Each week, we collate the most popular stories that we published over the past seven days, plus a lineup of the most downloaded files added in the same timeframe. That way, in case you missed something, you can catch up in one helpful little spot, every Monday morning.

The most popular story last week was our Refried Modern Warfare web comic, closely followed by news yesterday that Infinity Ward have finally shafted PC gamers by opting to not support dedicated servers for Modern Warfare 2. Also popular was our Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising review, which also happens to lack dedicated server support. Our interview with Bioware's Dr. Greg Zeschuk also proved to be popular, and so did our review of Research and Development, a mod for Half-Life 2.

There's a fascinating in-depth interview now online with the developers of Street Fighter IV. Originally posted to the official Japanese Street Fighter IV blog, and translated by a devoted fan, it features in-depth discussion on a variety of topics: how play balance must be adapted as fans get used to characters, how the characters from the Alpha series had to be re-designed for the Street Fighter II milieu, and even how the bone in E. Honda's hair was mapped in to the skeleton modeling system.

They also talk about underwear...

Prior to the official announcement from Capcom, a French website has gone live with images of two new characters being introduced to Street Fighter IV.

Returning from Super Street Fighter 2 is the large, lumbering, fightin' Native American T.Hawk. All-new is Juri, a young woman in a flamboyant, form-fitting purple costume.

What have the gaming public been buying this week via digital distribution platform Steam? ... Last week seemed to have a RPG theme, with Aion taking out the number one spot... again. It was followed by Champions Online, and one of the best RPGs ever made, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Left 4 Dead also managed to sell some more copies, as did Braid.

If you want to what else sold the most last week, you'll just have to check out the Steam Top Sellers for the week ending September 13th!

What have the gaming public been buying this week via digital distribution platform Steam? ... Lots and lots of MMOs, well, two in particular. Champions Online took out the first spot, and was closely followed by a familiar name Aion. Due to a sale over the weekend, Street Fighter IV also sold a bunch of copies. Left 4 Dead took out 4th spot, which means that the zombie apocalypse won't over-run us (for now), with the top five closed by Counter-Strike: Source.

If you want to what else sold the most last week, you'll just have to check out the Steam Top Sellers for the week ending September 6th!

What have the gaming public been buying this week via digital distribution platform Steam? ...an awful lot of them have been interested in an as-yet unreleased MMO, getting in nice and early. Then there's the inevitable zombie hordes, a point-and-click classic and an old favourite shooter.

If you want to know more, you'll just have to check out the Steam Top Sellers for the week ending July 26th!

What have the gaming public been buying this week via digital distribution platform Steam? ...pretty much the same as last week, to be honest. Everybody wants to make a visit to Monkey Island, take on some zombies, or try out an unreleased MMO.

That's not all the games in the list, of course! To get some ideas about what you could be buying too, why not peruse the Steam Top Sellers for the week ending July 19th?

What have the gaming public been buying this week via digital distribution platform Steam? I'm sure it's not really a surprise to know that we're all retro fans here, buying enough copies of freshly-released Tales of Monkey Island to bump it into top spot!

...there's also some fighting, some post-apocalyptic goodness, some shooting and some zombies, but if you want to know the rest, you'll have to check out the Steam Top Sellers for the week ending July 12th.

There's no denying the profound effect Capcom's popular series of beat-'em-ups have had on the 2D and 3D fighting genres, and series like the possibly immortal Street Fighter and evil twin Darkstalkers have spawned a league of memorable characters beloved by gamers. I really do wonder why it is that people just love beating ten kinds of snot out of these characters with any other group of heroes they can lay their hands on? The Vs series has seen some pretty powerful groups take on Ryu and friends, and screenshots from the latest offering, headed to Wii, indicate that while you may not have heard of Tatsunoko, they are nevertheless ready and willing to punish their rivals in the upcoming Tatsunoko vs Capcom.

What have the gaming public been buying this week via digital distribution platform Steam? Thanks to some well-timed sales, we have a new winner in first place! Ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together for Vault Boy and his amazing efforts to bring Fallout 3 to the top of the charts, beating the invasion from Chernarus and the RTS from the past. Well done.

Want to know the rest? Without further ado, here are the Steam Top Sellers for the week ending July 5th.

It’s the last week of the midyear release season, the busiest for many years. There’s something for everyone this week; RPG fans finally get to sink their teeth into Tales of Vesperia, Team 17 is releasing Worms 2: Armageddon for Xbox Live Arcade, fight fans can play out dream bouts in Fight Night Round 4, PC-only players get to find out what all the fuss about Street Fighter IV is about, Wii golfers get their first taste of Motion Plus assisted play in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10, and Harry Potter fans can grab the video game adaptation of the latest film Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Don’t forget to check out the full release schedule for the latest changes and information on upcoming games.

