E3 ’11: Capcom booth roundup

Capcom always puts on a great show at each E3, and this year was no different. The studio has some exciting games coming up, so I headed on down to play through some of the current games in progress.

The first game I had a shot at was Street Fighter X Tekken- two of the largest fighting franchises finally come together in one monumental showdown. The demo roster of players had a fair number of characters from each franchise, and I was happy to find that the handling was a peaceful hybrid with the well-timed combos of Tekken and the crushing attacks of Street Fighter. While there was occasionally a miniscule amount of lag in inputting my commands, I’ll simply put it down to unfinished code, as what I played was still very impressive. Capcom were also showing off a sleek new arcade-style six button fight stick. The controls were smooth and the buttons are built to endure plenty of bashes, but as I’m used to playing with a standard game controller, my fingers quickly grew tired from the frantic button mashing. Still, both game and controller were top notch, and this is one game that we can’t wait to get our hands on.

Next in line was Dragon’s Dogma, a game that follows a traditional RPG formula of magic, swords, and mystery. While I didn’t manage to grasp the story during the demo, I was still able to play through a pretty awesome boss fight with a Chimera; a creature with the body of a lion, a goat’s head on its back, and a snake for a tail. My companions and I hacked and whittled away at this seemingly unbeatable creature, getting charged down regularly or put to sleep by the creature’s magic. Eventually, we were finally able to slay the beast and pick up a handsome reward. The controls are no-nonsense and your party AI seems to be quite competent, so it will be interesting to see how the final game turns out. The good news is that Capcom has some of their best talent working on it, so there’s still plenty to be seen.