Games

• Street Fighter X Tekken (including all character and Swap Costume DLC)
• Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition (with all costume DLC)
• Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
• Street Fighter III: Third Strike Online Edition

Video

• New documentary Blu-ray that highlights the lifelong love affair fans have had with Street Fighter, and how their dedication has affected the game.
• Street Fighter IV, Super SFIV anime movies
• All episodes of the Street Fighter animated series (DELICIOUS!)
• Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie

Light-up Ryu statue

• Brand new statue with light up base. Eight inches tall and frozen in mid Shoryuken.

11 disc soundtrack

• Game music from the past 25 years, including remixes and fan-created music.

64 page hardcover art book

• Containing pieces from fans all over the world.

Ryu's belt

• Full size martial arts black belt for the aspiring World Warrior. Includes Ryu's "Furinkazan" in kanji.

Certificate of Authenticity

• Like any good collector's set, this comes with a lovely piece of paper telling you how limited and special it is. They're all individually numbered, so get one before they disappear!

All that's missing is the 1994 Street Fighter feature film.  This collection will set you back $149.99 when it goes on sale on September 18, 2012.  While it looks like an amazing deal at first glance, I wonder how much of the target market for this collection — ardent Street Fighter fans — already own most of this content from previous releases.  If you don't own any of this stuff, then $150 is an amazing bargain for all of this and I say go for it if you enjoy the franchise but haven't bought SSFIVAE and SFxT, but if you've bought Street Fighter titles already this generation, then you're essentially paying for the video content, soundtrack, statue, and art book.  Whether or not that's a fair offering for that price is your call, but as much as I enjoy Street Fighter, I can't justify springing for the double dip on this one.  That's a shame, too, because I love a nice displayable statue.

Supermassive Games unleashed its latest production this week for the Sony PlayStation 3: Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock in which players take on the roles of both the Doctor himself and the mysterious River Song for an adventure that spans time and space (PlayStation Vita and PC versions are coming soon).  I've been waiting for a proper Doctor Who game for several years now, so I was eager to sit down yesterday evening and dive into the adventure.  I played for an hour and completed what I felt was meant to be the warm-up portion of the game that teaches players how the basic mechanics work, and while I have a few criticisms, overall I really like what I see.

Playing as the Doctor is the highlight of the experience.  Eternity Clock stays true to his character; his weapon of choice is his trusty sonic screwdriver that is used for gathering information and gently manipulating the environment around him.  The Doctor runs, jumps, crawls, climbs, and otherwise explores, but you won't see him aim a gun.  All the while that I send the Doctor under and over obstacles, actor Matt Smith is chattering away to provide fun commentary and observations.  It's strange; while I'm playing as the Doctor, I'm also something of his companion on this adventure as I listen to what he has to say and following the advice that, in-universe, he's giving to himself.

Eventually the Doctor runs into an obstacle he can't overcome alone, so the story shifts ahead to the future where River Song is locked away inside the Stormcage Containment Facility.  The Doctor's exploratory gameplay goes back into the box for a bit as River is sent on a stealth escape sequence from prison armed only with her hallucinogenic lipstick and the ability to hide in darkened doorways.  While controlling the Doctor was sublime, working with River bordered on frustrating.  It's all too easy to trip an alarm or bump into a prison guard, and I wound up repeating sections of Stormcage many, many times. 

Eventually I recovered River's pistol and vortex manipulator, allowing her to travel back in time and join the Doctor at his impassable obstacle.  With the characters united, the way that the game is played changes again.  As I'm playing in single-player mode, I'm once again cast as the Doctor with the game itself taking over for River.  This led to the low point of the evening as the characters encountered a battalion of Cybermen on the march in the London subway tunnels.  Our heroes must outrun them, but that means running down a path that it loaded with a series of tandem switch puzzles in which the Doctor must press a button to cause a retracted horizontal pipe to lower into a climbable position so that River can cross a gap.  Once River is on the other side of the gap, the Doctor lets go of the button so that River can press an identical button on her side, lowering the pipe again so that the Doctor can climb across.  There are several of these same obstacles repeated one after the next, and even rushing at top speed I only arrive at the end point just slightly ahead of the Cybermen horde.  The Doctor and River offer some exposition to explain how I'm supposed to open a vault door that's at the end of the path, and the Cybermen march up and electrocute/delete whichever character is standing furthest away from the door before the two can finish their conversation.  The continue point for this scene is all the way back at the start of the climbing/button sequence.  I felt as if I was having a flashback to Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One in the segments in which players must work together to assist critters romping through habitrails by stepping on switches and jumping through other irritating hoops.  I repeated this area eight times before I finally realized what I was supposed to do at the vault door and was able to move on, but it's little bits like this one and the aforementioned Stormcage sequence that left me bristling at the game's first hour.

