side we have, Kazuya, Nina, King, Marduc and Bob. Some interesting selections but I hope more will be announced soon.

For once in my gaming journalism life I am going to let the videos do the rest of the talking, so enjoy these epic video.

Garv

Ready.....FIGHT!

The video games I have grown up with have mainly been platformers like Sonic The Hedgehog or FPS games such as Doom or Duke Nukem, most of you out there who have read Plus XP for a while have probably noticed me saying this again and again so I won’t go into details for the forty millionth time. But when I was about ten years old I was given a copy of Super Street Fighter II Turbo on the PC. I had no idea how to play the game and as much as I mashed the keyboard the game wasn’t doing anything for me, so I put it down and said goodbye to my brief stint with Street Fighter and had never thought to go back.

So from the ages of ten to about fifteen I never really liked fighters, until I got my hands on Soul Caliber II and Tekken 4. This then gave me the gate way back into the fighting genre and fighting games grew on me again once more, it wasn’t until Uni I picked up Street Fighter IV and have loved Street Fighter since, this triggered me getting my PS2 back and buying Marvel Vs Capcom 2 and Capcom Vs SNK 2. So I now have a pretty big fighting collection. So, what makes a good fighter?

Well Thought Out Moves Set.

This is the bare bones when it comes to fighting games, A fighting game needs a very well thought out moves set to survive. With my experience of fighters there is two good moves sets that work. Something I call the juggling move set, which is based on button combos to juggle your enemies (by juggling I mean having you opponent suspended in mid-air not moving because your throwing that many combos at him/her), much like the moves you get in Tekken and Soul Caliber . Tekken and SC fans will probably flame me when I say this but it is like a well though out and controlled way of button mashing *flinches*. Getting your appoint into a state where they can’t fight back is pretty imperative when it comes to theses sorts of games. This move set works more on the 3D fighting plane, this is probably because if you do get an over cocky player who just combos like hell you can simply just side step him and laugh as he combos his way to the other side of the screen hitting nothing.

The other type of moves set is based more on super moves which use both the joystick and the buttons, I personally don’t have a name for this move set so lets just got with dragon punch move set (due to the fact that one of your basic special attacks in this move set in the simple shoruken from Street Fighter, which in layman’s terms is a dragon punch) This move set works better on a 2D fighting arena due to the fact that most of the attacks like to move from one side of the screen to the other. The one thing I do love about this particular way of fighting is that everything generally looks shinier and more powerful. You do also have the option of comboing with this move set if you are stupidly good so it is one of those things that is easy to learn but difficult to master.

There is one game that springs to mind that has the best of both worlds and that is Marvel Vs Capcom. This game lets you juggle your enemies with insane combos on a 2D plane but also utilizes all the shiny dragon punch move set moves to do this. MvC is also stupidly ridiculous when it comes to its special moves thus giving a perfect balance  of both move sets.

The Perfect Roster

When it comes to fighting games, Roster is defiantly key. Take Street Fighter for instance, sure you do have a fair few characters who have the same fighting style but they do take power into consideration. If you pit the likes of Akuma against Dan, you have a fight with two characters with the same fighting style and similar moves but you have a Akuma who is god like in power and Dan who is pretty much just a Joke in the SF roster due to the fact his moves are quite weak. The balance of power is key really. If you take Tekken as an example you have a good variety of fighting styles, meaning you can experiment more with different characters, sure you are still gonna get people who are similar such as Jin and Heihachi. But the similar characters are fewer and far between.

So for a good fighting game Roster you need a good balance of power and variety, but if you have someone too powerful or indeed to weak you are going to have problems.

Variety

As I have pretty much said in the last two sections, variety in any fighter is key. Wether is it the amount of fighting locals in the game, or the amount of different character variants you can have, like costumes or colours or indeed taunts. Variety in any fighting game keeps the game fresh. Hence why Tekken, Street Fighter, Marvel Vs Capcom and Soul Caliber are more successful games as they bring in the variety and give you the opportunity to mix and match. Soul Caliber is prime example of this due to the fact it has great character customization and creation. If you give gamers a great playground they are going to use every single corner of it.

When I was younger I never really saw the appeal of fighting games, now at the ripe old age of 22 I can see that fighting games have so much more than just lets hit this guy in the face and laugh at them. You just need the right balance of stuff really. If you have nailed these three points then you have pretty much got an awesome fighting game.

Oh and I am stupidly excited about Marvel Vs Capcom 3.

Garv.

Original Rumour: Capcom Vs Namco, a game putting various characters from the Capcom and Namco games and pitting them against each other. Much like Marvel Vs Capcom.  There will be two games being made one by Capcom with the Street Fighter IV engine and one by Namco with the Tekken 6 engine.