With the financial year drawing to a close, most local distributors are pushing out a bunch of games in the hopes of improving their financial results. It’s a pretty packed week with something for everyone. New releases this week include the final Fatal Fury game Garou: Mark of the Wolves, the long awaited Ghostbusters: The Video Game (but only for the PS3), a compilation of old tracks with band support in Guitar Hero: Greatest Hits and the cooperative giant slaying fun of Monster Hunter Freedom UNITE for the PSP.

Don’t forget to check out the full release schedule for the latest changes and information on upcoming games.

Capcom have unveiled the hardware requirements for the PC version of Street Fighter IV, which is due on the 2nd of July, this year. While the requirements are fairly reasonable there is no minimum requirement of a game pad - which Street Fighter purists would argue is an oversight by Capcom.

The recommended (or Maximum, as Capcom have dubbed them) system requirements do, however cite the benefits of a game pad, suggesting that the Xbox 360 Controller for Windows as an ideal control method for the game.

Capcom, who are now a member of the PC Gaming Alliance, have announced plans to bring three of their major titles to the PC, starting in July, which will see the release of Street Fighter IV and Bionic Commando. Later in the year, the survival horror title Resident Evil 5 will make its way to PC.

Each title will feature a number of "enhancements" for the PC. Across the board, support for resolutions higher than 720p will be present on the PC, along with online play, along with a few features that will mean the PC versions of the title are likely to appeal to all types of gamers, both those with low-end hardware and high end hardware.

The Street Fighter IV experience just refuses to get old. I would really enjoy reclaiming my console time for something other than working up serious callous, but Capcom will not let me quit. Although the recent purchasable DLC packs were scornfully ignored by gamers who do not feel the need to play dress-ups with their warriors, the latest update bucks the DLC trend in being completely free, and aimed at "serious gamers". The Championship Mode update certainly looks to be bringing the goods, paving the way to serious online competition, and arrives next Friday.

Easter’s coming up this weekend, but it doesn’t look like the video game publishers of Australia are in a rush to release anything new for the extra long weekend. The Godfather II, Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor and Puzzle Quest: Galactrix should be able to hold the interest of anyone looking for something new this week, but the rest of us can look forward to spending time with a few of the recently released big hitters like Resident Evil 5 and Street Fighter 4

Don’t forget to check out the full release schedule for the latest changes and information on upcoming games.

With the end of March upon us, we make the translation from crazy game release period to crazy game announcement period. A few bits and bobs were revealed at GDC this week, but we’ll start seeing the real juicy stuff in the next 2-3 months, particularly with the apparently re-energised E3 happening in June. I think this year we’re going to see a lot more games released during the American summer time – the current release schedule already has Ghostbusters, InFamous, and The Sims 3 are already lined up for the first month. Is possible that gaming sales could top the summer box office?

This week The Warp Pipe will share a bunch of random thoughts and observations on material vaguely related to video games.

While some might argue that fighting games' true monarch has already been crowned, those that explore the genre further often have good things to say about the series soon to be represented by its latest entry, King of Fighters XII.

Twelve instalments in, does the franchise still have anything left to say? Apparently so; this will be the first title of the HD generation, and the beautiful, entirely hand-drawn graphics appear to easily hold their own against competitors, be they two- or three-dimensional.

With the advent of Street Fighter IV, many gamers are rediscovering their love of fighting games. Heaven forbid this should tip us back into the explosion of mediocre offerings of the nineties, but a few more decent fighting games here and there certainly wouldn't go amiss. Since Ryu and Ken's latest outing seems to be tearing up the charts like nobody's business, developers and publishers have got to be pondering how they can get in on a piece of the action.

Well, fighting fans can look forward to one pretty special release, anyway, with the announcement today that Japanese 2D fighter BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger will be making its way to the English-speaking world - and we just happen to have some screens.

Ever wondered just what the Australian gaming public are buying? We've got the latest charts for you that will give you all the details you need to know, for all the major platforms.

Well, I hate to say it, but... here comes a new challenger! A certain fighty game has managed to knock Nintendo's motion-sensing weightloss program all the way into second place overall (of course it's still topping the Wii charts). Congratulations, combatants!

It's also a week of turmoil in the PC world, where things are slowly becoming less simulated, with the triumphant return of the table-top RTS. Both PS3 and Xbox 360 have taken it to the streets, the PS2 croons along with a few swedes, DS gamers like to work on their smarts, and PSP is still chasing a European ball around the place.

When the arcade reigned supreme, every Friday afternoon found crowds huddled anxiously around the beat-'em-ups, gambling a whole week's worth of pocket money on the chance to take out the local champion. Some of those guys were simply amazing, and could get a whole evening's entertainment out of one token, sending dozens of hopefuls away disappointed. It seems this age has risen again, and on Friday afternoon, the first of Street Fighter IV's zombie lifespan, one bloke smashed his way into the Guinness World Records with 108 consecutive victories.

