GUNDHARA

Gundhara! No, I have no idea what it means either. Sure it's got "gun" in the title, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's about shooting things... What's that? The Japanese subtitle translates to "Bullet Storm"? Oh. I'll get my grenades and kevlar vest then, shall I?

Gundhara was a 1995 arcade release by Banpresto, and as you've probably guessed, it's about shooting things. Of course, you need two things before you can get down to becoming a rage-fuelled one-man army; a plot and some characters. What have you got for us on the story front, Gundhara?

Oh of course, it all makes sense now. The full intro text is a prime slab of poorly-translated English, which is what I like to see - if I'm going to kill a group of people roughly the same size as the population of Bulgaria, I like my motives to stay muddy and confusing. Here's the full text, because I'm sure it's all very important and we may be tested on it later.
"Suddenly children disappeared from town. Secret inrestigater Sarah entered secretly into the hideout. To find the reason. In the hideout, children were brainwashing. It was preperation for World War3, to rule the world. The goverment opened emergency meeting, and chose two soldiers. Then they started fighting."
So the children are evil, and are brainwashing people to fight for them in World War III? I can see why this would alarm the world's leaders into choosing two soldiers, who promptly started fighting each other, right there in the Child-Based WW3 Prevention Squad Interview Room. Still, in this case sending a solitary fighter in instead of a full army makes a little more sense than in, say, Gradius - after all, they're only kids. What are they going to do, chase me on their Heelys?

So that's the plot, but what of our heroes? What mighty champions were selected to battle the evil brainwashing youth army? Well, first of all there's Jerry. That's him pictured above. He's a 21-year-old American who enjoys French cinema, cleansing enemy foxholes with a flamethrower, and long walks on the beach. Actually, his bio lists his "taste" as piano performances, but given his status as an action hero I assume that means dropping pianos on people a la Tom & Jerry.

You other option is the Japanese commando, Jinn. Jinn enjoys nothing, because his soul is a howling black void. His "taste" is apparently "quarrel", so perhaps he's a refugee from Violence Fight. There's not much to choose between our two heroes other than their special attacks, but I'll get to that later. Now, onward to our mission!

No no no, don't give him attention! That's what he wants! His brutal murders are all a ploy to get people to notice him.

And here's the game proper. Gundhara is a top-down shooter, very similar to games such as Mercs and Shock Troopers. You run around the predominantly vertically-scrolling landscape blasting anything in your path, except the occasional child tied to an oil drum. You can face in any direction and fire, and whilst you're holding down the fire button your aim is locked at that position. At this point I'd usually harp on about how Gundhara could be vastly improved by incorporating the Smash T.V. / Robotron dual-stick control system, but honestly you're shooting straight forward 90% of the time so it'd be a little redundant.

You also have two special attacks; the first is a standard special with limited uses. Jerry fires a rapid barrage of high-powered shots, while Jinn causes an explosion in a circle around himself. Then there's the melee button, which allows you to kick bad guys to death for extra points. Oh, and you can use it to kick bullets out of the air. I imagine this was quite the trump card when volunteering for this mission. "Forget my many years of service in the military's most elite units! Never mind about my supreme physical fitness and mental toughness! Here, take this pistol and fire it at me. No, go on, I'll just deflect it harmlessly away with my foot!"

I'll admit that the excellent graphics were the first thing that caught my attention. Everything is very well animated, colourful and sharp without being overly fussy. Yes, Gundhara definitely enticed me with its looks, but fortunately it has the gameplay to back them up, so I don't feel too shallow.

Oh, you must be the killer robot I've heard so much about. Obviously, Gundhara has boss fights, but I think it's fair to say that they're the least interesting part of the game. While the gameplay is still fun when you're battling them, there's just not that much imagination behind them. This robot just doesn't strike me as that "killer", you know? They could at least given him a morningstar or the head of a bull or something.

Stage two is a change of pace, and that pace is fast. Jerry hops on a motorcycle and blasts down the highway in a Spy Hunter manner, shooting badguys in Ferraris with his missile-equipped deathcycle. While it's still fun, it's not quite as good as the rest of the (on-foot) stages. At least the graphics are still great - just look at that sports car! I'm going to pretend it's the guy from OutRun, and if he can outrun my missiles, his girlfriend is bound to be impressed. I'm doing him a favour, really.

