Gears of War #10 Written by Mike Capps and Joshua Ortega. Drawn by Liam Sharpe.

Summary Via Publisher Wildstorm Entertainment:
Delta has located survivors from the Jilane massacre, and it's a motley crew filled with far more people than expected! With an anticipated Locust attack, does Delta have the firepower to hold out until help arrives? Further exploring the world of the sensational hit video game!

Sonic The Hedgehog #206 Written by Ian Flynn David. Drawn by Steven Butler.

Summary Via Publisher Archie Comics:
"On the Run Part Two": Sonic and Tails face off against the full might of the Iron Dominion! The prize: the addled Dr. Eggman! Will Sonic let his most feared nemesis fall into the hands of these new, unpredictable foes? Are they even willing to deal?!
PLUS: "Birthright Part Two": Lien-Da discovers the cruel secret of the Iron Queen's gift to her people. Her next choice will save - or doom - the Legion!

Pokemon: Giratina and the Sky Warrioer! Animanga Written and Drawn by Makoto Hijioka.

Summary Via Publisher Viz Media:
Shaymin, the peaceful Gratitude Pokémon, lives happily in forests and fields of flowers. But one day Shaymin is accidentally drawn into a battle between the Legendary Pokémon Giratina and Dialga. Whisked away far from home, Shaymin is found by Ash, Dawn and Brock, who soon discover that this new Pokémon is full of surprises! Of course Team Rocket wants to get their hands on Shaymin, and so does a mysterious man named Zero. Even Giratina is in hot pursuit of this little Pokémon-and just what do Giratina and Shaymin have to do with the dimension known as the Reverse World?

Sky Pirates of Neo Terra #2 Written by Josh Wagner. Drawn by Camilla D'Errico.

Summary Via Publisher Image Comics:
After his unexpected attack on the Grassland's village, Wurl reveals that the Light Crystal may hold the key to rescuing Ricket's father. Stubborn as ever, Billy heads off to find the crystal on his own. Based on the Nintendo DS game, "Sky Pirates of Neo Terra." (PIC via Atomic Comics)

Street Fighter II Turbo #9 Written and Drawn by Ken Siu-CHong, Chamba and Alan Wang.

Summary Via Publisher Udon Entertainment:
On sale October 28th, Street Fighter II Turbo #9 is filled with more non-stop fights that any issue yet! Cammy VS Guile, Ryu VS Honda, Fei Long VS Chun-li, Dhalsim VS the Dolls, and more! Plus another Street Fighter 3 backup story, this time featuring the mystic hermit Oro!

Udon's Unused Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix Intro

So what better way to celebrate the season of weddings than with a quick look at some of the best wedding dresses shown off in video games? A lot of video game characters we know and love have walked down the aisle over the years. Ken got married at the end of Street Fighter II, the entire plot of Dragon Quest V centers around a bride and it looks like Aya's getting down to marital business in the upcoming Parasite Eve: The 3rd Birthday.

But when it comes to that most important of wedding props — the dress — only a few video game characters and even fewer gamers really get it right. Here are a few fashionable examples:

Princess Peach, Super Paper Mario
Peach almost exchanged vows with Bowser at the beginning of the game, but even though the arranged marriage goes bust before the "I dos," Peach is rocking that puff sleeved gown with the opera gloves. Observe how the pink ribbon on the bouquet accents the gem in her crown, too. Classy.

Meryl Silverburgh, Metal Gear Solid 4
The cool thing about Meryl's dress is the story behind it. I fangirl'd out over spoke with Hideo Kojima at the Game Developers Conferences this year to tell him how much I liked her dress. He replied through his translator that the animators didn't really know what a Western-style wedding dress looked like, so they had an assistant go out and rent a dress to model for the animators. Good thing the assistant picked a sleeveless number — Meryl is way too ripped to pull off bell sleeves. And kudos on the tiara, but could we loose the gun?

Meryl Silverburgh, Metal Gear Solid 4
The cool thing about Meryl's dress is the story behind it. I fangirl'd out over spoke with Hideo Kojima at the Game Developers Conferences this year to tell him how much I liked her dress. He replied through his translator that the animators didn't really know what a Western-style wedding dress looked like, so they had an assistant go out and rent a dress to model for the animators. Good thing the assistant picked a sleeveless number — Meryl is way too ripped to pull off bell sleeves. And kudos on the tiara, but could we loose the gun?

