Giant Bomb Video Game News

IGN got a look at the alternate costumes for all of the Street Fighter IV characters today and posted up a trailer showing off the new stuff. Actually, "new" is a relative term. Most of these costumes appear in the arcade version of SFIV, but need to be purchased with the in-game currency you win while playing versus matches with your ID card inserted into the machine. So the only truly new outfits here are courtesy of the console-exclusive characters.

The catch is that these costumes don't sound like they're going to be a part of the retail package. So we're looking at premium downloadable content for a game that's out next month. Didn't anyone tell Capcom that showing off stuff that looks totally finished and could be easily inserted into the retail product before release, only to sell it later is extremely bad form? Then again, it's possible that some or all of this will appear in the Collector's Edition of the game. Does that make it OK? Christ, I'm so into Street Fighter IV already that I've already lost perspective on this. Shouldn't I be super-pissed, raging on about how these will probably be 108k downloads on the 360, signifying that they're already on the disc?

Between Capcom not really being 100 percent clear on what we'll get and how we'll get it, and the fact that Zangief is dressed up like Mike effin' Haggar, I'm a swirl of emotions over here. Also? Guile dressed as Charlie... that's awesome, but he needs the hair to complete the look.

The Escapist's own Jared Rea took time out of talking shit about my Honda skills to rate these new costumes, so be sure to check that out, as well.