You can also pass the time with a diversion I can only describe as "pig juggling". A truck laden with pigs appears and promptly drops them all over the road (with some help from my guns). These are no ordinary swine; they're some kind of magical armoured pig, immune to machine gun bullets and missiles alike. This allows you to juggle them up the screen for extra points as well as valuable testing data for some sort of pigskin-based body armour.

Oh, and the boss is a helicopter being ridden by a man wearing what appears to be a huge gold chain. My best guess? He's the Lord Mayor of whatever the hell town I'm in.

Back on foot, and it's time to desecrate an ancient temple for no discernable reason other than it's full of guys who want to kill me, along with cool mechs and evil statues.

A quick word on weapons; you can carry one main weapon at a time, which is powered up by collecting the various “charge" items that enemies drop. There's a machine gun, a spread shotgun, a bazooka, a flamethrower and a homing laser thing that reminds me of the proton pack from Ghostbusters. Normally that'd be more than enough to seal my loyalty to the laser, but it's just not powerful enough. In the end, I think the vulcan machine gun emerged as my favourite. You can also collect a separate missile launcher that fires homing rockets. Yes, you can carry a machine gun designed to be mounted on a helicopter, some surface-to-air missiles and still be agile enough to kick bullets out of your path. I'll be shocked if Jerry doesn't wise up at the end of the game and realise he could probably conquer the world on his own.

Stage three has the most interesting boss; it's a Buddhist-looking statue with a dragon inside, like a religious Kinder Egg. Come for the calming influence of Eastern philosophy, stay for the fire-breathing hellbeast!

The next stage is the "Labo", which I think is a new word that you can use if you really want to abbreviate "laboratory" but "lab" is just too short. You get to ride around in a mech! He's a little slow and clunky, but piloting a giant robot is always a pleasure. With the addition of a pilotable mech, Gundhara is showing more of a resemblance to a top-down version of Metal Slug than anything else, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Your faithful mech will have been long-since destroyed by the time you reach the boss, but that's okay because it's pretty dull anyway. Your robot didn't need to see this tank thing anyway.

The next stage is an airport, and it's also where Gundhara starts to get tricky. Mind you, I'm terrible at shooters like this, as well as shmups like Gradius - and I mean truly terrible - but Gundhara seems to be pitched at a nice level where it's a challenge but not so much that I want to hunt the designers down and feed them their own body in small pieces that I've fried on a portable stove.

And while we are at the airport, there's something else I should mention. You know how in some videogames, particularly arcade beat-em-ups, if you stand around for too long a little marker with flash up saying "GO!" or "HURRY!" or something? Well, you get those in Gundhara, but unlike Final Fight and its ilk ignoring them doesn't just lead to them blinking slowly. Nope, this game prosecutes loitering with extreme prejudice by sending a jet fighter to bomb your location if you don't get a fucking shift on. I'm sorry you're dead, Jerry, but you shouldn't have stopped to tie your shoelaces.

The boss is another tank, but this one is at least slightly more interesting. It is also purple: an unusual colour for tanks, but if they're that big then you're probably not going to be able to camouflage them anyway. You may as well go nuts with the paint job.

The final stage, and Jerry realises that he's been wasting his time fighting through temples and labos and just kicks down the front door of the villain's base. This is my favourite stage, mostly because there's a shift away from the somewhat standard "military" style enemies to a group of toughs who look like they belong in the Mafia.

There are lots of them, too. Lots and lots, all desperate to kill you and no doubt all baffled when you kick their bullets aside. Doesn't stop them trying, though. There are no fancy gimmicks here, no vehicles or pig-juggling, just swarms of low-level mafiosi waiting to get shot.

And here's the final boss. It's the Mayor from the helicopter, but this time he's got a battle desk. You know, a battle desk. A desk with guns. As you might have guessed, he's not the most mobile of opponents. As well as having a desk, the boss (real name, according to the ending: Richard M. Leonard) also bears a resemblance to Mr. Big from Art of Fighting.

Seems appropriate, given his position. Once Mr. Big is Mr. Dead, Gundhara is complete and Jerry can get on with the task of murdering those brainwashing children. What do you mean I'm supposed to be saving the kids?

Luckily, this was a time when a man with the blood of thousands on his hands was allowed to be unsupervised around children.

You also get little bios of all the enemies in the game, including their weight and height. I can only assume that this is in case you want to figure out the BMIs and warn them about possible complications related to chronic obesity.

