CAPCOM held an amazing event tonight in downtown San Francisco at Club SLIDE where they had what most people assume to be the final build of Super Street Fighter 4 open for free play! A lot of familiar faces were there such as Seth Killian, John Choi, Buktooth and Ricky Ortiz.

I happened to roll down there with 1UP.com's Richard Li. Lucky for both of us, the event had a lot of stations so as the night went on and less people were playing, we had a lot of time to grind the game and figure out various aspects of different characters.

Now before anyone asks, I didn't play every last character in the game. Instead of spending a little bit of time with every character, we focused on a handful of characters and spent as much time as possible trying to find changes with them. Keep in mind that although we assume most of the gameplay changes will stay intact, anything is bound to change in the final build.  Also, I only played for about 3-4 hours, but I am recalling most of this from memory, so I apologize if not everything is factually correct -- I'll try my best, so bare with me!

Again, I apologize to those of you whose character I didn't do an in-depth write up for, but to be honest I don't know what to look for with each and every character. Also, I know some of the details may be old news to some of you who have kept up with the game day in and day out, but I felt the need to cover every last detail I could recall for those of you who aren't familiar with aspects of the Third Strike and new Super characters.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this.. here we go!

GENERAL GAMEPLAY NOTES

Super Street Fighter 4 looks much more polished than the original game, and seems to have received a speed boost as well. The new stages are a huge improvement over the standard stages, save a couple classic stages like Old Temple which hold a special place in my heart. It's still the Street Fighter 4 that people know and love, but it does feel slightly different to some degree. It's hard ot put my finger on what it is exactly, perhaps the speed boost or small changes to various moves but overall it feels like an improvement over the original game.

I heard that Uppercut trades into Ultra no longer work, but I did not witness this myself so who knows at this point.

HAKAN

Richard Li from 1UP played Hakan extensively through out the night and I spent some time with him as well. Many of our matches were the "Third Strike Characters" vs "Hakan" so I got to see a lot of this guy through out the night.

We both agreed that the best way to summarize Hakan is E. Honda with an assortment of grabs and awkward moves. That said, it's really hard to compare him to any one Street Fighter character considering how unique he is. A lot of his normal moves resemble E. Hondas, and for every punch and kick, he also has a corresponding command normal. For instance, Forward + Roundhouse resembles E. Honda's standing roundhouse and his Forward and Fierce is different than his Standing Fierce.

Of course, he can oil up to become stronger, a strategy that slightly resembles Q's from Street Fighter 3. When oiled up, all of his moves become stronger and have increased range. One could say that when he is oiled up, all of his specials have "kara" properties, making his up-close game very ambiguous and scary at times.