Good Game, the show for Gamers by Gamers is showing on a screen near you tonight – in the comfy time slot of 8.30pm on ABC2 and late on Friday nights on ABC1.

Good Game aims to bringing Australian gamers the latest gaming news, reviews, developer interviews and analysis of gamer culture. This time around, hosts Bajo & Junglist will be running all year, handing out rubber chickens for 43 straight weeks!

This week, we look at Halo Wars, Street Fighter 4, Fire Emblem DS and the history of the SNES.

Things have gotten rather busy again on the reviewing side of things here at Games On Net, with plenty of games (both good and bad) ready to receive the review treatment. As is usually the case, there are a few games in there that should have been a lot better, but rushed releases or questionable design decisions make them insufferable.

Such things lead to large amounts of agitation, and the need to vent, so this week on The Warp Pipe, we’ll be complaining about annoying things in the industry.

Everybody loves street date breakages and mass delays, both of which have affected this week’s Coming Attractions slightly. Street Fighter IV is out on shelves now for everyone to buy and love, and word is that both Dawn of War II andThe House of the Dead: Overkill can be found in some stores. Atari too decided to mess with us all this week, delaying their entire slate of titles planned for this week, so anyone planning on killing some vampires in thigh-high boots will have to wait til next week.

Don’t forget to check out the full release schedule for the latest changes and information on upcoming games.

Street Fighter IV is just five days away, and it’s seen a lot more hype than any fighting game release in recent memory. Fifteen years ago, the fighting game was the most popular genre in the arcades and on home consoles, but over time, people started to lose interest. The latest versions of one-time best-sellers like Virtua Fighter and Tekken barely made a dent on the charts. Fighting games aren’t dead by any means, but their popularity is just a fraction of what it once was.

In this week’s edition of The Warp Pipe, we’ll look at a few factors that I believe lead to this decline in popularity of the fighting game genre.

Things are getting a little bit spooky this week, not only due to the release of the hotly anticipated and rather scary F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, but also due to a large influx of Nintendo DS shovelware. Who would have thought back in 2004 that the machine would be home to so many terrible games?

Don’t forget to check out the full release schedule for the latest changes and information on upcoming games.

Last month, we told you that Australian publisher Red Ant were going into receivership, in the wake of the poor Australian dollar and the financial crisis that is affecting companies worldwide. We hunted around to find news for local gamers, and discovered that local Konami releases were being handballed back to former distributor Atari. At the time, we were reassured that various Capcom titles (including both Street Fighter IV and Resident Evil 5) were still on schedule - but we weren't able to find out just who would be taking over.

Today, however, we've just received confirmation that THQ Asia Pacific will be taking on the distribution, sales and marketing for all Capcom releases in this territory, "effective immediately".

Good Game, the show for Gamers by Gamers returns to a screen near you tonight – in the new time slot of 8.30pm on ABC2 and late on Friday nights on ABC1.

Good Game aims to bringing Australian gamers the latest gaming news, reviews, developer interviews and analysis of gamer culture. This time around, hosts Bajo & Junglist will be running all year, handing out rubber chickens for 43 straight weeks!

Just under two weeks to go until release day, and already Capcom have been kind enough to give us a peek at the new Street Fighter IV downloadable content. Let's answer the two most important questions without any further prevaricating. Number one: are there new costumes? Yes, yes there are. Number two: is there actually something substantive as well? Yes, thankfully, there is.

Along with the five costume packs, Xbox 360 and PS3 owners will be able to get hold of the excitingly named Championship Mode Expansion Pack. Even more excitingly, the pack is planned to be available immediately upon launch, and will be completely free! Wait, doesn't that sound like a day-one patch...? Well, maybe, but it also sounds like it has some nice stuff. Let's see what this little swag-bag includes.

With our economy speeding towards a recession, many of us have to crack down on our non-essential spending (when the government isn’t giving money away). That means fewer nights out on the town, homemade lunches, and a lot less to spend on games. It’s all well and good to say you’re going to spend less on games, but it becomes a lot harder to do so when games like Killzone 2, Resident Evil 5 and Street Fighter IV start showing up.

This week, The Warp Pipe will look at a few ways to make your gaming dollar go further.

I’d planned on having a topic that was a little more robust for this week’s Warp Pipe, but the record heatwave working its way through Adelaide and Melbourne and my lack of air-conditioning has pushed that back a bit. Fortunately, my time with Melbourne’s 40+ degree summer days will be cut short as I’m packing up and moving back to Queensland.

The cheap little fan on my desk is working just well enough to enable the compiling of another list of random video game facts and trivia.

