If your idea of the perfect version of Street Fighter involves playing with nothing more than a mouse, then Daletto has something up their sleeve that should interest you -- Street Fighter Online: Mouse Generation.
Announced today and tipped off by IGN, this free PC fighter is going feature a system based off of Street Fighter Alpha, and contain the familiar names that have inspired millions of fans. The control scheme, as you probably guessed, is going to be quite simplistic, involving little more than sliding the mouse left and right to move, upwards to jump, and using a few mouse clicks to unleash attacks.
As the name suggests, the game will be online, and will rely on an item-based business model in order to make a buck or two. Like I said earlier, the game itself will be free, but you'll want to fork over a few tokens if you want to play as anyone other than Chun Li, Ryo, Hiko and Tiran. In an interesting twist, the items you purchase will be in the form of (get this) body parts. For those of you who have always wanted to paste Chun Li's pretty little head on the furry body of Blanka -- well let's just say that your time is just about at hand.
If you can manage to hold off until April, you shouldn't be disappointed. The game is set to have some pretty neat community features such as teams, tournaments, and brawls consisting of more than just two opponents. Add in the "cut-in" communication system that puts text bubbles of smack talk above your characters' heads during special moves, and you have the ingredients for some interesting Street Fighter encounters in the making.
I'm still not convinced that anything will ever top a standard game controller for fighting games, but this has certainly piqued the interest of at least one Destructoid editor.
Contest:
10:56 AM on 01.16.2008
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That or using the microphone to tell Ryu what to do. i.e. Hey You! Pikachu!
Mouse control sounds like a terrible idea for a fighting game, though.
I guess I'll try it if it is free.
Try a 360 usb pad and leave this rubbish alone.