Meryl Silverburgh, Metal Gear Solid 4
The cool thing about Meryl's dress is the story behind it. I fangirl'd out over spoke with Hideo Kojima at the Game Developers Conferences this year to tell him how much I liked her dress. He replied through his translator that the animators didn't really know what a Western-style wedding dress looked like, so they had an assistant go out and rent a dress to model for the animators. Good thing the assistant picked a sleeveless number — Meryl is way too ripped to pull off bell sleeves. And kudos on the tiara, but could we loose the gun?

Princess Ashe, Final Fantasy XII
With it's ruffled train and extreme gold accessory count, this is a gown fit for a princess. Sadly, though, the veil doesn't quite fit the dress. The length and tiered lace fringe work well, but the giant blue feathers on top and golden cheerios that seemed to be hot glued to the cap scream "I let my little sister decorate this."

Princess Ashe, Final Fantasy XII
Here's a veil-less breakdown.

Aidra the Katamari Bride, Real Life
Never mind the nerd factor, look at the detail on that dress in the vines and flower pattern. It's delicate, pretty and perfectly coordinated to her headgear. Plus the dress can double as a prom gown thanks to the modest cut and straight fall, if the bride should choose to let her potential future daughter wear it.

There are probably more weddings and even more gowns in more games than I've played. Leave a comment if you spot any. And before you start in on me about the default gown in The Sims 2, I'm not a fan; the Sims don't know how to accessorize.

Like other pieces sold by premium collectible firm Sideshow, this isn't cheap. Unless, that is, you find $375 cheap. Which we don't. If you do, however (or just really like Zangief!), it'll be out in Q4 this year.

Real Street Fighter Wannabe [Unique Daily via Topless Robot]

"Arcades are where you can truly level up your game against many opponents with no lag issues or rage-quitters," Valle says. "Maybe those rage-quitters can still leave mid-match and cause a scene or something. Playing online on a console is more of a tool for execution and strategy." In short: Play online if you want to practice, play in arcades if you want to fight.

As with most in his generation, the 31 year-old Valle came of age when online home console gaming wasn't event a glint in SEGA's eye, an age American arcades got golden again. Players slapped down stacks of quarters and could find SFII cabinets anywhere the things could fit — not only the obvious slick carpet-covered arcades, but also dingy laundromats and musty corners in gas stations. "I'm an arcade gamer," says Valle, "so I was used to playing the arcade version of whatever fighting game there was available." And that means, playing at a stand-up cabinet, standing next to your opponent.

"Back in the 90s you either played sports, decked out your car, or played Street Fighter II," says competitive fighting champ Valle. And some, like Valle, played SFII like it was a sport. Valle would walk into arcades with his gelled hair and wife-beater tee and other players would whisper, "Hey, it's that Ryu guy." When he wasn't getting kicked out for winning too much, Valle was drawing crowds — first in local tournaments, and then in national and international ones. Street Fighter was the game he started playing competitively, and not just in arcades against punters, but against the best of the best.

Players needed guts of iron. Way back in '96, Valle put himself on the map with his fight at Southern Hills Golfland arcade with rival John Choi at the B3: Battle By The Bay, the unofficial West Coast Street Fighter Alpha 2 arcade grand championship. Two years, at the SFA3 World Tournament, Valle went head-to-head against Daigo Umehara (yes, that Daigo) in Daigo's first international fight.

Before he went on to dominate to tournament scene between 1996-2001, a young Valle first cut his teeth on early arcade fighter Karate Champ. It wasn't until later that he began seriously playing titles like Street Fighter II, Virtua Fighter and Tekken.

Born in Lima, Peru and raised in Los Angeles, Valle recalls his home country in context of gaming: "I went back to Peru around my 13th birthday, just around the time Street Fighter 2 Championship Edition was released. Only thing I remember from Peru was that I gave up my old-school first-gen Gameboy to my cousin."

Valle excelled at more than fighters — platformers, sports games, whatever. But it was playing against others and playing against others in arcades that kept drawing him to the genre. "I love fighters because of the different styles of competition and the satisfaction of winning more matches than anybody in any given day," says Valle. "Life is good when you made that guy break another 5 dollar bill in the quarter machine."

