Platform: Sega Dreamcast Sega Dreamcast

Genre: 2-Dimensional 1 on on fighting 2-Dimensional 1 on on fighting

# of Players: 1 or 2 1 or 2

Difficulty: Variable Variable

(Geeky) Um....here's us....with another...review.

(Fat) you SEE? I let you start the review off, just like you wanted, and you screwed it up.

(Geeky) I wasn't READY! You didn't TELL me I was gonna start it! ....What are we reviewing, anyway?

(Fat) Well, there's a stack of games sitting over there. Just close your eyes, pick one, and we'll put it in and review it.

(Geeky) Ah, I see...the scientific approach. (Geeky closes his eyes, picks a game, and puts it into the system). Uh....looks like we have a bad copy of this game.

(Fat) Why's that?

(Geeky) It's not coming up on the Playstation.

(Fat) That was the Dreamcast pile over there. What're you thinking anyway? We haven't even DONE a Playstation review yet.

(Geeky) I've been meaning to ask you about that...why haven't we?...are we biased asses or something?

(Fat) Well, no...it's just that...uhh....we'll get around to doing some sooner or later.

(Geeky) What about Nintendo 64?

(Fat) Yeah, we should...but Brad threatened to rip our hearts out if we gave a Nintendo game a good review...and Pat'll slander us if we don't give Perfect Dark perfect scores...

(Geeky) hmm...a catch-22...

(Fat) So for now why don't we just do a tride-and-true DC review?

(Geeky) Okay. (Geeky places the game in the DC, and it comes up) Okay, we've got Street Fighter III, Double Impact. It looks like there's two games on this disk, like a lot of Capcom's fighting anthologies. Which one should we start with?

(Fat) Let's start with the first game, then on to the second one.

(Geeky) Okie-Dokie. (Fat and Geeky play through both games) Boy. That seemed familiar.

(Fat) Well, it's Street Fighter. Only with some different characters. Let's see...in Street Fighter III we have Ryu and Ken from the originals, Alex, who acts a lot like a mix between Street Fighter 2's Guile and Zangief, Ibuki, a ninja girl with fast moves, Necro, a russian experiment not totally unlike SF2's Dhalsim, Sean, Ken's Disciple, who plays mostly like an average Dragon punchin' SF character, Oro, a one-armed old hermit, and possibly the most original, yet not most effective character, Dudley, a boxer with good uppercuts, but not much else, Elena, a white-haired female african Capoeria fighter, and Yun and Yang, twin brothers with moves like Gen from Street Fighter Alpha 2 and 3, and Fei Long from Super Street Fighter 2, respectively. The final boss you go up against is Gill, a blond haired fancy boy with a body made up half of ice, half of fire. He's beatable, but cheap: one of his special moves is resurrection, which totally revives him after you've beaten him.

(Geeky) Street Fighter III, Second Impact adds Hugo, a Zangief-esqe wrestler that came right out of Capcom's Final Fight, and Urien, Gill's Half-Brother with many of the same moves. Most of the other characters were given additional moves, and their control has been tweaked a bit.

(Fat) The biggest improvement these games show over previous Street Fighter games is not so much in the graphics, as it is in the animation. Each character has about 3 times as many animation frames as they had in earlier SFs, giving them each fluid, smooth movement that makes the game look more like a very well animated cartoon. Thanks to the power of the Dreamcast, all of the animation from the arcade games is intact, with almost no loading time to boot. The backgrounds are totally 2D and well rendered, but not much of an improvement over the previous games, as there's almost nothing going on back there. This game does a good job with it's sound effects. They've been enhanced a bit from the original games to have a little more "oomph" to them. As for the music, Street Fighter III's tunes are tinny and forgettable, while Second Impact's music is bassier and better, but still forgettable.

(Geeky) The control scheme is about the same as most Street Fighter games, with 3 different strengths of punches and kicks. The hard-to-do counters introduced in the Street Fighter Alpha series have been replaced by "parrying", where all you have to do is push the joystick right or left at exactly the right time before an opponent's move hits you. You can even use this to cancel out fireballs. Another distinction between this and the Alpha series is that in Alpha, you could have 2 or 3 super special moves. In SFIII, you only have access to one out of 3 "super arts" that you choose before you begin play. Also gone is air-blocking, which makes projectiles and air moves a lot more dangerous while you're jumping. As usual, the control is crap with the pad. It's meant for the arcade stick. With that, it's perfect.

(Fat) So what'd you think of Double Impact overall, Geeky?

(Geeky) I guess I've been spoiled by some of Capcom's other recent releases such as Marvel vs. Capcom 2, and Street Fighter Alpha 3. While both the games in Double Impact play good and look great, they just don't have enough character variety for me. Especially since there's only 2 woman competitors. That's just wrong. The characters that ARE there are good, but somehow not as appealing to me as the old Street Fighter 2 guys were. Plus, a lot of them have the same, or very similar moves to characters in the older games. I would've liked to have seen a little more originality...

(Fat) I myself really like the back-to-basics playstyle these games have, where you have to rely more on your skill with the character than some cheap spastic 100 hit combos. Still, Geeky has a definite point. The game that I and everyone else REALLY want from this series is Street Fighter 3: 3rd Strike (available now through import). Not only does it have a bunch more characters and brand new backgrounds, but it will also support internet network play, something the Double Impact games won't do. These gamee are also a bit sparse when it comes to extra features, relying more on gameplay to attract players.

(Geeky) and 3rd Strike's got more girls! The Better animation really works wonders on them. The bouncing breasts and throbbing thighs...

(Fat).....call a dating service or something, will you?

Graphics: 8.9 8.9

Sound: 8 8

Control: (pad) 6.7 (stick) 9.5 (pad) 6.7 (stick) 9.5

Playability: 8.6 8.6

Worth a rent? Yes Yes

Worth a buy? It's a decent buy, but you might just want to wait for 3rd Strike. It's a decent buy, but you might just want to wait for 3rd Strike.

Worth buying the system for? No. Until PS2 comes out, the DC is the only system that has the power to run as much animation as this game has, but it still is just Street Fighter. No. Until PS2 comes out, the DC is the only system that has the power to run as much animation as this game has, but it still is just Street Fighter.