Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha

When we first heard that Capcom was coming out with another Street Fighter -- Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha -- we almost cried. However, when we found out that this one was going to be polygonal, well, we just had to give it a fighting chance.

Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha possesses over 23 characters to unlock and choose from, including some of the regulars like Chun Li, Ken, Ryu, and some new faces as well. Some of the other entities include a bag of bones by the name of Skullomania. Other characters include Cycloid Beta and Cycloid Gamma. These new fighters are translucent, wire-framed beings who have some pretty powerful moves.

All these new characters are great, but it’s the graphics that caught our eyes. These crispy clean polygons move exceptionally well and look flat out awesome. In fact, we thought that switching from 2D sprites over to polygonal graphics would slow the gameplay down - it didn’t. This game moves deathly fast and plays just as good, if not better than all the old Street Fighter games.

The only complaint I have with the gameplay is the collision detection. It seems when you’re in really close to an opponent, you tend to ‘miss’ them. It doesn’t happen all the time, but when you’re trying to execute a cool combo and it goes wrong because of this, you just want to throw your controller in frustration. But other than that, this game rocks.

All in all, this is one of the best Street Fighters I'’ve ever played, and I think it's a good switch. It’s still a 2D fighter, but it looks a whole lot better.