March 12th, 2008 Seth Killian
Here’s the straight story on the glorious highs, devastating lows, and delicious middles behind making Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, from the game’s producer, Rey Jimenez:
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Long time, no see Street Fighter fans. Sorry for not writing in a few months, but hopefully David Sirlin’s articles have been keeping you in the loop on HD Remix news. The reason I haven’t posted in a while is that there has been a lot of changes in HD Remix and we really had to focus on what was going on with the game. But now, I think it’s time I give you guys the run down on what’s been going on the past few months.
First of all, creating HD Remix has turned out to be a much more difficult task than we could’ve anticipated. There have been many recent challenges ranging from developing rock-solid netcode from the ground up to creating super-polished art for that truly lives up to the name Street Fighter. If we had gone the “good enough” route, you probably would be playing the game right now, but that wasn’t the route we wanted to take here at Capcom.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Developer Blog, Behind-the-scenes, Feature, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, Street Fighter® | 21 Comments »
March 11th, 2008 Seth Killian
Randy, pictured above, rolls with a Poogie on his head. Not just any common Poogie either, but Monster Hunter’s limited, first-edition Poogie that you can’t even buy anywhere. Possibly the Poogie will fall off of Randy’s head and into a crevice. Do we care? We do not. Capcom’s Scrooge McDuck-style vault of swag is so swollen that we sometimes drop this stuff and can’t even be bothered to pick it up.
When you are lucky enough to be let into Capcom HQ for one of our exclusive focus tests, we will shower you with this stuff. It’s not even because we like you–we just have to get rid of it somehow.
While it might *seem* like Randy is taking a bunch of sweet games down to our focus testers, he’s could just be trying to clean off his desk. Maybe he just threw this stuff out. I don’t even know because it’s not even a blip on my radar, people.
More swag and some exciting pics of our top secret new game being tested can be found in the flickr set.
Posted in focus test, Behind-the-scenes | 1 Comment »
March 7th, 2008 Seth Killian
This is part seven in an extended series of articles from David Sirlin, detailing the changes we’ve made to the rebalanced mode of the new Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix project. The previous 6 articles can be found here. This week’s article focuses Balrog “What’s a kick?” the Boxer.
With Balrog near the top of the original Super Turbo characters, remixing him was more about putting a collar on some of his most brutal tricks while still keeping him competitive, fun, and, well… like Balrog!
Balrog
Balrog is generally considered to be tied for the best character in Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo (ST). Pretty much everyone ranks Balrog and Dhalsim as top, with some Americans adding in Old Sagat, some Japanese adding in Vega, and a few people claiming Chun Li. But there’s not much debate about Balrog (or Dhalsim) being top.
The knee-jerk reaction is to nerf, nerf, nerf (that’s internet-speak for “reducing the power level” of something). I said in my first article that we would leave the top characters top, so it’s been quite a test of willpower to follow my own advice and avoid bringing down the hammer on Balrog.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Developer Blog, Behind-the-scenes, Feature, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix | 9 Comments »
March 3rd, 2008 Seth Killian
From Capcom’s Christian Svensson, Vice President of Strategic Planning & Business Development:
In the grand scheme of things, my hopes for Capcom’s “digital initiative” are still just getting started. There’s been a few fits and starts. Admittedly, some games are a bit later than we’d hoped (held back in the name of quality and feature improvement) but we’ve learned a ton about the space and we continue to learn more with every release. By and large, I’m really pleased with how we’re positioning ourselves, the quality of the content in our pipeline and our level of sales success to date. My fingers are crossed that it continues and thank you guys for your continued support. All of that said, I thought I’d call attention to a few major milestones that Capcom and our development partners have worked very hard to achieve (these guys really deserve a pat on the back):
–Highest Revenue Generating XBLA Title (still) - Street Fighter 2 Hyper Fighting
–First Cross-platform Simultaneous Digital Launch from Any Publisher (PSN/XBLA) - Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix
–First Third Party Published Game Content on the PSP PC Store – Harvey Birdman Demo
–First Third Party Published Content on the European PSN Store – SCEE tells us it will be Rocketmen
–First PS3 Title to Handle In-game Purchase/Conversion From Within a Demo - Rocketmen
–First Cross-platform Global Simultaneous Launch Maybe* (PSN/XBLA – Europe/NA/Asia) – Rocketmen
*We’re still trying to get a final date out of SCEE but Rocketmen was approved last week so we’re hoping it’ll go live with US and Asia on March 6th, failing that, I’m betting it’ll be the 13th.