Oh, and there's also a bit more to the ending. You can see this if you're the sort of bizarre specimen who can finish the game on one credit. It's just Sarah rambling on about a helicopter, though.

Gundhara is, in my lowly opinion, pretty damn good. I may not be the best person to judge, given my previously-mentioned lack of skill at the genre - die-hard shump fans may find it a little easy. Not me, though. I did have a lot of fun with it, though. The reasons are obvious enough, with solid, fun gameplay, excellent graphics, good (if a little forgettable outside the game) music and a nicely incomprehensible translation. In conclusion - recommended, especially if you like shooting things. There's a lot of that.

RIOT CITY

Riot City: the story of the recent disturbances in London. Okay, not really - it’s a 1991 side-scrolling arcade fighter by Sega/Westone. Prepare of an unrivalled display of electronic mediocrity!

I think it's fair to say that you can get a good idea of how influential a videogame was by how often it was simply copied wholesale. Identikit clones of Pac-Man must number in the thousands, Super Mario Kart is responsible of a legion of mascot racers... and then there's Final Fight. It wasn't the first belt-scrolling brawler, nor was it particularly packed with innovation, but its perfectly-pitched gameplay and vibrant world saw it become the archetypal game of its genre. Then the clones came along, some with improvements, some that are excellent games in their own right and some with... not so much flair. The plain ones, the stodgy ones, the ones that don't try anything new or make any attempt to break out of their mould. Riot City is one of these games. In fact, I think it may occupy the perfect balancing point of absolute mediocrity. More on that later, though. For now, let's meet out heroes.

Meet Paul and Bobby. They're cops, narcotics agents to be precise, and they're currently engaged in a war with the drug cartel MID. They're cheerful fellows, keeping a playful smile on their lips even as MID call Paul and inform him that they've kidnapped his girlfriend.

Bobby's certainly taking it well. Yes, it's a standard "rescue the kidnapped girlfriend" operation. The similarities to Final Fight are obvious right from the start - criminal gang kidnaps the main character's blonde, red-dress-wearing loved one, although at least Mad Gear went the extra mile and set up a videoconference to taunt Haggar. It's that attention to detail that keeps Final Fight at the top of the pile.

And here we are in Riot City, which is apparently located on Riot Island. Personally, I'd prefer to be in Murderville or Dangerous-Background-Radiation Town, but you have to take what you can get.

As Riot City sticks so closely to its inspiration, I'm sure you won't be surprised that the control setup is one attack button, one jump button and pressing them both together executes a health-draining special move: in this case, Paul flails upward in a manner reminiscent of Terry Bogard's Rising Tackle. You punch all the enemies until they die, you move on a screen or two, repeat until crime is eradicated and your girlfriend is safe.
You know, the first thing I noticed about Riot City is that your punches make a strange "whuud" sound effect. This means that if you attack repeatedly, you end up producing a noise like an unbalanced washing machine on a spin cycle, which is hardly an effect likely to strike fear into your enemies.

The enemies come thick and fast, and a varied yet clichéd bunch they are. There're standard street punks, American Football players who charge at you, (a pretty decent tactic, if you're wearing all that armour), kung-fu masters with names like Chun and Huy, knife-wielding commandos and so on and so on until each beat-em-up staple is covered. Except for dominatrixes, actually - there are none in Riot City. In fact, Riot City is a female-free zone, which may be how the riots got started in the first place. It'd explain why everyone here is just so darned angry.

The first boss is a football player called Tam Tam who watches you fight his minions whilst he reclines like a goddamn Roman emperor, the smug bastard. A pointed satire on the vast wealth and pampered lives of modern sports stars? No, it's just weird. Tam Tam is just a creepy little dude who likes to watch men beat each other to death. After a while he gets tired of watching and decides to join in, but Paul has been trained in gladiatorial death-combat and so emerges victorious. Stage two, please!

Oh good, an outdoor area. The fresh air will no doubt do Paul the world of good, and what's this? A brief rain shower? Well, how refreshing! Except this rain appears to be yellow, as though Paul has wandered into some kind of golden shower. How odd.
Something else that’s odd about Riot City is the lack of weapons; given its blatant copying of Final Fight, I fully expected to be able to clobber someone with a lead pipe. No such luck though, and while there are pick-ups, they just give you points or health. In fact, almost every breakable object in the game contains something, be it a top hat, perfume, sunglasses or an emerald the size of my fist. To be honest, by the time I'd collected five or six precious jewel with a carat weight in the triple figures, I'd have a ditched my mission to defeat MID and bought myself a private island somewhere.

