Street Fighter 2 Turbo is right up there in my 'Favourite, most played games ever' list. It was magical at the time, properly amazing... big and colourful with incredibly designed, beautifully balanced characters. Just the sheer joy of tapping out the sequence of buttons for a big combo kept me coming back for more, even though I'd finished it countless times. Honestly, it was the Halo of its time, shifting tons of consoles, consuming hours, days, and saving me a hell of a lot of 50p pieces. I think I'm going to cry, excuse me for a moment.

Ahem! Yes, Street Fighter was something very special, even if the legions of updates abused it somewhat. Eventually I got a bit bored, and haven't really played it too much since. But then, that was the case with the John Madden games too, and when Madden NFL 2003 arrived in the office we all loved it. Can Capcom's latest 2D beater relight my fire too?

Well, it's certainly trying hard to do just that. There are more than 44 characters here, and many of them will strike the warm glow of nostalgia into your hearts: Blanka, E Honda and Dhalsim are back, alongside Capcom stalwarts like Ryu, Ken and Chun Li. For others, SNK characters may well be the big draw: Nakoruru from Samurai Showdown and Terry from King Of Fighters line up alongside a load of SNK bods. If you've ever been majorly into a 2D beat-'em-up, there's someone here for you. Thing is, appealing though the character designs are, they don't look any better than their Sega Saturn incarnations - they're still low-res. It's really starting to get a bit cheeky now - the characters look ridiculously blocky at times (especially some of the SNK characters). The high-res backdrops only make the characters look more out of context. It's going to take some work for Capcom to redo all the character art at a higher resolution but, given the amount of cash they've made from using exactly the same art over and over again, it's about time they sorted it out. Guilty Gear X on the Dreamcast shows how good the game might look if they did - s it is, this can look pretty poor on a big telly.

But... oh, Streetfighter, I could never stay mad at you. You're still so much fun to play and, with a second player of the same standard, you're more addictive than you have any right to be at your age. You see, dogs don't get much older than Streetfighter, but at least it keeps coming up with new tricks. In the case of Capcom Vs. SNK 2 EO: Mark Of The Millennium, the trick is online play - and as Xbox Live's first beat-'em-up, all eyes will be on it. Can a fighter - which relies totally on split-second timing and reaction - be played over the internet? Well, at the time of writing we can't yet tell you, but if it's Live play you want, make sure you wait for an update in a future issue.

Still, there's more new stuff to talk about. Like the Groove system, whereby you can choose from one of six Grooves that determine your character's abilities. Taken from previous Capcom and SNK fighting systems, they allow you to use just the kind of combo gauge and fancy guard trick that suits you.

There's also the EO in the title, which stands for Extreme Offense over here, but Easy Operation in Japan. Our Asian friends have the more accurate acronym, though - choosing EO-ism means beginners can operate special moves with simple presses of the Right thumbstick, while the strength of kicks and punches is determined by how hard the triggers are pressed. Streetfighter purists may baulk at this, but it does allow a total novice to do a dragon punch. Still, it's a more rewarding experience to use the proper controls.

Ultimately, if it's a spot of two-dimensional combat you're after, you're simply not going to do better than this. It's more of a 'proper' fighter than the novelty-filled Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, and of course there's the prospect of Live play. But while Capcom's stable of brawlers may have been my first beat-'em-up love, my heart still belongs to Soul Calibur.

1. Some timeless characters
2. First chance to fight online
3. Loads of depth

1. Blocky characters
2. Pretty much seen it all before

Power
This isn't a game that's pushing technological frontiers. In fact, the low-res character art rankles.

Style
Capcom's characters burst with vitality and humour. SNK's don't benefit from the close association.

Immersion
Finding out each character's combo list is great fun, as is investigating the different grooves.

Lifespan
Multiplayer is as fun as ever, and Live support means there should always be someone up for a game.

Summary
Polish something forever and eventually it'll disappear. Nevertheless, loads of fun scraps are to be had here.