While some of the above milestones have nominal impact to your experience as a consumer, the development and industry folks among you, I’m sure can recognize the importance and challenges inherent in reaching some of those achievements.
In a couple short weeks, you’re going to learn a good deal more about some new titles as well as updates on some of the titles you’ve been eagerly awaiting.
I honestly believe that Capcom is treating this space more seriously than any other third party publisher. The level of ambition in our titles as far as feature sets, target platforms and quality of execution (both from a product development and marketing standpoint) will continue to climb. You will see us giving ever increasing value to our fans as we move further and further out into our digital product roadmap.
I hope you’ll join us. 
If you want to discuss our digital titles with Capcom folks and other fans, please participate in the Capcom Digital Downloads forum.
Posted in PSP, Behind-the-scenes, Developer Blog, PS3, PC, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo HD Remix, Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law | 1 Comment »
February 11th, 2008 Seth Killian
Aaaaaaaaaaaand we’re back.
This is part five in an extended series of articles from David Sirlin, detailing the changes we’ve made to the rebalanced mode of the new Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix project. The first article went into some details about the design philosophy behind some of the changes, with subsequent articles on Ryu, T. Hawk, and Ken. This week brings us Brazilian baller Blanka, who I can tell you (after playing him for a few hours) has definitely gotten a lot more, um… beastly.
Blanka
Blanka is considered bottom tier in ST, but even in that game he has a lot of potential and a lot of things going for him. The throw range on his bite is enormous. His crossup (jumping short) is excellent and easy. After the crossup, you can go for a combo, a bite, a blocked hit into a bite, another crossup, or a blocked hit into another crossup. Also, Blanka’s roll attack does really good damage. HD Remix Blanka retains all those good features, and gets some boosts.
Horizontal Rolling Attack
In ST, most characters can hit back Blanka’s roll after blocking or even being hit by it. In HD Remix, it recovers faster, but it’s still not completely safe. Dhalsim and Balrog are still able to hit it back easily (with standing fierce and jab rushing punch, respectively). Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Behind-the-scenes, Feature, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix | 16 Comments »
January 30th, 2008 Seth Killian
Since these were smuggled out of the Bionic Commando skunkwerks (insert Bothan spies ref here), I was only able to get the glossy prints, which have in turn been photographed for you. You could call this a lot of things, but let’s call it “keeping it real.” I mean hey, you read scans from magazines all the time, right?
Cool stuff regardless, and provides great insight into the overall style of what’s to come. Check it out here.
Posted in Behind-the-scenes, Bionic Commando | 1 Comment »
January 29th, 2008 Seth Killian
So we invited in some fans to take a look at a new Capcom game last Friday. We can’t talk about the game just yet (and neither can they :)), but we did hit them up with some stuff as a “thank you for coming in to play our cool pre-release games.”
The pic doesn’t really show off the juice, but here’s a breakdown of what was in the bags: Resident Evil The Essentials (includes RE: Code Veronica X, RE Outbreak, and RE4), Capcom Classics for DS, Mega Man Advent ZX for DS, Zack & Wiki and Harvey Birdman for the Wii. Non-game stuff included an Okami Buddha Board, Resident Evil filtered facemask, water bottle, and sticker, Zack & Wiki 3d magnetic puzzle + stickers, Ace Attorney plush, old-school Monster Hunter poogie plush, Devil May Cry “Dante’s Awakening” t-shirt, Capcom “EVOLVE” t-shirt, Devil May Cry 4 art book, Devil May Cry 4 knit cap, 1 can Umbrella Corporation “Revive” energy drink. No partridge in a pear tree.