There's a lot to love about Eternity Clock (particularly for Doctor Who fans) thanks to the game's innate Whoness (collectible hats!  The satisfying snap of the sonic screwdriver!  Callbacks to episodes of the series!) and I'm looking forward to where the story takes me from here.  I know the puzzles will grow in difficulty and I'm sure there are more tandem button/switch challenges ahead, but I intend to see this game through to the end.  Whatever the Cybermen and other foes like them throw at me, I know I can handle it.  After all and at last, I'm the Doctor.

One of the unwritten rules of the Super Mario Bros. titles (heck, of any decent video game, really) is that the environments in which the protagonist finds him or herself be passable according to the game's internal logic.  If Mario can jump a maximum distance of X, then the bottomless pits that separate him from Princess Peach cannot be larger than X unless the game provides an alternate way of moving beyond the pit.  Over at Brawl in the Family we see what happens when Bowser fights dirty and tries to hold Mario back with an extra wide hole in the ground.  Just how resourceful is everyone's favorite plumber?  To what lengths will he go to save the princess?  And just how bottomless are those supposedly endlessly deep gaps?

Nintendo debuted the tablet controller for its upcoming Wii U console at E3 last year, but we haven't seen the new input device since Los Angeles.  Now, thanks to an apparently careless tweet by a TT Games employee, we have our first look at the latest revision of the device.  The 3DSesque sliding circle pads from the original design have been replaced with proper control sticks, there are a few extra buttons scattered around, and a few other alterations have been made.  Polygon summarizes for us:

We can see that the "select" and "start" buttons have been moved just below the X-Y-A-B button cluster, presumably to make them easier to reach during gameplay. The microphone has been moved to the left of the "home" button, which now appears to sport a translucent ring of plastic around it. And those analog sticks now sit closer to the left and right edges of the tablet controller. The device also bears a Wii U logo on its face.

There's still plenty of time before the Wii U launches and more opportunities for the controller to change again in minor ways, but this iteration looks better than what we saw when the Wii U was unveiled (as far as I can tell from a quick photograph, anyway).  The Wii U controller I held at E3 last year had a pleasant weight and size to it, but did look like an early stab at a product.  A little refinement was clearly necessary and we're seeing that happening here, but I wouldn't be surprised if little details changed again slightly before the controller ships.  I would hope that it's complete as far as basic features and capabilities go.  Developers that have to aim at ever-moving targets have added challenges to meet beyond creating a launch window title for new hardware.  The pressure is immense enough as it is without Nintendo swapping features in and out up until the metaphorical eleventh hour.

Nintendo needs a major tentpole title to kick off the Wii U's launch, and I have a feeling that it'll take something more than just Wii U Sports or infusing Miis into New Super Mario Bros. to draw in the core crowds.  It's easy to make the case why the company needs a new Metroid adventure and a new Star Fox shooter, but how would you pitch one game that brings in both franchises?  Rumor has it that Retro Studios (of Metroid Prime and Donkey Kong Country Returns fame) fame is or was working on a Metroid / Star Fox crossover title for the Wii U that brings Fox McCloud and Samus Aran together for a common cause.  Take this with massive piles of salt as it's unconfirmed, but the idea is so crazily wonderful that I had to share it.  Paul Gale Network has the story.

The story begins as you control Fox McCloud and the Star Fox team on deep space mission in your Arwing, flying through a Meteos-like stage. As you enter a light speed warp, there’s a collision with an orange ship (Samus’) and the game continues with you now plummeting to a planet as Samus in her craft. You’re in mild control of her ship, using the Wii U controller to look around and touch screen press the lit up buttons to prepare for impact (while the TV stays locked on what you see out of the cockpit). You’re now on land, as a “yet again” stripped down Samus Aran with the most basic of weapon abilities, in first person perspective, traversing through this unknown planet.

The game switches off between intense Arwing space and planetary battles as Fox makes his way to the planet that Samus crashed on and a Metroid Prime-like experience of gameplay as Samus on this planet, gradually uncovering its mysteries, leveling up, etc. The Star Fox stages represent what the series is best known for, including the chatter and coming to the aid of the rest of your team, all range mode battles, and on rails stages. The Metroid part of the game puts you alone, void of human or any talking character contact, and like the Prime series, sees you gaining upgrades, battling bosses, and in this case, repairing your ship.

PGN points out that this idea may not be in development and perhaps never left the pitch stage.  That's a convenient way to dodge backing up any of this with evidence, but Kotaku points out that PGN has nailed a few long-shot rumors that turned out to be real.  Even if this isn't a real game in the works, perhaps the Internet can make it happen through collective optimism.  As for the idea itself, mixing Nintendo's two space-based bounty hunting franchises seems like a no-brainer of an idea.  I trust Retro Studios to bring new ideas to the experience as it pays tribute to the solid underpinnings of each series and includes the appropriate nods to nostalgia.  Best of all, since the storyline involves Andross attempting to harness the power of the Metroids for his own evil uses, I want to see the moment where he loses control of the parasites and he's forced to come crawling to the Star Fox team for help.  There's plenty of potential in this crossover idea.  Let's see if any of it comes to fruition.