Obligatory “elevator full of enemies” time, and it's nice to see that Riot City plays its part in one of gaming's oldest traditions. Bonus points, too, for the amount of enemies on screen at any one time; MID had the foresight to install heavy-duty freight lifts just for a situation such as this.

The boss is a Bruce Lee clone called, in a world-beating display of originality, Lee. Hmm. He's not quite as blatant as the Bruce Lee clone in D.D. Crew, but that's only because the Riot City version is wearing bright purple leggings with some sort of inter-thigh webbing, the purpose of which I wouldn't like to speculate on. Imagine a world where the purple webbed leggings became Bruce Lee's signature outfit instead of the Game of Death tracksuit. Kill Bill would have been markedly different, for starters.
There's a nice little twist to this fight in that halfway through, the fighters drop down from the roof and the fight continues at ground level. Lee also gains some nunchaku, the impact of which is lessened when he tries whirling them around his body and it looks more like someone flossing themselves dry with a towel than a display of martial arts mastery. Once he's sufficiently punched...

... Stage three arrives. It's a dismal bar, a fitting place to be fighting a fat cowboy. They really missed a trick by not calling the cowboy enemies "Tex", if you ask me. And, to give Riot City a confidence boost it sorely needs, I rather like the background here.

As is so often the case, the bar is attached to some kind of Satanic temple. Running a drug ring not evil enough now, Sega? I hope you're not expecting the final boss to be Beelzebub or anything, because that would show a depth of imagination that Riot City simply doesn't possess.

And, following a progression as natural as the rivers flowing to the sea, the final area of stage three is an illicit hospital. I'm choosing to believe that Paul has only chosen this route to finish off the enemies he battered earlier. The boss is a fat doctor called Doctor D. The D presumably stands for Doctor, because he has a bad case of loving you. Sorry, did I say loving? Because I meant to say hacking at you with a cleaver.

After the grimy urban settings of previous stages, in stage four Paul gets to experience the glamour and opulence of a casino. Okay, so it's an illegal back-street casino, but it's still nicer than a freight elevator. The crowds of gamblers pay no attention to the huge brawl taking place mere feet away, and for a moment I wondered if Riot City was making a point about the all-encompassing, blinding thrillseeking of those with a gambling problem. Then I thought they're just background sprites, you twonk. I don't think I can be blamed for trying to spice this game up, though.

Paul has found himself in quite the entertainment complex, because as well as the thrill of the roulette wheel, patrons can also partake of the sweatier pleasures of pro-wrestling. Hammer Bull is the boss, an obese wrestler who proves he can match the gaudy showmanship of any '90s WWF superstar by flying into the ring on a glittering neon hover-pod. He's a pretty tough opponent, it must be said, and all his attacks make a significant dent in your health bar, but once you've figured out the timing required to safely attack him he can be taken down and you can head for the final stage.

Last level, and it's set in the villain's headquarters, a high-tech base at the top of a skyscraper. Security, as you can tell from the picture above, is pretty lax. I suppose there's a limit to the number of men even the most well-funded drug cartel can send out. After some time spent fighting your way past all this technological gubbins, there's a sudden aesthetic shift and you're in a Japanese temple or something.

At least it's clean, which I suppose is something to be thankful for as you slog your way through the same old enemies. In fact, you meet all the different types of basic enemy in the very first stage, so as you progress through the game there really aren't any surprises in terms of what you're going to be fighting. This has the added effect that, bosses aside, the game doesn't really get any harder as you progress, because you've already killed hundreds of the same troops and their repetitive attack patterns aren't going to suddenly surprise you. Instead, it just becomes more tedious as there are more of them and they have slightly larger health bars. Fear not, though; we've reached the end!

Here's the final boss - The appropriately-named Dick. He looks a bit like Deckard from Blade Runner. Aside from that, he's blonde and he fights with a rapier so he's almost certainly French. His main combat technique is stabbing you with his sword which, while undeniably effective, feels somewhat unsporting. Oh, and it kills you in about three hits, so make sure you bring some credits. After Paul defeats crime the way all videogame cops do - with repeated punches to the head - Dick is arrested, Cody and Jessica Paul and his girlfriend are reunited and MID is no more.

