Head2Head: Street Fighter II vs Call of Duty 4

So here it is, the semi final of our Head2Head contest to determine the world's greatest game! This is the match-up between Streetfighter II and Call of Duty 4... with the victor making it through to the final to face Syndicate Wars or Grand Theft Auto IV.

• Originality - A 2D beat ‘em up with special moves versus a first person shooter swimming with real world and pop-culture references? Let's be honest here, neither one can really claim to have broken new ground. That said, the degree of polish found in Call of Duty 4 - from the carefully paced beats of it’s story through to several thoroughly unexpected and unconventional set-pieces - add enough gloss to the staid FPS format to make it the clear winner in this category. Winner: Call of Duty 4
• Longevity - Another tough category to judge. Call of Duty 4 has been on the market for two years now, but is yet to slip from the bestseller charts or the Top 5 Most Played lists. After two years, people haven’t moved on, they’re still buying it in droves, and still playing it in droves. If it were up against any other game, that would be the description of a winner, but Street Fighter II, amazingly, trumps it. It went through no less than six arcade versions, not to mention numerous dodgy cracked cabinets, before being ported to 18 other PC and console formats and finally getting a new lease of life via XBLA and Virtual Console. Even it’s newest iteration, Street Fighter IV, is treading old ground, albeit in a deeper, glossier fashion that would rather worship the wheel than reinvent it. Winner: Street Fighter II
• Graphics - Street Fighter’s devotion to 2D gameplay displays Capcom’s refreshing desire not to mess with a good thing just because it’s a little outdated. The Beatles didn’t need autotune (well, except maybe Ringo) and Street Fighter doesn’t need 3D. Admirable though that may be, however, it falls short of Call of Duty’s gorgeous detail. It's always tough to appraise games from so many years apart, but the ambition of CoD4, the number of different environments and lighting effects it attempts, from night time at sea, daytime in the desert to the horrifying afterglow of thermonuclear conflagration, allows it to walk this one. Winner: Call of Duty 4
• Sound FX - While there’s not one thing wrong with the audio performance of COD4, it doesn’t even match the visceral thuds, whistles and thwacks of its criminally underrated sequel, let alone the sound effects array of Street Fighter II, a selection that’s withstood the test of time, been sampled incessantly and embedded itself firmly in the minds of nerds of a certain age. Winner: Street Fighter II
• Replayability - Street Fighter II has proven how replayable it is simply by remaining popular for all these years. At first glance Call of Duty 4, with it’s extremely short campaign mode and reliance on shocking set-pieces, doesn’t seem to have what it takes to call you back again. But just think of the feeling in your guts when that bomb goes off, or the tension in your shoulders as you sneak around the Ukraine, or even the worrying omnipotence of controlling the armaments of a flying support plane, and ask yourself how long it will be before you play it through again. Add to that the hugely popular multiplayer, with it’s perks, custom classes and tenth level prestige, and you start to see a full picture. This is a game with a single player mode that packs more emotional punch than most movies, yet it’s still outstripped by a multiplayer so popular that it’s been suggested that nearly 80% of CoD4 owners don’t even play the single-player mode. To have both those modes in a single package far outweighs the diminishing returns of a few surprise scenes. Winner: Call of Duty 4

• Head2Head semi final draw
  
• Head2Head quarter final draw
  
• Head2Head first round draw