Two versions of Street Fighter III on one disc and a host of new characters? With Street Fighter III: Double Impact, Capcom are really spoiling us...
Andy Ashwin

Ha-dou-ken!
Bless you.

Thanks. So which two versions of SF3 do we get?
Street Fighter III: New Generation and Street Fighter III: Second Impact. They're both quite different - New Generation features nine new World Warriors, with only Ryu and Ken returning, whereas Second Impact features the entire cast of Street Fighter III plus three new heroes.

And they are?
Hugo, Urien (careful with that spelling!) and Akuma. The latter has featured in previous incarnations as a hidden character but is now available from the start for the first time. Therefore, the complete list of starting characters is as follows: New Generation - Ibuki, Necro, Sean, Oro, Elena, Dudley, Alex, Yun, Ryu and Ken; Second Impact - Alex, Yun, Necro, Ibuki, Hugo, Sean, Urien, Elena, Oro, Yang, Dudley, Ryu and Ken.

Dudley? What sort of a name is that?
That's what we thought. It doesn't exactly strike fear into the heart of an opponent. He's actually hard as nails though - a huge pugilist with some rather nifty moves. Just wait until he connects with a special Rocket Uppercut.

How do the two games differ?
Erm... Second Impact is better, in our humble opinion. It looks arcade perfect with its fluid frame rate and beautiful animation, especially in 60Hz mode.