This rumour got me very excited indeed. The very thought of a game with the slight chance of a battle between Dante and Nightmare from Soul Caliber made me feel a bit giddy. I then thought about it after my initial thoughts and I didn’t think there would be enough variety of characters in the Namco side of things, where as Capcom pretty much had the superior characters.

Then the announcement finally came on Saturday at Comic Con, that the game is in fact going to be Tekken Vs Street Fighter.

Official Announcement: Street Fighter X Tekken will be a game that pits the characters from the worlds most popular fighting games. Tekken and Street Fighter. Two games will be made, Street Fighter X Tekken, a 2D fighting game, which Capcom will develop on the Street Fighter IV engine, and Tekken X Street Fighter a 3D fighting game, which will be developed by Namco on the Tekken 6 engine. Not much is known about Tekken X Street Fighter yet. But Street Fighter X Tekken will feature tag battles and re-worked move sets for the Tekken characters to fit in with the Street Fighter theme. I imagine that Tekken X Street Fighter will feature much of the same on its 3D fighting plain.

Ok, granted this is not what we thought it was going to be, but I have been thinking long and hard about this concept, and the more and more I think about it, the more and more excited I get. A game focussing on only characters from two of the best fighting games out there and then putting them together into 2 titles sounds pretty awesome. Besides the exception of Yoshimitsu, having a VS fighting game with just fisticuffs appeals to me more some how. Don’t get me wrong I love the idea of Marvel Vs Capcom 3, for its sheer rediculousness. But to have a serious verses fighting game hasn’t really been made.

With all these thoughts my mind has been coming up with some dream battles again. The difference this time is that these battles are really likely to happen. Note, they are 1 on 1 battles, I will take tag battles into account in a later post. So without further a do, here is my top 3 match-ups.

I had to put my favorite characters from each game first. I always liked Youshimitsu becuase he was the only Tekken character with a sword, and Bison is cool because his psycho crusher is awesome and he is just deliciously evil. thinking about it these two would probably make up my dream tag team. But for now I will say this,who will win? Psycho Power or pointy sword?

Put simply, this would be an awesome wrestling match, even though I could never really use King, able was really cool to use in SF IV. So I am confident that this will be an awesome match up if someone uses King and I can kick their butt.

The fight of the old timers. I was torn whether to have Akuma or Gouken in this matchup, but I decided, Akuma. Why? Well put pure and simply, this battle would be about pure strength and power. Also both these old fogies have a wealth of fighting experience and awesome pointy hair.

I think it is safe to say, I am pretty excited about this fighting game. Now when’s it coming out? I’ll let you know as soon as I do.

Garv.

P.S. Oh, amost forgot, I found some footage of the demo shown at comic-con, showing ryu, Kazuya, Chun-li and Nina Willaims. Enjoy!

Not to be confused with this...

Now just to let you know, this is not to be confused with the Namco X Capcom RPG title back on the last gen consoles, these are strictly fighting games. Now Capcom Vs Namco will be developed by Capcom on the Street Fighter IV engine while Namco Vs Capcom will be developed by Namco on the Tekken 6 engine. Now the first game sounds good, I love 2D fighters now, it’s a fact. But having a some street fighter character play on a 3D surface, could be a little weird. I have a nasty suspicion that in some ways it won’t translate well, or I could be really wrong and this will be the fighting game of the century. Only time will tell.

I got this information from both Kotaku.com and Gameinformer.com. The rumour itself looks pretty strong as it has been hinted that a trailer for both games will be at Comic-Con in San Diego California this weekend. So stay tuned to Plus XP for more info as I get it.

In light of this pretty epic fighting mash-up. Here are some epic battles which I hope to play if this all takes off.

This would be an epic battle. The most demonic creature in the Soul Calibur series, Nightmare. Versus the demon slayer himself Dante, from Devil May Cry. This would be an epic sword fight resulting in huge demon powers and possible some epic sword skills from both sides.

M.Bison fighting in the Capcom corner, against Kazuya Mishima in the Namco corner. This would be a huge fight over nothing but power alone. You know in the playground back in primary school where you thought you were the cooler and most popular kid? Well think that, but with evil and powerful instead of cool and popular then you will get a vague idea of how cool this match-up would be.

The fight that will probably never happen. Seeing as Spawn was only in Soul Calibur II and Namco lost the writes to ever use him again. Jedah Dohma from Darkstalkers only appeared in Capcom Fighting Jam and again, was never to be seen again…well apart from Darkstalkers. Anyway this match up would be a proper epic Demon fight with all sorts of crazy powers, and it would probably just make me nerdgasm just a tiny bit.