So, that was all it took to eliminate all violence ever from the city. Impressive work, Paul. You probably should have done this years ago, before countless people's lives were ruined, instead of waiting for them to make it personal by kidnapping your girlfriend, you selfish prick.

Riot City is over, and it's sort of a relief. You might be wondering why I bothered to write about it at all if it's so mediocre, but that's precisely why I chose it. I find it fascinating in its averageness, so delicately balanced between being too boring to play and interesting enough to be good. You couldn't really say there's anything specifically bad about it; the graphics are decent but not spectacular, the music is forgettable but not irritating, the plot and characters and carefully crafted from the purest clichés available... it's mesmerising, really. If you ranked every side-scrolling beat-em-up ever made in order of how good they are, Riot City would occupy a spot bang in the center, and that's something interesting... to me, at least.

HITOSHI SAKIMOTO: THE EARLY YEARS

Today I'll be taking a look at the early career of one of my favourite videogame composers, Hitoshi Sakimoto. Probably best known these days for his work on Final Fantasy XII, Sakimoto has had a long career filled with top-notch musical work on some excellent soundtracks. So, let's start at the very beginning.

Revolter (1988)

Sakimoto's first soundtrack was for the PC-88 shooter Revolter, which he composed along with long-time collaborator Masaharu Iwata (who is a fine composer in his own right). The pair have worked together many times, and in 2002 they formed the sound design company Basiscape. Sakimoto's career starts of well, with some excellent synth work. Not content with writing the music, he also developed a software driver called "Terpsichorean" to improve the sound, the bloody showoff.

Metal Orange (1990)

Moving on to the PC-98, Cyberblock Metal Orange is an Arkanoid clone with a hentai twist, so beware: this video does contain anime girls in their skimpies, so maybe you shouldn't watch it at work. Normally I'd be wary of any game that tried to boost its appeal with some cartoon grot, but to be honest Arkanoid needs all the help it can get. Happily it also contains some excellent music, especially the intro theme.

Verytex (1991)

Back to the shooters with Asmik's Japanese-only Megadrive / Genesis release Verytex. While the music is great, I think the most impressive thing about it is the quality of the sound Sakimoto wrangled from the Megadrive. I can't think of many better-sound Megadrive games, that's for sure. Also, it perfectly captured that style of music which I can only describe as "shmup music". I just like to think that it's a mandatory part of space-pilot training. "Hey kid, you can fly this advanced space fighter, but only if you listen to extremely catchy, up-tempo digital rock music while you do."

Magical Chase (1991)

A Turbografx / PC Engine shooter starring a cutesy anime witch who blasts her way through hordes of equally adorable enemies, Magical Chase may sound like Cotton, but... well, okay, they're pretty goddamn similar. Still, it's got better music than Cotton.

Devilish / Bad Omen (1991)

I wrote about Devilish / Bad Omen a while ago, and I'm going to reiterate the same points here - a poor game with some really excellent music. More Megadrive wizardry, with an especially nice bouncing bassline in this particular track. One of my personal favourite Megadrive soundtracks, although I suppose nothing will ever top OutRun.

Super Back to the Future II (1993)

Okay, so Sakimoto didn't technically compose this one; it's Alan Silvestri's theme for the Back to the Future trilogy. Great Scott, eighty-eight miles per hour, you get the idea. Still, it's nice to hear it coming out of a SNES, and very well arranged it is too. In fact, to me it sound like it could be "airship" music for a SNES RPG, or perhaps even a lost track from Starfox.

Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen (1993)

Probably the earliest soundtrack that brought Sakimoto wider recognition, it was again a collaborative effort between Sakimoto, Iwata and Hayato Matsuo. Epic, somewhat militaristic themes for roleplaying games would become something of a theme for Sakimoto in the future, especially in Final Fantasy Tactics.

Shippū Mahō Daisakusen Kingdom Grandprix (1994)

This isn't an RPG, though. Nope, it's the batshit crazy tale of a world that has replaced wars with people racing around on dragons, and the gameplay itself is a curious mix of vertical shooter and racing. As you might expect, the soundtrack has that same shoot-em-up feel to it, although... is it just me, or does this track sound like "Escape" from the Transformers The Movie soundtrack?

