The first thing that will shock some players is the lack of any single player on the Beta. Gamers are only being allowed to play online head to heads with either Ryu or Ken as their character. Players can enter lobbies with more than one other person and play in round robin style fights. Whichever player is not taking part has the option to spectate the fight in progress.
In the Beta, players can also choose between Player Match and Ranked Match game types, although it’s unclear if the ranking points gained in the beta will be carried over into the full version
Players can also enter tournaments of up to eight players on the Beta. These work using a simple knock out system. On the Beta you can’t spectate the other matches if you get eliminated but you can see how much energy participants in other matches have remaining, down to a neat feature on the tournament screen. All tournament results and stats can be viewed later on the online leaderboards.
Graphics
In this high definition version the graphics have been redrawn and can now run on 1080p and even though Ken and Ryu are the only characters visible on the Beta the graphics are beautiful. Flame punches are superbly rendered and look fantastic on a HD set up. The characters faces have meaner, moodier look than previously. Some of the different colour suits are a bit garish but that’s a matter of taste. The only arena available on the Beta appears to be Japan and whilst not as spectacular as the character art it still looks good and is detailed enough not to be distracting.
How Does SSF2 Turbo HD Play Online?
Online matches on the Beta as one would expect appear to be a mixture of games that run completely smoothly and some which are unplayably laggy. In some matches the level of character ghosting is pretty severe but thankfully this doesn’t happen too often. The standard of play on the Beta seems to be completely random and there are clearly some invincible Street Fighter veterans as well as some green newbies populating the lobbies.
Gamers can let developers Capcom know of any bugs or issues with the game by contacting them at beta.capcom.com. Here players can hook up with other Beta participants to set up battles. This is useful as the beta is only recently up and because of the limited amount of people who purchased WOTB: Commando 3 there is a lack of players playing the Beta. The best method of getting a game without trawling through the forums is to join a tournament match. These seem to be the most populated game types.
The SSF2 Turbo HD Beta is available to download via WOTB: Commando 3. WOTB: Commando 3 can be downloaded from the Xbox Live Arcade for 800 Microsoft points and gamers can find a list of the best games available on the Marketplace in Best Xbox Live Arcade Games.
