The Big Fight: Street Fighter Vs Tekken
With Street Fighter x Tekken out this month, we match the two grizzled giants of pixelated punching in the ring: best games, easiest and hardest characters, arcade cabinets and godawful movies.
Short of the announcement of a Star Trek x Star Wars movie, 2012’s most geek-exciting crossover event has to be Street Fighter x Tekken, a long-awaited grudge match between the two grizzled giants of pixelated punching. With the game hitting, kicking and cock-punching consoles this month, we matched them up in the ring. Ding ding!
Street Fighter (1987–present)
1. Top-rated game in series: Street Fighter IV (PS3, X360, PC, 2009), with an average review score of 94% (source: Metacritic.com).
2. Best-selling game in series: Street Fighter II: The World Warrior (SNES, 2002), with total worldwide sales of 6,300,000.
3. Easiest character to master: Ken. He strikes a newbie-friendly balance between power and grace, and even the most gammy-handed wazzock can master his famous hadouken.
4. Hardest character to master: Gen. With two separate fighting styles and multiple move-sets, Gen is one for the mighty of memory and lightning of finger. Plus, he’s 70 and has leukemia, so he carks it pretty easily.
5. Most ridiculous character: El Fuerte, a Mexican luchador wrestler/aspiring chef who seeks out the world’s greatest fighters in order to learn what they eat. Despite his love of cooking, he is actually terrible at it. Riiiight.
6. Cost of Street Fighter IV arcade cabinet: £10,750 (approx).
7. Face-kicking fact: Balrog was initially intended as a parody of Mike Tyson, hence his original name, Mike Bison. Fearing a lawsuit/ear-biting from Iron Mike, Capcom transferred that name over to SF II’s end-of-game boss, M. Bison.
8. Most recent godawful movie adaptation: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009). Starring: Kristin Kreuk and Chris Klein. “It was a long slog with little payoff,” according to the New York Times.
Tekken (1994–present)
1. Top-rated game in series: Tekken 3 (PSone, PS2, 1998), with an average review score of 96% (source: metacritic.com).
2. Best-selling game in series: Tekken 3 (PSone, PS2, 1998), with total worldwide sales of 7,160,000.
3. Easiest character to master: Eddy. With his dancey capoeira fighting style, it’s easy to make him pull off crazy moves without really knowing what you’re doing. One for the ‘button-mashers’.
4. Hardest character to master: Mokujin. The freaky wooden doll-man randomly emulates the fighting styles of others, and so demands total mastery of every single Tekken character. Christ.
5. Most ridiculous character: Roger Jnr, a bio-engineered baby kangaroo, and the son of the original Tekken’s Roger. He boxes foes whilst sitting in his mother’s pouch.
6. Cost of Tekken arcade cabinet: £2,900 (approx).
7. Face-kicking fact: “Tekken” translates as “Iron Fist” in Japanese. Ouch.
8. Most recent godawful movie adaptation: Tekken (2010). Starring: Jon Foo and Kelly Overton. “It replicates the most dimwitted and self-serious aspects of the Tekken games in a totally lifeless movie,” says Slant magazine.
Illustration by Miles Cole.
From the March 2012 issue of FHM India.
Spotted a mistake, or your photo used without permission? Report a correction
in your inbox