And now that we're reaching the transition from 16 to 32-bit consoles, it seems like a good place to end this little recap. So there you have it - Hitoshi Sakimoto has been making great videogame soundtracks for many years, and hopefully will still be doing so when I'm hacking my lungs up in a hospital bed, playing a Playstation 27 and complaining about those damn kids and their hover-boards.
BONUS: Here's an interview with the man himself.

THE WORST LICENSED STREET FIGHTER II PRODUCTS

Now, I love Street Fighter II but goddamn there were some truly awful licensed products which bore that illustrious name. Why, just the other day I wrote about the Street Fighter II rap - here, let me refresh your memory.

Jesus wept, it gets worse every time I hear it. It's worse than the Andrew Lloyd Webber-produced Tetris song, and I'll give you a moment to let that sink in. Ready? Good, let's continue.

If you think of the phrases "Street Fighter" and "licensed crap", the first thing that pops into your head may well be the 1994 live-action Street Fighter movie, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme as Guile and Raul Julia as M. Bison. Now, a lot of people will tell you that the Street Fighter movie is terrible, and they're sort of right. The fight scenes are poor, the acting is generally atrocious (it does star JCVD and Kylie Minogue, so what else would you expect?) and there's so much deviation from the Street Fighter canon that if you changed the character names you'd probably struggle to figure out what it was based on.

Yet despite all this I'm quite willing to defend the movie, because for what it is it's really not that bad. Taken as a goofy adventure movie aimed at kids, I think it holds its own quite well; there's some action, some (occasionally quite amusing) humour and I will go on record as saying that Raul Julia's Bison is one of my all-time favourite movie villains. People often say it's sad that this was his last film role, but I don't agree; apparently he took the role because his grandkids asked him to, and he gave a great performance that gave an otherwise mediocre movie a bit of sparkle.

Something that neither sparkles nor even manages to be mediocre is the second live-action Street Fighter film, The Legend of Chun-Li.

I'll be blunt; this film is an unmitigated piece of shit. It's terrible on every level, but I think the worst thing about it is the way it pisses over the all over its source material with the glee of a toddler who's just learned to use the big-boy toilet. Balrog uses a rocket launcher. Vega is a member of the Black Eyed Peas, a man who if I was being polite I would describe as "facially interesting". And M. Bison? Well, here's Bison in the games:

And here's how he was portrayed in The Legend of Chun-Li.

What the actual fuck. Fun fact: The first Street Fighter movie turned a profit, despite being widely regarded as being one of the worst movies of the '90s. The Legend of Chun-Li lost millions of dollars. I like to think of this as some kind of cosmic justice.

Oh, and who could forget Street Fighter: The Animated Series?

An American Saturday-morning cartoon, SF:TAS has gained some notoriety for the amount of meme-worthy phrases it has spawned. This is appropriate, because it's goofy as fuck.

As much as I'm against repeating internet memes out loud in real life, I must confess that "this is delicious!" and "Not the head bite!" have slipped into my everyday vocabulary.
So, Street Fighter's televisual offerings, or at least those produced in the west, are a mixed bag to say the least. Still, they're movies and TV shows, so far removed from the experience of actually playing the game that they're bound to be inferior, right? Maybe, but it's not as though the game itself was immune from being fucked over. With that in mind, here's the DOS port of SFII.

Yep, there was a DOS port of SFII. It is the worst version of SFII, and considering there's a version for the friggin' Game Boy that's really saying something. The DOS port looks like it was produced by someone who had never actually played SFII, but had all the art assets and had seen someone playing it once. They figured they could make a decent reconstruction with what knowledge they had but sadly they didn't quite grasp the fine details, leaving us with the videogame equivalent of the backwards-assed dinosaur skeletons put together by early paleontologists.
The physics are completely wrong, with each jump seeing your character float almost off the screen. Certain actions paralyse you. The music is dreadful, there are long loading times, each character only has one special move, and worst of all there's only one attack button, with different blows produced by holding different directions while you attack. Here, check it out for yourself.

Dhalsim being some kind of invincible super-warrior is just mind-boggling. I'll stick with the SNES version, thanks.