So if this rumour is true, then we may be in for an epic fighting game. I guess we will get some sort of confirmation at Comic-con this weekend.

Garv

Tekken has been a series that I’ve always had mixed feelings about – when I was younger I remember getting Tekken 3 on the PS1 for Christmas one year, and being hooked for hours on end – the colourful cast and varied move sets keeping me entertained – Ling Xiaoyu, Jin Kazama, Heihachi Mishima and Hwoarang being among my personal favourites. It really gave me a sense of variation, whilst being easy to learn. At the time, it was my favourite fighter of all, and I also got hold of copies of Tekken Tag Tournament (which I loved for its wide roster) and Tekken 5.

However, over the years I lost interest in the series – while I still appreciate the cast of characters, something felt missing in Tekken 5, and something about it just didn’t make the cut for me – perhaps it was the new characters such as Raven making me feel somewhat alienated, or maybe it had just been too long since I had been hooked to the series, but after a bit of play I barely touched it again. As an adult, I now find myself a big fan of the Street Fighter titles and Capcom’s VS series’, which feel a lot more technical and somewhat more complex than the other fighters out there. However, with an open mind I have been looking into the latest in the series, and even had a go at it at the recent Eurogamer expo.

The new title is the first to leave the Playstation brand consoles, this time being released on both PS3 and Xbox 360, which is unsurprising seeing the Xbox’s recent successes this generation. The title is set after Tekken 5 and Tekken 5: Dark Ressurection, focusing on a power struggle between Jin, Kazuya and all of the other characters involved – as always this leads to everyone fighting each other, giving the arcade title a bit of background story.

From what I played, I tested Xiaoyu and Kazuya, in the versus mode against a human opponent. The game felt very much like other Tekken titles, although a few new things have been added. These features include a new “Rage” ability, which can be activated once a player’s life has depleted below a certain level, which adds a new way to turn the tide of battle, and a few touches to the engine; such as the ability to stun an opponent by smashing them with a heavy attack. Although these features are nice touches, when I played I couldn’t help but feel that the characters felt a bit different to control – whereas Xiaoyu was a character I have always been comfortable with, I found that the moves wouldn’t always perform as easily as I’m used to, although I couldn’t work out the exact reason for this – perhaps the button timing has been tweaked, or I’m simply out of practise. However, the characters all seemed to retain their signature moves, such as Eddie Gordo’s capoeira attacks, and King’s wrestling moves.

As well as the regular cast of characters, the title introduces six new characters, but they seem a bit mixed. Firstly, there’s Leo – a German female who looks like she wants to be Jin, donning similar red gloves and dressing like a boy. Secondly we have Lars, a new son of Heihachi (so Kazuya’s half brother) who looks cool, and should pack some nice abilities with his bloodline. Alisa serves as Tekken 6′s cute-but-deadly character, a robot in disguise with a range of nasty mechanical moves, while Zafina takes the place of the games femme-fatale, the scantily clad warrior in the vein of Nina Williams. Spaniard Miguel looks like a disco drop-out with puffy hair, who could either be quite cool, or tacky as hell. And lastly we have Bob, who seems to be the all-too-common “fat fighter” (no, not like Little Britain), looking like a cross between Street Fighter’s Ken and Rufus. As I said – a mixed bag, but it looks like there’s at least a couple of worthwhile additions in there.

Much like the predecessors, Tekken 6 is a graphical overhaul but is very much in the same vein as the past titles. Alongside the regular Arcade and Versus modes, as well as a new “Scenario Campaign” which takes place of the old Tekken Force and Devil Within modes, set in a free environment which can be walked around in a more “Streets of Rage” style – this looks improved from the previous versions, although I haven’t been able to play it – but hopefully it will feel a bit deeper than Devil Within was.

All in all, Tekken 6 seems to be more or less what would be expected – a new Tekken game with updated graphics, the odd tweak and the regular cast with a few additions. Personally I found the combat felt a little different to control, but no doubt this would become normal after some practice - as far as I could tell the actual controls were more or less the same, only it took me a few attempts until the move I was trying to do actually worked. Tekken 6 didn’t blow me away with anything in particular, but will no doubt be enjoyed by fans of the earlier titles. I think I’ll stick with Street Fighter until this goes down in price, but I believe everyone has a fighter title that suits them best; Tekken just isn’t mine any more. I’m sure many people will enjoy this game, all in all – it does what it says on the tin, only now there are two tin designs – either the one marked “Playstation 3″ or the all-new “Xbox 360″ version.

-Leon