One other goody that the console and PC ports are expected to get are fully animated endings for each character. While the arcade version of Street Fighter IV features simple still frames—something Ono chalks up to budget limitations—the console follow ups will be packed with more cinematic endings, said to be produced by an unnamed, but famous anime studio.

Ono showed off one animated sequence early in the day, one that featured Ryu, Akuma, Ken and a man who appears to be Gouken in a dramatic battle rife with flashbacks and over the top attacks. The SFIV producer mentioned that this particular sequence was not going to be included in the final version, but was limited to media events, possibly to give us an understanding of how the final product will look. “

First came Yoda, and with him, Darth Vader. And though both would take to the field of battle in Soulcalibur IV, they would do so across seperate planes of existence, perhaps seperate timelines, wherein one small shift lead to the appearance of one on the PS3, and the other on the Xbox 360.

But now, there is another.

Such came the proclamation from Namco-Bandai earlier today, as they revealed that the Jedi Master and the Sith Lord would not be the only ones engaged in lightsaber combat and wielding Force powers on the stage of history. Both versions of the anticipated weapon-combat fighting game will include some new blood, in the form of Darth Vader’s Secret Apprentice.

The Secret Apprentice will appear straight from LucasArts’ upcoming Star Wars: The Force Unleashed title, which takes place between Episodes III and IV, wherein Vader trains his own understudy in secret, carrying out Vader’s orders while working to not expose his existance.

This will mark the first time since the poorly-received Masters of Teras Kasi that the Star Wars franchise will have been privy to one-on-one lightsaber combat in a true fighting game sense. SCIV will arrive on its respective consoles on July 29th, while Star Wars: The Force Unleashed will be available for all consoles come September 16th, making for some nice preemptive advertising for LucasArts.

The official site for Street Fighter IV’s mobile version may just have given us a look at the line-up for the game, potentially revealing—in teeny, tiny mobile phone resolution—the remaining unrevealed fighters and a possible character count. In addition to the sixteen already confirmed world warriors appearing in SFIV—twelve of whom are Street Fighter II vets—six other character slots may have been filled. In addition to those 22 character profiles, we see what looks like Vega (aka Claw) holding down a spot sans mask.

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The most famous hype man in history makes his entry into the virtual realm.
by Nate Ahearn
May 14, 2008 – Don King is a luminary of the sports world. He has transcended the sport of boxing and is now a genuine celebrity, not from setting foot in the ring, but instead as being the greatest hype man the sports world has ever seen. And that hair. The man would be nothing without that outrageous hair. He and his hair are now making their first entry into the world of videogames with Don King Presents: Prizefighter, a game that is essentially 2K Sports’ belated answer to EA Sports’ heralded Fight Night Round 3. It brings with it a list of 40 licensed boxers (ten classics including James Braddock, Ken Norton, Larry Holmes, and Joe Louis), 25 venues, and some of the best entry music we’ve heard in a sports game. But what really matters, what makes or breaks a boxing game is the core gameplay.

Prizefighter takes a slightly different approach to its mechanics by abandoning the tried and true right stick approach to punching, replacing it with a more traditional face button style. X defaults as your jab, Y is your straight punch, A is your left hook, B is your right hook with a combination of two buttons required to pull off an uppercut. In our few hours with Prizefighter the punching system was responsive and relatively fast-moving. Animations follow along accordingly and look as you’d expect, though things weren’t quite as responsive in our early build as we’d like to see. Granted, it is easier to tap a button than swing an analog stick, so it may have been the fault of spastic fingers rather than the gameplay.

When we were able to find the rhythm to the chosen fighter it became easier to string together punches. Of course after figuring out how to throw combos in succession came the task of defending our fighter. This, unlike punching, relies on the right analog stick, but it doesn’t split the body up into four quadrants. Instead you’ll just have to worry about defending high or low, not to either side. You do have to worry about blocking too often as your guard will eventually break. The defensive system simplifies things a bit and you don’t have to worry about any sort of parry move. Rather, you’ll have to dodge an incoming punch for the chance at an open window to unleash the pain.

There are also special abilities that you’ll learn about in the training session that begins your career. There’s an adrenaline meter that is filled either by throwing combos or blocking punches in a row. When one of the three partitions is filled you’ll be able to throw one of four specialty punches that are controlled by the four face buttons. Mash the left bumper, press the X button and you’ll do a quick punch to the middle of your opponent’s chest. The Y button gets you a massive uppercut and the rest we’ll leave for you to discover on your own. You can also save your adrenaline and go into a kind of rage mode where all of your attributes are maxed out for a time.