The Doctor and River Song are headed to the Sony PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, and PC very soon in Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock.  As the PS3 version is launching next week, developer Supermassive Games is releasing a series of developer diaries to promote the product and raise fan interest.  This first installment serves as an introduction to the game and shows a little of the action as our heroes are pursued by Daleks and wander around two different versions of England.  River's famous spoiler-filled diary is on display, as is The Doctor's hat collection.  The Eternity Clock looks like it turned out alright and I'm looking forward to playing the finished version next week.  After all, we have a while to wait before the Doctor Who television series returns to our screens, so this might be a nice tide-me-over during the long wait.

Sega's recently released Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode IIfor the Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, PC, and mobile devices is turning some heads with its improved take on attempting to match the Sega Genesis highs of the original beloved Sonic titles, but not everything in this latest adventure copies from the early 1990s.  Consider the music from White Park, Act 2 that starts out with a mildly catchy original piece before delightfully transitioning into a snippet of the Pleasure Castle / Twinkle Park theme from 1999's Sonic Adventure.  Its inclusion is a fun surprise for those of us who logged plenty of hours on Sonic's first real 3D adventure, and the more that I play White Park, the more that I find myself waiting for the Twinkle Park piece to repeat.  "Ooh, here it comes again!"

Power Button Presents Kombo Breaker - Episode 54: Nintendo's 2009 In Review And Looking Ahead With Nintendo World Report's Jonathan Metts

We've been getting several questions, here and elsewhere about the future of on-disc DLC.  We would like to assure you that we have been listening to your comments and as such have begun the process of re-evaluating how such additional game content is delivered in the future. As this process has only just commenced in the past month or so, there will be some titles, where development began some time ago and that are scheduled for release in the coming months, for which we are unable to make changes to the way some of their post release content is delivered.

I'm glad to see that Capcom is actually listening to community feedback.  I don't necessarily mean the kind of feedback that is expressed via e-mail, Twitter, and message forums, of course.  I'm talking about monetary feedback: the recent Street Fighter X Tekken apparently didn't hit sales projections, and of course that game seems to be the worst offender in the world of paid on-disc DLC.  Capcom needs to rethink how it supports its products and should go back to providing whole experiences at launch.  Let the DLC compliment the product, not complete it.  Customers are tired of being burned by this sort of thing and I doubt that Capcom will see a turnaround until they stop cutting out 40% or so of the total experience to sell later for an additional charge.

According to a Linkedin profile discovered by Superannuation, David "3DS Max" Payne has been doing art of the Saints Row series since the second game, including the recent smash hit Saints Row 3 and it's upcoming standalone expansion, Enter the Dominatrix. So whatever this Saints Row 4 he lists as a current project on his profile is, it's a new thing.

We all knew that Saints Row 4 was coming eventually, but I'm curious as to just when we'll see it.  Is THQ planning on following the Assassin's Creed model of annual release?  Is Dominatrix essentially Saints Row Brotherhood?  Will Saints Row 4 be an actual full sequel or more of a Saints Row Revelations?  Here's hoping that THQ stays in business long enough for us to find out.  I loved the action and crazy humor in the original Saints Row: The Third, so as long as the quality level stays consistent, I'm happy to buy yearly installments.  If the franchise falls into the trap of cranking out quickie cash-grab releases to punch up earnings reports, however, I'm out.

It's no secret that video game publishers redesign the artwork that graces the covers of their products depending on region.  For instance, while Kirby appears as a cute little puffball on Japanese box art, he becomes a furious force of pink nature in North America.  Artwork is changed to supposedly appease and appeal to the target market in question and it's open to interpretation which regions end up with the better artwork.  Over at Box vs Box, Diego and Ashley are chronicling box art variations from the past and present with comparisons of the covers of games such as Mass Effect, Super Smash Bros., Streets of Rage, Ico, Bubble Bobble, and many more.  You'll see some familiar faces and a few obscure titles in what proves to be an interesting but brief walk through box art history.  Just for fun, keep a count of how many angry eyebrows you find.

(Image via Reddit)

Let's shift gears from buying games to renting them.  When it comes to video game rentals, how do you temporarily acquire your chosen titles?  Do you wait for new titles to arrive by mail?  Do you hit your local kiosk while running other errands?  Do you relish the twentieth century experience of going to a local store of some sort that specializes in media rentals?  Let's hear your thoughts.