[Pre-E3 2006] A Virtua Lock
SEGA's penultimate fighter is headed to just one next-gen console. Care to guess which one?
Published: May 8, 2006
SEGA has been pumping out pre-E3 announcements for a few weeks now, but none that will have an impact with the hardcore fighting crowd as this: Virtua Fighter 5 is headed to home consoles. Scratch that, VF5 is headed to the PlayStation 3. Exclusively.
"Virtua Fighter 5 will offer fans the ultimate next-generation fighting game experience," quoth Scott A. Steinberg, SEGA of America's Vice President of Marketing. "For years, the industry has talked about bringing the arcade experience to the living room. Virtua Fighter 5 fulfills this promise, and then some."
It certainly helps that the Lindbergh arcade hardware is far more in line with the PlayStation 3's guts than perhaps previous versions of the series has seen in the leap to home consoles, making for a transition that should be as good or better than the arcade experience -- at least graphically. The same 17 characters found in the arcade (including Mexican Lucha Libre brawler El Blaze and Chinese Monkey Kung-Fu fighter Eileen) will be ported to homes, and the game's trademark balance and depth will of course survive the transition.
Gameplay-wise, much, much more will be poured into the home version of the game. VF4's character customization features will be updated with more items that can be won during matches, as well as an expanded in-game store for buying accessories. The game will run at 720p (sorry, kids, no 1080p here) and will introduce a Tekken-style sidestep attack called simply an "Offensive Move."
This isn't the last you'll hear of the game on the way to its Spring 2007 release, and we'll make sure you get all the tasty screens (and, if we can get them, hands-on impressions) as soon as we come across 'em.
"Virtua Fighter 5 will offer fans the ultimate next-generation fighting game experience," quoth Scott A. Steinberg, SEGA of America's Vice President of Marketing. "For years, the industry has talked about bringing the arcade experience to the living room. Virtua Fighter 5 fulfills this promise, and then some."
It certainly helps that the Lindbergh arcade hardware is far more in line with the PlayStation 3's guts than perhaps previous versions of the series has seen in the leap to home consoles, making for a transition that should be as good or better than the arcade experience -- at least graphically. The same 17 characters found in the arcade (including Mexican Lucha Libre brawler El Blaze and Chinese Monkey Kung-Fu fighter Eileen) will be ported to homes, and the game's trademark balance and depth will of course survive the transition.
Gameplay-wise, much, much more will be poured into the home version of the game. VF4's character customization features will be updated with more items that can be won during matches, as well as an expanded in-game store for buying accessories. The game will run at 720p (sorry, kids, no 1080p here) and will introduce a Tekken-style sidestep attack called simply an "Offensive Move."
This isn't the last you'll hear of the game on the way to its Spring 2007 release, and we'll make sure you get all the tasty screens (and, if we can get them, hands-on impressions) as soon as we come across 'em.