The specialty punches become necessary in fights later in your career and they’re a great way to make a comeback if things are looking down. If you do happen to get knocked down you’ll be greeted with a classic “Tap A as fast you can, then press Y to stand up before the ten-count” mini-game. There are flash knockdowns that happen when your fight is going straight into a massive hook or uppercut, thankfully we’ve never seen one that felt cheap or unrealistic.

One thing that was evident was that some work still needs to be done to refine the collision detection when it comes to swinging your weight around the ring. Hands and body parts enter into environmental objects on occasion; even punches sometimes show hands going through a fighter’s chest or head. Here’s hoping that Venom Games can tune things up a bit before this sucker ships on June 9.

Other than the occasional clipping issue Prizefighter has a solid visual style. Player models sweat in the ring and can be sculpted to look like any number of shapes and sizes. While the fighter factory creation tool is a bit convoluted in its design (it employs both analog sticks for a number of sliders) it does allow for an awesome number of possibilities. Needless to say my first piece of business was creating the famous Nate Dog and getting his blond head in the ring and knocked around a bit. Of course in order to make him a formidable opponent I had to beef up his dexterity, strength, stamina and agility in the career mode.

Prizefighter presents its starring feature in an interesting way. While you’ll still meld your fighter and build his career from scratch, the game presents players with a retrospective documentary along the way with supposed characters who made appearances throughout your former boxing career. From what we’ve seen thus far the documentary looks and sounds as it should, though some actors pull off their parts with more authenticity than others. The documentary is a great way to give depth to your fighter, and while you will have a PDA to check every once and a while, the video footage is the only real sign of activity outside of the ring. That means no worrying about having to watch your fighter go to night clubs or do steroids in the back of the locker room at Frank’s Gym.

The two main activities for your boxer to do are training and boxing in prizefights. Larry Easton Promotions presents you with a list of fight options, a few of which will need to be beaten to unlock what you could call the “boss fight.” The locales that you fight in and the prize money get nicer and bigger as you progress through your storied career. You’ll establish a rival, you’ll get breakdowns from your corner man and advice from sleazy odds makers who happen to know about injuries to your opponent from time to time and you’ll be presented with opportunities to train with specialists on occasion. While none of your actions inside the ring or training have any effect on the documentary footage that you unlock, the world around the boxing is still fairly well constructed.

The sound of Prizefighter is also impressive from the time we’ve spent with it. Your trainer does have a tendency to repeat the same handful of phrases during training, but Jim Lampley and Emmanuel Steward do a good job with the commentary and the ambiance around the ring feels accurate for each of the venues. The best part of the audio experience, however, is the entry music. 2K Sports has finally gone out and licensed a good group of artists that are perfectly tailored to get someone pumped up before a fight. It would’ve been nice if the punches packed more of a wallop, but maybe Nate Dog just needs to spend more time in the weight room.

Don King has yet to make his virtual appearance in Nate Dog’s career, but we’re guessing that’ll happen later down the line. Right now he’s just lending his fantastic public speaking skills to the video footage that is seen after every handful of victorious fights. We haven’t touched multiplayer yet and we’ll need more time to speak to the strategic possibilities that are afforded by the game’s AI, suffice to say it’s too early to pass final judgment on Don King Presents: Prizefighter. We can say that the presentation values are solid and the boxing emulates the real deal admirably.

Check back in the days leading up to Prizefighter’s June 9 release for the full review.

Unfortunately, overseas game production companies, which are well-funded and extremely skilled, have surpassed us by a couple of steps…It was once said that Japan molded the world’s video game [industry], but that’s becoming a thing of the past. Sad as it may be, it’s the truth.

what does this mean for fighting games , lower graphics on majority of Asian games and also less content.

not fighitng new but….

RE5 looks amazing.

It’s been two years since the last Fight Night game was released, which is practically eons ago in the annualized sports game world. But EA announced this afternoon that fans need wait no longer as Fight Night will return for “Round 4″ at some point next year on Xbox 360 and PS3.

There are few details at this point, other than what you’d expect (new gameplay engine, new physics, etc.). Perhaps most exciting is that Mike Tyson will appear in the game, more than a decade after both his last video game appearance and his last brush with relevance.

joystiq