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Street Fighter 3rd Strike

	Developer
	Publisher	Virgin
	Genre	Beat 'em up!
	Players	1-2
	Rumble	Yes
	Extras	Arcade stick

The Street Fighter 3 series has been criminally overlooked. The problem was that Capcom put the game on their CPS3 board [all previous street fighter games were on the CPS2 board]. This meant that arcade owners were reluctant to buy the new hardware to play this awesome game, but now with Dreamcast, you can!

Chun-Li returns for what should be the final time. She has realised that in this violent world children are becoming lost [emotionally, I mean. They can still go to the shops and stuff without losing their way]. She also believes that this new threat -GILL- is the cause and by destroying this threat everything will be okay.

Another new character is Twelve, he is the next generation of the Necro. Twelve has the ability to morph into its enemies, imagine that the T1000 copulated with the Stay Puft Marshmallow man, the result would be Twelve.

The standard modes are included, but not as many as Street Fighter Alpha 3. However a brand new mode has been created exclusively for Street Fighter 3: Third Strike [SF3:3S], this is the system direction. The system direction allows you to change many of the games technical aspects. In short you can alter the game style to suit your play style, features such as block damage, recovery time and the hit ratios and charge time are all changeable. [For the complete list see my system direction faq].

Another new Street Fighter feature is the ability to choose your next battle, from a choice of two. So now you can avoid the difficult battles. However after each battle you are ranked on your fighting ability, this is a good additional as it adds lots of replay value.

As the game is a conversion of a CPS3 board game, it runs in high resolution of 640*480 - that’s twice the resolution of Street Fighter Alpha 3. This results in high definition characters and more frames of animation. All the characters in SF3:3S play differently, there are very few ARK [Akuma, Ryu, Ken] characters which makes for a better game as there are character styles to learn. All the characters are great, but my favourite has to be Elena, she never stands still! Also that win pose she has when she bends over is amazing, it will bring a smile to your face.

SF3:3S has really experimented with its musical score. It has a theme song, not to unlike Ally McBeal - however this theme song is rapped by some American guy. So excellent lyrics like "Check it out y'all What's it gonna be, Trapped in the new world of Street Fighter 3!" may make you cringe. Unlike the previous Street Fighter 3 World Impact game the sound effects in SF3:3S are incredibly clear, the characters are very talkative and the echo you get when you both play the same character is not as bad as previous versions. The background music is very atmospheric and fits the scene well.

The graphic design of SF3:3S has altered a lot from the previous 2 games in the series. The images you get when you win are gone, so now selecting Elena just to see her on all floors when you beat her. The new images show your chosen character in his/hers selection art pose. Also the backgrounds although well drawn seem to lack some of the colour of Street Fighter 3: 2^nd Impact Giant Attack, and lastly the characters do share stages. This frustrates me as it kinda disperses with the whole world warrior ideal of the Street Fighter series. The stages do come in Night and Day versions, or Day and Night if you are Billie Piper.

Street Fighter 3: Third Strike is the best of the Street Fighter 3 series and in my opinion the best Street Fighter game to date. In short Street Fighter is and always has been a 'fan' thing. If you don't have a 2D fighter and you are hankering….that's hankering for a good tactical fighter then buy this. Those of you who have Street Fighter Alpha 3 and enjoy it should just stick to it. Street Fighter 3 is more tactical and the whole fighting system is more tight than the super move reliant 'VS' games and to some extents the Alpha series.

  Street Fighter 3: Third Strike is the best fighting game available on Dreamcast, and with its additional customisable features will keep you going for ages.

Sam Smith

Graphics	9.0	Top quality animation, more impressive than the other 2D games and even some 3D games.
Sound	9.0	Music is atmospheric, the rapper will entertain you for a few seconds. Vocals are incredibly crisp.
Gameplay	10	Street Fighter is pure game play. Plenty of customisable features and new attacks will keep you experimenting with new combos.
Lifespan	9.0	Street Fighter fans will play it to the end of time, or until a better Street Fighter game comes out. None fans probably didn't even get this far. What? You did? Well more fool you.
Overall

"Street Fighter 3 Third Strike: Fight for the future, is excellent..no other game as such comes close"

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Reviewer:

Sam

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