Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max

Before Mario became the most iconic character in videogame history – not to mention the most famous plumber in, well, plumbing history – he was just a carpenter named Jumpman, starring in a game named Donkey Kong. Our point? Even the best need a little time to blossom.

Such is the case with these 8 characters. Like Mario, they weren’t necessarily bad or below average in their debuts, but they were truly spectacular in their sequels, to the point that we almost forget our first impressions of them. How much they changed, and how much they improved. Here, then, is a reminder…

Fact: Bruce Lee is better than Chuck Norris. Lee never hawked Bowflexes in his quest for the perfect mixed martial arts form. Lee kicked Norris’ ass in Way of the Dragon. And it was Lee who brought his proprietary blend of Kung Fu kickass-ery to the mainstream with his wild whoops, and a roundhouse kick that packed more power than the millions of stale internet jokes about his co-star...

If you're reading GamesRadar, chances are good that you're here for lists featuring sexy videogame women. Congratulations, you are doing the Internet properly! Now, we've done all sorts of sexy articles, and as graphics strive to be more and more realistic, we have sexier and sexier things to talk about. It wasn't always this way, however. Think back to the era of the humble sprite...

What better way to learn how to fight than from videogames, the leading cause of fights? It’s true, videogames cause most of the world’s violence. Scientists have done science that proves it, so there’s no point in arguing. People sometimes tell me that things aren’t so “black and white,” but I don’t even know what that means, because I’m not racist like they are.

But if you learn from them, videogames can make you undefeatable in the ring, by the bike racks, at the grocery store, or wherever you are when the part of your brain that plays videogames gets you into a fight. Mine does it a lot so that’s why I’m pretty good at fighting. Pay very close attention because this is important...

There’s something very special about the process of old-fashioned, frame-by-frame, 2D animation. In the old days, the only way to get your animated character to wave his or her arm was to spend hours upon hours painstakingly crafting each frame and constantly readjusting your work to make sure everything flowed correctly. Now you just set a couple of keyframes and let a computer do it all for you.

Last week Capcom confirmed Super Street Fighter IV, a slight update to this year’s critically acclaimed Street Fighter IV, which will tweak certain fight mechanics as well as add several new characters to the fray. One of those new fighters is Juri, the first Korean character in the series’ 20 year history. This got us thinking, now that South Korea has a star fighter, how many countries are represented by the number one fightin' franchise?

Earlier this week, publisher Capcom announced that Super Street Fighter IV, an expanded, stand-alone follow-up to this year’s fighting megahit, will arrive in stores sometime in 2010. Aside from tweaking the gameplay (like every Street Fighter expansion before it), the new game will introduce around eight “new” characters, some of which - like Korean fighter Juri – will be genuinely new.

Videogame movies are, with a few exceptions, awful. This is not news. It’s not surprising. It’s a sad fact, which gamers with any sort of taste in movies resigned themselves to years ago. And yet, every time an announcement of a new game movie comes down the pike, we foolishly think it might be good, forgetting the brazen, burning contempt that Hollywood harbors for games and those who play them.

Let’s be honest, this film didn’t get the best reviews in the world, and maybe it can’t match the bombastically powerful camp value that the first Street Fighter film had, but Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li still piques our curiosity. What’s it really like? Some guy from Black Eyed Peas plays Vega? Just how hot is Kristin Kreuk in the lead role?

[align dan-art.gif along right]If you’ve been a Street Fighter fan during the last 10 years, you already know his trademarks: the weeping, the tiny fireballs, the pink gi, the tendency to scream a lot for no reason. Dan Hibiki is the Rodney Dangerfield of Street Fighter, respected by none but beloved by most, and over the years he’s gone from an obscure gag character to one of the series’ most enduring fan favorites.