Friday Downtime Feature

The wait is finally over. No, we're not talking about the hugely anticipated TVG Friday Downtime, this is about something far, far more important - the TVG review of Street Fighter IV!  OK, OK, we know that Capcom's latest instalment in the seminal fighting franchise has been out for a week already, but we've been busy trying to unlock Akuma and Gouken!

Seriously, Street Fighter IV is perhaps the one beat-em-up title that could resurrect the long dormant genre, especially when other rival franchises have proved less than fruitful...we're looking at you Virtua Fighter 5, Dead or Alive 4, and the ultimate in strange franchise partnerships, Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe!  Scoring an incredibly solid nine out of ten, Street Fighter IV has pretty much stayed in our respective Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 disc trays ever since we received copies of the game from Capcom...well, except for the times I've found myself going back to Lost: Via Domus (don't ask, I dreamt about 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42 last night).

It seems that Capcom's fourth 'true' outing for Ryu, Ken, and the rest of the World Warriors is getting a lot of attention, and the Japanese publisher certainly isn't taking any chances with stock levels.  In fact, Capcom this week announced that it had shipped over 2 million units since the game launched on February 20th; celebrations of Street Fighter IV's success have also begun amongst the gaming hardcore, with news that the game toppled the mighty Wii Fit from the number position in the UK All Format charts after five weeks.  It's a feat that F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin and Skate 2 failed to achieve on their debut weeks...can Street Fighter IV hold off the Nintendo fitness title for a second week, or for that matter, Halo Wars?

Yes, this week sees the arrival of Halo Wars, the final title from the now defunct Ensemble Studios.  Set two decades before the events of the original Halo, the game is an exclusive to Xbox 360 and is Microsoft's first attempt to expand the universe of humanity's struggle against the Covenant beyond the FPS genre.  So will it succeed?  If you're an RTS fan, the chances are that Halo Wars' re-alignment to the console will seem a little simplistic. But whilst it does lack a Covenant campaign, seeing a unit of Spartans go to town against the best that the Covenant can throw at them will make Halo fanboys (and fangirls) more excitable than a graphic novel fan sitting on David Gibbons' knee.

When it's not contemplating legal action, SimBin Studios produces racing sims for PCs.  Last week saw the release of the Swedish outfit's latest, RACE Pro for Xbox 360, which also happened to be the studio's console debut.  You may have read our review of the disappointing racer several days ago, but receiving a lowly 5 out of 10 wasn't the only thing on publisher Atari's mind this week.  The rejuvenated company - now fronted by St Phil of Harrison - was forced into issuing a statement about the current issues with RACE Pro's online experience.  Several issues have been revealed by Atari and SimBin, though a problem with the networking code written into the game isn't the only apparent reason.  According to the statement, RACE Pro's online experience is being hampered somewhat surprisingly by the sheer weight of people trying to play the game over Xbox Live...
 
A Friday Downtime report wouldn't be complete without pointing out some of the game announcements of the week, and this time it seems that the main recipient is the PSP.  The handheld console, which has looked increasingly beleaguered over the past couple of years, will be in for a bumper 2009.  Not only will the PSP shortly get Resistance Retribution, but LittleBigPlanet, MotorStorm, and Rock Band, will also jump onto the console before the end of the year!  All this will be music to the ears of PSP owners around the globe (except for Japan, where Monster Hunter still sends gamers potty for their PSP), who will not only have to brush off a mountain of dust from their units, but remember where they left the battery charger too!

Not content with riding the crest of success left by Street Fighter IV, Capcom this week lifted the lid on Lost Planet 2.  The game, which so far has only been announced for Xbox 360 (don't worry, we'd bet our thumbs that a PS3 version will be heading out too), is set a decade after the escapades of the first title, and introduces jungle environments to the snowy landscapes of the original.  Unveiled in a video released exclusively on the Xbox Live Marketplace, which was then temporarily take down for a few hours rather abruptly, Lost Planet 2's announcement comes hot on the heels of Dead Rising 2, which was also revealed in recent weeks.

Another week, another PlayStation 3 price cut rumour.  This time coming from an analyst at Janco Partners, who said that a cut of $100 could be made within days, and would certainly arrive before E3 2009 in June.  So far, Sony Computer Entertainment is yet to announce such a cut, but surely it would if we all asked nicely rather than continue in this expectant tone, wouldn't it?  A price cut will of course be coming at some point, it may even come at E3 2009, but with Sony's Destination PlayStation all wrapped up without such a revelation don't expect it to announced much before June.

Finally for this week's Friday Downtime, we look towards one of the big summer Radical Entertainment, one of the few survivors of the Activision Blizzard merger.  Despite featuring bags of content, one of the things that Prototype won't be doing is rewarding Xbox 360 gamers with new clothes for their Avatar.  The New Xbox Experience launched last November with quite a fanfare from Microsoft, but developers still haven't been able to truly take advantage of the Rare-developed system. TVG asked one Associate Producer from Activision why Prototype wouldn't be supporting it, and he said it was because the infrastructure isn't in place yet.  Isn't in place yet?  That's not like Microsoft; after all, it's not like we're still waiting for IPTV functionality on the Xbox 360. Oh, wait...