His style was and still is aggressive. Aggressive and relentless. Relentless and brutal. "Almost instantly, Valle understands your game, and from there he gets inside your head and just violates you," says Seth Killian, long time Valle pal and resident Street Fighter expert at Capcom. "While some other top players would hang back and try and grind you down, he pioneered his own 'rushdown' style, where he was on you so fast, and in so many different ways, you were constantly on the defensive. While you were trying to figure out what just happened, he was on you again with a new setup, so his opponents would really just fall apart. It's paralyzing." Valle explains, "There isn't much time to think when the game starts, so my strategy involves overwhelming my opponent before they can adapt."

As the 1990s drew to a close, more and more arcades fell by the wayside. Home console kept gaming in the living room. "Our beloved Southern Hills Golfland closed down as well as a lot of other arcades soon after," Valle recalls. "Competition was very rare to find and no new games to play either."

While Valle initially had slight difficulty in adjusting to playing fighters on consoles ("I'm an arcade gamer," he points out), he's completed the transition and plays Street Fighter IV on Xbox LIVE Arcade evenings after his day job at an MMO company doing Spanish QA and web functionality for our game portals. He's not simply blowing off steam from a day at the office, and these sessions are less "playing" and more "training" for the upcoming EVO Championship Series in Las Vegas this July. Valle enters EVO, because of his history with the tourney — it goes way back to when it was the B series. "EVO also knows how to cater to fighting game community better than any organization out there," he says. "Plus, EVO is the hardest tournament to place in the US as a national tournament."

As American arcades have diminished and declined, the gap between consoles and arcade hardware has closed. "Console and arcade versions used to be vastly different back in the day," Choi says. "But that is no longer the case today and arcade and console ports are 99% accurate for the most part." The usual gameplay differences, Choi continues, are due to the hardware processing speed and minor bugs. "General gameplay is usually the same."

General gameplay, but not arcade gameplay. They're different, and anyone who has played both knows it. "I'm just fortunate to have grown up at a time where fighting game competition was at every corner," Valle says. "The experience from crushing my opponents on a 2-player, side by side arcade cabinet far outweighs online gaming." According to Valle, the younger generation will take time to overcome that type of pressure from playing someone up close and personal. "Sometimes the best chance of winning is the presence of confidence rather than the skill at hand."

Awww... Baby's First Double German Suplex [Capcom]

What it isn't: a spoken-word version of the Raul Julia/Kylie Minogue movie.

What it is: a record that, on side A, has a ton of Street Fighter II sound effects and vocal samples, and on side B, a collection of stage music.

Obviously intended more as a tool for DJs than an out-and-out listening experience, but die-hard Street Fighter fans could probably throw it on at a party and still get some head-nodding out of it.

Street Fighter II Turbo Battle Vinyl [Hypebeast]

Yume e no Position (Chun-Li's Theme) was released in December 1992 as Street Fighter II mania swept Japan. Catchy, no?

No, sadly.

歌詞ついてたんだ [はちま起稿]

Japanese website IT Media has traced Chun Li from 1991's Street Fighter II to today's Street Fighter IV (and upcoming movie!) as well as all the various SF titles in between to see just how the character has changed over the years.

あなたの好きな春麗はどれ？　歴代「春麗」もやはり微妙に変わっていた件 [IT Media]

Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix (Or 'SSF2THDR' - a rare case where the abbreviation could do with its own abbreviation) has been priced at 1200 Microsoft points on Xbox Live Marketplace and $14.99 on the Playstation Network.

Actually, we only sort of knew when - the actual release dates are November 25th for PSN, with Xbox owners getting a dose of SSF2THDR (no, still too long) on the 26th.

SSF2 Turbo HD Remix Pricing - Official! [Capcom Unity]

Feature-length Street Fighter IV anime in the works [GameSpot via Eurogamer]

Disaster, they say, is around the corner. Until then, enjoy watching the Street Fighter II posturing.

Pyro 2.1 wrist-mounted flame cannons [BB Gadgets via Gadget Lab via S-Kill Capcom]

EVO2k [Official Site]

[via Capcom]

Japan has its own Buckner and Garcia equivalent in game sound remixer Hyadain, whose Street Fighter II jam, crafted from the sounds of Street Fighter II naturally, is high on kitsch value and relatively low on repeat listen appeal. It's adorable, with terribly great English language lyrics in the chorus and sing along profiles for every World Warrior. Please, try to enjoy! It's awesome! Thanks to SamuraiPanda for the link!