Street Fighter IV Impressions by a guy that doesn't play fighters ---One hour in

I just picked up SFIV today. I'm currently in Korea, and the Korean release date was 2/12 but it didn't come out until today the 13th, thought maybe Seoul had it but i'm in a smaller city.

First I need to say that I'm not into fighters so much, mainly because I suck at them. This is one of the reasons I got SFIV, because I read about some tutorial mode that they said would help any n00b compete on XBL. Also I wanted a game my wife would play with me, and she likes fighters. (though she's a tekken girl)

After poping the disc in, you're greated by a long opening moviie, with the weird cartoony looking styled opening we've seen in the trailers....only now it has a TERRIBLE new theme song that I'm sure is done buy a Japanese dude but sounds Kpop...which i thnink is horrible...plus the guy sings in English, so it's even more horrible. many gamers might like the style, but I don't....halfway through it changes to the more electronic heavy metal style that I'm used to hearing in video games...but sadly the pop song is the main theme,and plays in the background of the main menue again.

The graphics are another complaint. They could have been a lot better.I was hoping for a more cartoony direction in place of graphics, but I think it ended up being kinda cartoony and kinda typical 3d....and I think it looks like nothing special. DOA4 came out a couple years ago and looked better....or at least as good. I know they were going for a style but I don''t think they pulled it off....the characters stand out obviously from whatever stage background you're playing in and it just looks weird to me. The 3d backgrounds are cool, with some minor interactions like tree branches in the forest level.

When I started playing single player I was asked if I wanted to turn Arcade mode on. Arcade mode lists you on XBL so people can randomly interupt your game and you battle....just like when someone plops themselves next to you in an arcade and inserts 50 cents. It's a cool idea, but I got annoyed since I couldn't progress through one stage without someone interupting my game for a challenge. I think a lot of people are playing right now since it came out yesterday, so maybe it wouldn't be as annoying a couple weeks from now.

I need to hurry this up since I need to go shopping for my wife for Valentine's day...

Tutorial mode exists, but it's like every other training mode in any fighting game....unless I've missed something in the menues. You pick a fighter, and an AI fighter, and he either stands there while you practice moves on him, or you can set him to attack or counter or whatever. I didn't play tutorial long, I might have missed something obvious, and I hope I did, because this was a major selling point for me....I thought I'd learn to get good at fighters....or at kleast not suck like i do now.

I'll say more as I play more....so far it's not a bad fighter, just not as outstanding as I'd wished, but maybe that's my fault.