Is this the dullest Street Fighter character ever?

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Fresh face Abel joins in with the next-gen fisticuffs. We yawn

First, don't forget that we loveStreet Fighter. It is, in our opinion,the most important beat-'em-up ever made.So imagine our despair in welcoming walking tower of prosaic banality, Abel, the newest challenger to join the ranks of Street Fighter IV.

We've had, what, a million Street Fighter games since the classic co-op first struck fighting gold in the late 80's. Capcom have brought us a bulging roster of outlandish (Vega, Blanka), aspirational (Ryu, Ken), sexy (Chun-Li, Cammy) and plain

brilliant (Dhalsim, Bison) characters. But new guy Abel is the most uninspired SF character we've ever seen.

First, his appearance. Stupid hair. Dumb, balloon face. Nondescript gloves/gi/barefeet outfit. From here, it just gets duller. Let's go through Abel's official backstory, shall we?

"A Man With No Past. Abel.

"With no memory of his past, this young man has no choice but to move forward.

"His serious and polite nature is easy to misinterpret as indifference, but these still waters run deep indeed."

Come on Capcom!You've got a world of ideas to meld and mould into some exciting new characters.Give us a transvestite Mexican wrestler named Dave! A midget-sized kung fu master with Yoda-esque leaping ability! A female private detective dressed in a trenchcoat who fights with her bare dukes using mid-1920s Queensbury rules and packs a six-shooter at her hip for specials! Anything but this slab of boring white meat!

Ben_Richardson

Ben Richardson is a former Staff Writer for Official PlayStation 2 magazine and a former Content Editor of GamesRadar+. In the years since Ben left GR, he has worked as a columnist, communications officer, charity coach, and podcast host – but we still look back to his news stories from time to time, they are a window into a different era of video games.