Street Fighter x Tekken (Xbox 360): "Revisited"

I never thought in my wildest imagination that I would be so bold as to give "Street Fighter x Tekken" another shot. The game just isn't that great to be honest, but I figured I'd give it a second chance since it was rather cheap with all the discounts I got from Gamestop. Most of you know where I stand on the matter of SFxT. You probably also know of my rant, and review that are here on this blog. You've likely even read them. As harsh, and unrelenting as both articles were they were quite true at the time of posting. To sum things up the two articles detailed my complaints about how terrible the online was as well has how money hungry it made Capcom seem. While most of my opinions concerning those issues have somewhat changed since my recent playthrough of the game parts of those complaints are still very valid.

This morning I spent a lot of time with SFxT. I visited the add-ons section of the Xbox LIVE marketplace, and downloaded all of the free dlc. The free dlc that I was able to get included 6 color paletes, 1 special color palete, and 5 preset combo slots. While these were awesome extras in their own right I still felt as if Capcom were trying to cash in on other dlc items. I can understand the extra characters costing more as well as the boost gems, and even the character costume swaps. They are definitely warranted in my opinion. This however does not take away from the fact that Capcom is using dlc as an added moneymaker for this game. All of the content could have easily been put on the game disc in the first place with no significant extra cost. I'm sure somewhere down the road since I now have SFxT that I'll be investing in some of the dlc, but I will not be happy about it.

You might ask "Why would you not be happy about legit dlc?". My answer is that even though the dlc is very much warranted as I previously stated, the game still has significant issues that make investing any money in it at all a waste. The problems/issues as you can probably imagine still relate to the status of online gameplay. While the patch that I downloaded significantly improved the online experience the game still suffers from a growing problem that is currently plaguing most fighting games out there. This problem, as I refer to it is "lag manipulation". Capcom pretty much did there part in fixing the online including the sound issue, but the sad thing is that most of the matches you get online will suffer from significant lag even if you are from the same region as the other player, and even if both players have a 4/5 bar connection signal. This is where lag manipulation comes into play.

Out there in the Xbox 360 gaming universe you will run into many sorry a** gamers who feel that they have to cheat the system in order to make their mark on the world. This includes forcing lag onto players such as myself who are looking for an honest, and fair fight. When it comes to the online of SFxT there is no reason why my match should not go smoothly if my signal, and my opponent's signal are at 4/5 bars unless the player I'm up against is manipulating the game in some way. I always have the highest signal when it comes to online gaming, because I pay out the wazoo for it. Not to mention I always set the match search to same area. There is absolutely no excuse for this crap. Some of you may think that Capcom is to blame, and that perhaps the netcode has something to do with it, but this time around I can't fully agree with you. I think Capcom's patch fixed the issue/s as best as they could.

When I actually played my first match this time around the online was amazing. It played smoothly, and for a brief moment my hopes for SFxT skyrocketed. I had noticed that the player I was up against was from the same region as myself, and that they had the same connection signal that I had so I figured all was good. Sadly I was mistaken. After that first online match everything went downhill fast. I kept getting matches with players that had the highest connection signal, but for some reason there was still lag going on. Not only that but the lag seemed to be manipulated to give these players a distinct advantage. One thing I have learned in my time with the Xbox 360 is that if you see gamers with gamertags that look like something a hacker would think up then the likelihood that your going to be in a match with a such a person is almost certain. Unfortunately this is the type of gamers that seem to populate the online lobbies of SFxT at the current time. I hand it to some of them that they know how to play the game, and that they play it well in most circumstances but that does not mean they are not cheating/hacking.

Once again I'm going to have to end this article by saying that "Street Fighter x Tekken" is a failure of a game. It may not be Capcom's fault this time around, but due to the players that populate the game's online lobbies it is not worth playing, or even paying for. As for me I'm pretty much stuck with the game. I may end up using it to record some "For Better / For Worse" youtube videos. Of course that is if Capcom doesn't find a problem with it.