Fabien M's flurry of action packed Street Fighter battles continues! After kicking some old Oro behind, Balrog continues his boxing rampage! (second part of Fabien M's Street Fighter battle royale)

As with most of the Muttpop art team, Gobi has a huge soft spot for Street Fighter. Gobi regularly proclaims his undying love for Street Fighter III 3rd Strike's eccentric cast. For Gobi, this incarnation of the Street Fighter series is the ultimate evolution of the Street Fighter character design. It's a grand mix of classic characters and quirky new contestants. Most of all, Gobi feels that the new characters are perfectly designed to visually represent their distinct fighting styles; a balanced matrimony of visual, style, and animation.

I have to admit, Street Fighter III went over my head when I first saw it. As a traditionalist, the newer characters were too bold for my tastes. But after talking to Gobi, I had a newfound appreciation for SF3's wacky inventiveness.

Below is Gobi's amazing contribution to Castuka Forum's "combat de art street fighting" section. Based on Gobi's tastes, his choice of competitors and victor come as no surprise! Images can be seen in sequence below:

A comic book reading buddy is letting me borrow her copy of the X-MEN: AGE OF APOCALYPSE mini-series from 1995-1996. Overall, it's got a nice epic feel... but suffers from the variety of writers and artists associated with the project. Since then, many of those artists have become Comic Book powerhouses but they hadn't quite grown into form when the miniseries originally came out. The artist of the moment in the mid-1990s was Joe Madureira. His work on X-MEN:AOA made him the "hottest" X-men artist since Jim Lee touched the book. Using a style that was heavily influenced by Japanese manga and the Capcom artists, he revolutionized the way mainstream comic artists approached character design and human anatomy. Mad's art isn't nearly as polished as I remembered; his designs are strong but you can see him cheating a lot in the way he creates environments and the inconsistent level of detail he uses from panel to panel. His style is cool, but it'd be even BETTER get some Capcom artists to do their take on Marvel superheroes... in a strike of good fortune, many fanboy dreams came true when Capcom licensed the Street Fighter and (later) Marvel characters in a series of 2D fighting games from 1996-2000. Madureira's work was good, but the Capcom games took things to a whole 'nother level! Just remember to ignore that awful music (yeah, I know... some of you guys actually dig the tunes!).

Some of my favorite character art from MARVEL VS. CAPCOM 2 is below. More art can be found HERE.

At it's simplest, Halloween is one night a year where guys can dress evil and women can look sexy... no strings attached. Capcom's DARKSTALKERS (arcade game released in 1994) is the equivalent of that in game form. You've got tons of awesome monsters like vampire Demitri, Frankenstein monster Victor, and sea creature Rikuo to cover the "evil" testosterone side. The "sexy" is covered with femme fatales like succubus Morrigan and catwoman Felicia (I'd argue that's probably still for the testosterone side :-) ). Character designs in this game are still some of my favorites from the Capcom guys. The macabre/monster element gave the Capcom artists an excuse to go a little crazier with their design choices. The results are some of the silliest and most dynamic characters that Capcom's ever made.

I've included various art pieces with the Darkstalkers characters below. The last bit of art is from the Udon Darkstalkers Tribute by Sharknife creator/cartoonist Corey Lewis.

Here's a clever experiment in design. The talented folks from INFINITE CONTINUES blog successfully distilled the color and key design elements of our favorite videogame characters into beautiful abstract images. It's amazing how recognizable these characters have become. The basis of this idea is one that we have played with in our Pop Culture Lucha Libre toy series. When it works, it showcases the strength of a character's design and how successful it has penetrated the Pop Cultural consciousness. Nintendo and Marvel are two companies that have done a masterful job of keeping their slew of characters current. As a child raised on Nintendo games, its fascinating that the young children of today will most likely recognize Donkey Kong and Kirby as characters from the SMASH BROS. game (instead of the DONKEY KONG and KIRBY game series). That's not all that bad of a thing, though. Keeping those characters out in the Public's eye brings the more curious folk back to the classic games/stories of yesteryear. Heck, I would never have discovered Jack Kirby's genius if it weren't for the Marvel comics being published in the 1990s!

CLICK HERE for Infinite Continue's complete selection of videogame mascot minimalist designs.

There was a time when I'd go the the big arcade near my house (Malibu Castle Miniature Golf, to be exact),  tokens in hand, and stare at the arcade machines. I WANTED to play a game, but all the loud noise and pixel-violence scared the crap out of me. I was okay watching another person play. But as soon as the arcade cabinet of interest was left unattended, I'd run away and use all my tokens playing skee-ball for stupid prize tickets.

Eventually I popped my arcade cabinet cherry playing some average Buck Rogers space ship game. The arcade game was old and unpopular. So I got used to playing with that big joystick in the rarely traveled arcade cabinet ghettos (I think it was between a Tapper and Mappy Arcade game cabinet).

The game I REALLY wanted to play was STRIDER. Hot damn. The music, the world, the animation, the style... it was freakin' perfect! STRIDER was the first game that felt like a cinematic experience. Too bad it was so damned LOUD and right by the entrance of the arcade where more seasoned arcade players could watch you fail.

Strider still has a dear place in my heart. I love the "metrosexual" hero. He's built limber and sleek and has moves unlike anything else at the arcade. The animations for the protagonist made even walking the uber-definition of cool. Add mechanical gorillas, exploding land mines alongside a barren hill of snow, hot amazon ninja chicks, huge mini-planet bosses with gravity that forces you to orbit it... and you've got one of the most influential experiences I have ever had as a gamer.

A GREAT VIDEO WALKTHROUGH OF THE GAME: