if there’s one game that the sickdamage crew has been drunkenly playing while we aren’t holding our gamecube controllers, it would be Street Fighter 4. the game is a blast and is definitely the next big, competitive fighter for years to come. i would enjoy it a lot more if i could actually afford an arcade stick, but the companies who distribute them make them near impossible to get for a reasonable price…

while on the topic of new competitive fighting games, i just wanted to remind everyone about SNK’s King of Fighters 12 game coming out for xbox 360/ps3 this summer. KoF has always been a rival of the street fighter franchise and should definitely not be over looked.

frankly, i’m an old school gamer at heart. so i of course prefer 2d sprites over 3d rendered models. KoF 12 is 100% hand drawn digital vagina. screen shots really don’t give it any justice. you need to watch high quality videos of the game in action. the animations are beautiful.

there is a rumored American release date of July 7th (just 10 days before this year’s Otakon!). if you keep up with competitive fighting game events, you surely know of the EVO tournaments. they are basically the Superbowl of fighting game tournies. this year’s EVO will not contain KoF12 but will be holding a separate event in in California that will be supported by both EVO and SNK. winners will of course get a chance to win a Japanese KoF12 arcade machine. yummm. also, like street fighter 4, KoF12 will be including a few extra characters that the Japanese arcade version lacks. these characters are not officially announced yet but are rumored to be Mai and K’.

okay, enough of me rambling on about this game. if you like street fighter 4, this is definitely a title you will want to check out as well.