It's not always fun to be dragged kicking and screaming into the recesses of your mind when browsing the files marked “nostalgia”. Street Fighter, I'm glad to say, is an exception to this rule. The SNES was the 3rd gaming platform I got my hands on and came with it's own spanky new copy of Street Fighter 2 Turbo, which for all intensive purposes was the same as Street Fighter 2 but with a really really quick option. I guess this itself defines what “turbo” means... but you get the idea.

I actually remember playing the arcade version prior to ever owning a copy. This memory has sunk a little deeper due to some guy with more money, less sense and more time on his hands dishing out a royal spanking at my expense. Still, repetitively mashing Shoryukens over and over leads perhaps into the most important part of where I stick Street Fighter in my categories of beat-'em-ups. It's firmly, without a doubt, placed into the “arcade fighters” category above any other title.

Street Fighter IV, like all the other previous versions, doesn't sit there letting you know that when you clench up your hand, it makes a fist, and with it you can hit people. It simply says “here's some moves – over to you bucko”. So you quickly become accustomed to the idea that you have lots of mashing moves, and a couple of super mashing moves to pull off. That, in essence is pretty much where most first-timers and a few who have played the games before, fit in. All fighting strategies are thrown enthusiastically out of the window to be replaced by what can only be described as cave men discovering fire and then holding their face in it to see who could last the longest. It's no longer about who gets burned, but by how much.

This sums up the surface of your average Street Fighter game. However, if you've ever felt the need to go an get yourself a Madcatz Official Street Fighter IV FightStick (although sold out everywhere!) and twiddle that knob repetitively until your fingers form some sort of mutated callous hailing you as the newest member of the SFIV Geek Squad – you can! Although in saying all that as some sort of debasement of anyone who feels the need to join such ranks, I found myself liking the game more than I thought I would.

Like the previous versions of the hugely popular Street Fighter series, you'll find all the regular cast involved yet again in some sort of seemly pointless storyline cut out of the backs of cereal boxes and woven together with a splash of Anime and over-zealous voice actors. This is not important. The storyline never was. In fact, if I ever play a beat-'em-up with a storyline that moves me in any way other than the bowel region, I know I'll be playing a steaming pile of similar excrement as they'd obviously not spent enough time honing the moves and more time creating a violent soap opera.

No, discarding the storyline for what it is, a filler, and moving swiftly on to the most important part – kicking the living bejesus out of each other. With the fact that SFIV looks pretty damn sweet now with updated graphics, a 3D standpoint (albeit from a 2D platform perspective) and some new crazy super moves to take advantage of it all, fans of the series will rest happy that someone didn't screw it all up.

While there are some new characters to play around with the main couple of features that spring out as being new are Focus Attacks and the Super and Ultra combos you can pull off. Focus attacks are one of generic attacks that all characters can perform. It has 3 stages to it, a quick, medium and hard attack which are progressively stronger respectively. The full attack also counts as an unblockable move that can be extremely powerful in the right situations. Not only that but the Focus attacks can be used to cancel other combos to begin others, or start new combos from some seriously devastating damage.

The Super and Ultra moves can be pulled off throughout the battle when you accumulate enough of either gauge. Once the 'Ex' gauge is full you'll be able to pull off one of the characters special moves through a sequence of button presses. However, should you wish, rather than waiting for the gauge to fill all the way you can use a bar of it to make one of your regular special attacks take on certain properties. For example, if performing one of Ryu's Hadouken's it'll actually fire off a fireball that counts as 2. So even if you have Ken standing off firing his fireball, it'll only block one of them allowing the second to carry on to hit Ken. As you can imagine, this can be extremely useful in a lot of situations ranging from combos, to stalemates, to just finishing off someone who's gone into permanent block mode.

The Ultra moves can be pulled off when your 'revenge' bar fills. This either fills through taking damage or from performing certain moves. These extremely powerful attacks require a certain amount of patience as wasting this move is a chance you won't want to miss. They take off roughly a half of the opponents health or more, but can be blocked, so waiting for the right moment to unleash this attack is critical.

While you can spend some time practising in the single player mode, most likely spending time to unlock all the characters, there's nothing quite like facing real opponents online. Capcom have made these easier by adding an option you can turn on to get challenged by real-world people at any time. So you can tick this box if you feel up to the challenge, or simply leave it off in order to prepare yourself and then actively seek combatants when you feel more comfortable with your skills.

I found myself at a bit of a loss to begin with. I guess in certain respects I wasn't sure what to expect. It was perhaps a few days into playing the game that the addiction kicked in. Even when players I've never met hand my arse to me in some of the most embarrassing can-I-hit-you-yet moments, I've still thirsted for more. Street Fighter IV is freakin' good, 'nuff said.