Street Fighter IV Review

Scottish visitors to our company’s site may already know that our MD, Dave Cook is an award-winning games journalist. Dave writes a small, but brilliant gaming column in Edinburgh newspaper, The Scotsman.

In the spirit of the kind of clients our company deals with on a daily basis, we’ve decided to start posting up other, non-PR articles that our team produce or come across, so visitors can get a feel for what we’re all about

So, to kick things off, here is Dave’s most recent review Scotsman review of the instant classic, Street Fighter IV on XBox 360. We hope you enjoy it as much as Dave enjoys playing this game. (Somehow we doubt it, he REALLY likes this game…but wont play as anyone else but Ken)

(From The Scotsman, Saturday, 28th February 2009)

Street Fighter IV

Capcom

Xbox 360/PC/PS3

CAPCOM’S dedication to their fans over the past few years has been incredible, with updates of old classics and sequels that fix every gripe players had with their predecessors. Street Fighter IV takes every single element that made the franchise so popular to begin with and bolsters them to perfection. No bones about it, this is, without exaggeration, the greatest beat-em-up ever.

All 12 of the original world warriors return, from friendly rivals Ryu and Ken to the fearsome M Bison and Sagat. Six new fighters enter the mix, each with varied styles that shake things up considerably – from the twitch play of luchadore El Fuerte’s dash attacks to amnesic brawler Abel’s punishing throws.

The fight dynamic is accessible for newcomers, with a new attack system that anyone can learn with a bit of practice. Familiar super-combo gauges return, allowing for superb finishers. A new revenge meter fills as you take damage, eventually spilling over into the new ultra system, letting you pull off insane attacks that drain almost 50 per cent of your opponent’s life bar.

Aesthetically, it’s an exemplary game, with stupidly catchy music, hard-hitting sounds when you connect with your opponent, larger-than-life characters and great 3D backgrounds.

It’s loud, it’s in your face and exudes character. Coupled with superb online and challenge modes, this truly is a fitting homage, not just to an iconic fighting series but to the fans who have supported that series since day one. Absolutely essential gaming.

‘Tweeting’ marvellous! – It’s the edtwestival

Last night was definitely something of a first for many people. Venues across the UK played host to the first in what will no doubt be a long line of ‘Twestivals’. It really is a brilliant concept, where members of the ‘not quite a blog-not quite a networking site’ Twitter got together to meet face to face, some for the first time, despite having exchanged tweets for a long while.

To be honest, I had no idea what to expect, other than it was a charity event to raise funds for clean water pumps in Africa (I’m happy to add that they exceeded their quota for the evening!) and that there would be live music and an awful lot of tweeting.

A networking event at its core, patrons were given those stereotypical ‘Hi My Name Is…’ badges, but instead of your own name of course, you had your Twitter username, followed by instructions of how to tweet your interactions throughout the evening. Displayed in the venue’s main bar was a giant map of people’s interactions throughout the evening, who they met, when they met them, who met the most people (not ideal if you’re ‘billy-no-mates’)

Attendees could even tweet to the Twestival’s live feed, displayed on screens around the venue, people could comment on the evening’s events. Once the charity raffle had been drawn, the cries of ‘shenanigans’ started flooding in from tweeters, disgruntled that they were going home empty-handed.

The winning tickets were all orange and in the 300’s mind you……

Twestival is really a rare thing. The days of networking events full of cliques and people standing at opposite sides of the room are surely a thing of the past, as this event was cheerful and actively encouraging strangers to interact with Twitter as the platform.

Let’s hope the event regular and not just an annual occasion. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some tweeting to do…

(oh and incase you were wondering, my twitter username is davescook – feel free to add me for video game news and PR tidbits)

Square-Go: An Insight

I must confess that I live something of a double life. Aspiring PR consultant by day, jack-of-all-trades video game journalist by night.

While I’m now focusing about 99.9 per cent of my efforts on this sparkling new and, of course, exciting media relations company, It’s only right to provide an insight into the other things I do when I’m not helping game companies and others get their message out to the masses.

Any fellow Scots reading this will of course know of The Scotsman newspaper. If you pick one up on a Saturday, check out the inside back page of the Critique supplement. This is where my award-winning games column lives. I’ve been penning this legendary scribe for just over a year now and I even won a Games Media Award for best regional columnist for my trouble.

-Not bad for a 250-word square I hope you will agree 🙂

I also work as features editor for another Scottish publication; Independent, game magazine Square-Go, which I also helped conceptualise and launch. www.square-go.com

It’s a new, rapidly growing publication and, while I’ll be the first to openly admit it needs many a kink ironed out, it’s definitely well on it’s way.

If you would like to bookmark my article feed, please visit: http://www.square-go.com/author/Dave%20C

Or, if you would like to RSS feed all articles, please add this link to your Netvibes or other feed provider:

http://www.square-go.com/author/Dave%20C

Many thanks and as always, feedback is appreciated,

Dave Cook, MD