Thanks for coming in guys, and for everyone that wasn’t able to get in, stay tuned for our next invitation to a new batch of fans.
Posted in focus test, Behind-the-scenes | No Comments »
January 18th, 2008 Seth Killian
Well, to fight virtual evil, anyway. And the evils of poorly-tested games!
We’re looking to a few fans for feedback on a new Capcom game. Here’s how it works: You come in next Friday afternoon, January 25th, from 2pm to 5pm. We let you play top seekrit new game. Then we ask you questions about your hopes, dreams, and innermost feelings. In addition to getting an early hands-on with the game, we’ll also be showering prizes on anyone we select.
Here’s what we need to know from you:
—Name
—Age (you must be over 18 with valid ID to participate)
—Which titles have you played in the last 6 months?
—Approximately how many hours per week do you spend playing?
—Phone number at which you may be reached during business hours
—Email address
Send your application to: contest@capcom.com
And again, you must be in the San Francisco Bay Area next Friday (Jan 25th), and available to come out to might Capcom HQ from 2pm to 5pm. Please do not apply if you cannot come at the time specified. Openings are very limited, and participant selection is at the sole discretion of Capcom Entertainment Inc. Hope to see you soon.
Posted in focus test, Behind-the-scenes, Hands-On, Capcom® | 3 Comments »
January 16th, 2008 Seth Killian
On the heels of our last batch of randomness, here’s some more stuff cluttering the place up that I thought people might get kick out of:
A “threadless”-style Bionic Commando tee that features our hero doing what he loves best–leaping from a tall building. Probably he’s about to dramatically grapple his way to somewhere awesome (or perhaps the disappointments of his post-apocalyptic lifestyle have finally caught up with him and these are his last moments).
Totally sweet Saturday Night Slammasters water bottle. It may have been bad 90s music addling my brain, but I thought Slammasters was really fun. Later in life I had a chance to play against the guys that won the US national Slammasters championships (yes, Capcom had a national tournament for Slammasters, for no readily apparent reason). They squished me like a bug, but I can still enjoy this water bottle.
Capcom Fighting Jam fan. The Japanese text and the fact that the western market doesn’t seem as into fanning themselves generally (it’s called air-conditioning technology, and the rest of the world should look into it) suggests this was a Capcom Japan promo item only.
My trusty Capcom mug. Usually filled with our special blend of grade-D Capcom Coffee, the mug today contains Harvey Birdman, who has his own, tinier coffee mug.
And, to end on a substantially more baffling note, we have a what appears to be a Mega Man radio. When the promo product’s initial design was deemed “awesome, but not awesome enough” by our exacting Marketing department, the developer went back to the drawing board and produced exactly the same item, only this time with suction-cup feet. And the rest, my friends, is history.
Posted in Behind-the-scenes, Bionic Commando, Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, Capcom®, Mega Man® | 4 Comments »
January 9th, 2008 Seth Killian
Since we don’t post eeeeelegal magazine scans and the Famitsu featuring the exciting new SFIV character hasn’t actually come out yet, it’s time instead for an exciting installment of [echoing announcer voice on] “Random Stuff Lying Around the Office,” where we bring you up-close and personal with the promotional trinkets that light our days and fill our nights. This episode is brought to you courtesy of Chris’s mighty phone cam.
First up is a sweet new Devil May Cry 4 art book. It’s hardbound and full of goodness showing how the world of DMC4 goes from concept art to fully-rendered models. Here’s a scan of the cover, as well as a couple of sample pages here and here for you to drool over.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Behind-the-scenes, random goodness, Okami, Zack & Wiki, Devil May Cry® | 7 Comments »
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