Hold the presses, I've lied to you all and I can only apologise. This, in fact, is the worst version of Street Fighter II: the LCD handheld version produced by Tiger Electronics. Tiger were the bane of my childhood, especially around Christmas time when well-meaning but naive (or poor) relatives heard that I loved videogames and so, wanting to buy me a videogame as a present, would get me an LCD game like this. "Disappointed" doesn't quite cover it. Maybe it was the admittedly powerful advertising that convinced them it'd make a good gift:

If a creepy hobo from a post-apocalyptic future tells you to get good at the handheld SFII game, you don't argue: you buckle the fuck down and play until your fingers bleed.
As much as I hate LCD games, I was a very polite child and never caused a scene. Instead, I would retreat to my bedroom and construct elaborate plans involving Tiger's game design staff and their slow deaths via drowing in a vat of liquid crystal.
Oh, and there was a watch version, too.

Better than the hand-held game, purely because it was robust enough to be used as a makeshift mace against any bully that dared laugh at your "fucking gay bender watch".
Bittersweet memories of childhood bring me neatly on to toys. Street Fighter was popular with kids, and that means toys. Did this mean a new and exciting range of toys combining the muscular fighting action of He-Man with the Japanese flavour of the Power Rangers? Did it bollocks. What we got instead were repaints of old G.I. Joe figures.
Would it be crass to point out that this figure's face doesn't look female, let alone like Chun-Li? Possibly, but I'm going to do it anyway; look at that man-face. Oh, and the rest of it looks nothing like Chun-Li, either. You might also notice that Chun-Li here comes with a fairly varied assortment of weapons. All the characters did, because kids were going to be pissed if they couldn't recreate the scenes from the arcade game where Ryu attacked Ken with an axe. The best thing about the weapons? Chun-Li came with claws. Sagat came with claws. Vega, a character pretty much defined by his use of a fucking claw, did not come with a claw. They had the claw mould, they even made claws for other people, but they took one look at Vega and said "screw you, buddy - these claws are for that bald dude with the eyepatch".

To be fair to Hasbro, they did remedy this when they released the "Movie" version of of the figure, but by then the damage was done and Vega, unable to defend himself without his trademark weapon, had been repeatedly battered by every challenger that crossed his path.
One final word on the Street Fighter G.I. Joes. What's tougher than a Capcom Street Fighter?

Advertising for children really is an artform, isn't it?

A tiny mushroomoid M. Bison? Why, that is curious. Wherever could he be from? Well, I'll tell you: he's from a Street Fighter Whack-a-Mole machine.

I think you all know the idea here. Miniature Bisons pop out of the machine, and you have to bash them back down again. With a hammer, not your mystical karate skills. Okay, so this one isn't too terrible; I just thought it was interesting enough to mention because a) I'm impressed that they bothered to make new art and sprites for it and b) that Bison is pretty adorable.
And finally, something that is terrible. In fact, I think it's tied with The Legend of Chun-Li for the title of "worst thing to carry the Street Fighter name that isn't an unlicensed hentai doujinshi starring Sakura and an octopus". Witness the majestic trainwreck that is Street Fighter: The Ride.

Did you watch it? If you did, I'm sure you'll understand why I am somewhat lost for words. Apparently once located at Universal Studios, this is a "simulation" type ride, which as far as I can tell means that your chair shakes around. But it shakes around in a Street Fighter-esque way, so there's that.
Just the concept of basing a ride around a fighting game is confusing. How could you possibly make that work? The answer is you can't. It's not possible. The people at Cadix Media and Show Scan either didn't realise this or simply didn't care, and gave us Ryu and Ken flying through a poorly-rendered digital world on some kind of hover-sled. Is it just me, or does it have an almost F-Zero GX feel to it?

Of course, all your favourite Street Fighter hereoes are there. Fei Long squeals at you like a bad Bruce Lee impersonator should. Vega literally stands in the way until Ryu tells him to move. Dhalsim fights Blanka while making a lot of vaguely racist-sounding "Indian" noises. Sagat... I don't know what the fuck is going on with Sagat, but that face shouldn't be shown to people with preexisting heart conditions. Finally, Bison arrives. Did I mention he's twenty feet tall now? I think it's a side effect of having conquered ReBoot's Mainframe. Then Ryu and Ken shoot a double hadoken in Bison's nuts and he dies. And you die too, just a little, deep inside.

And that's that. Please, don't love Street Fighter II less because of the travesties featured here - that'd be like hating a girl because she was once forced to wear a really ugly dress. Instead, plug in your SNES, grab a pad and play the game as it was meant to be played - with your friend calling you cheap for performing constant hadokens.