With confirmation that Street Fighter IV will hit our shelves in a month, Capcom have also sent us a new trailer showing off the entire roster to the upcoming fighter. Yes that's right; all the characters get some action on the screen!

This five minute long trailer not only shows off the full line-up, but it also gives us some background on the story AND our first in-game look at a few of the characters that are only coming to console and PC.

Yesterday, we brought you the news that Australian company Red Ant Enterprises was now in receivership, putting a whole bunch of big-name titles into jeopardy. While the name may not be immediately familiar, Red Ant were the local distributors for publishers such as Bethesda, Konami, Midway and Capcom, and for a while there, some Australian releases were looking a little hazy.

But! Never fear, the first official statement from a publisher has trickled through, with Capcom explaining that despite what you may have heard, they're still planning on releasing their titles as if nothing had happened.

While they might not be a household name themselves, Australian game and DVD distributor Red Ant are responsible for bringing games to Australia from companies like Midway, Konami, Bethesda and Capcom. However, we're now not sure how many of those games will be arriving on our shores, as the local company has gone into receivership, mere months before the scheduled release of Bionic Commando, Street Fighter IV and Resident Evil 5.

It's not yet known just what will happen to these titles - nobody is answering the phones in Red Ant's offices, and we are waiting to hear back from the overseas publishers.

After a couple of weeks of rest, The Warp Pipe is back with renewed vigour. We’ll be shuffling things around a bit this year to find the best fit; you’ll notice that the column will be a little shorter and perhaps less retrospective than it has been, but the point here is to both inform and entertain, and I hope to be doing a lot of that in the next 12 months.

To kick things off this year, I’ll be putting on my fortune teller’s hat and making predictions about what will happen in the video game industry in 2009.

With the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) finishing up over the weekend, there were a heap of trailers heading our way. While CES may only be an electronics show, some of the big guns in gaming appear every year to bring out some more information and trailers on some of their upcoming projects.

What will we see this week? For starters there is a Fallen Earth and a smaller Resistance. Some more fights in the street that people are flocking too. Not to be outdone, we head to the skies once again and meet someone who is InFamous in his world.

The first half of 2009 looks like being a big one for Capcom, who have confirmed that they're aiming to release seven new titles within that timeframe. The lineup covers a wide variety of genres, platforms and titles, including both new ideas and well-loved favourites.

We're looking at Flock!, Street Fighter IV, Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop, Neopets Puzzle Adventure, Resident Evil 5, MotoGP and Bionic Commando, all within six months (actually, it's more like the first three months...). Better start saving your pennies!

Last week we checked out some of the best trailers from 2008 but it seems the developers need just a little bit more time to get some new stuff out. So this week we will be looking at some of the best clips for games coming out this year! These videos were made to hype you up and it might have been just a little while since you have seen them. Check them out to understand why 2009 is going to be an excellent year of gaming.

Starting off this week is a high flying fighter. Then we are going back to the origin of a project, as well as hitting the streets for a fight. There is something evil around there and it might just be because of the hammer of war. But luckily we have a commando to swing into action to save us.

What will you remember 2008 for, in terms of gaming?

We asked some of the game admins and network staff to find out their thoughts, but here's a quick recap of the past 12 months, to refresh your memory.

Non-games dominated this year's charts, with Wii Fit rewarding gamers for standing still. As a country, we were still fans of the music game genre too, finally getting our hands on Rock Band, which seemed to have been pushed onto shelves by the release of Guitar Hero: World Tour a week later. Who knows, the full-band version may even have healed some hurt caused by the "interesting" yet awkward Guitar Hero: On Tour release for DS. There was a new Call of Duty to heed, a new Bond to meet, Marcus and Dom were back, and independent developers twisted our brains with Braid and our rhythm skills with Audiosurf. Red Alert was back, and we revisited the Midnight Club. We also saw the release of the "Three Fs" - Far Cry 2, Fable 2, and Fallout 3, meaning many gamers were a bit strapped for cash by the end of the year.
...and, who could forget? 2008 is the year we met Sackboy!

Following the circulation of some fairly consistent and difficult-to-squash rumours, we can now reveal the final character from the Street Fighter IV home version roster - the fortune-telling Rose, who first appeared in Street Fighter Alpha, back in the day.

To celebrate, we've got a whole pile of screenshots for the game, showing off the floral fighter in action, as well as focussing on each of the six exclusive home version characters. If you're unfamiliar with Rose, don't go shaking your head at the inclusion of another girl, this is one chick who can hold her own.

2008 is beginning to wrap up; the last major releases of the year are on shelves, and the industry is preparing to take a breather. Normally, we’d have quiet time until February, but a quick look ahead suggests that the releases will be rolling out from mid-January. At this stage it looks like Capcom is going to rock the quarter after having held their big guns off from the holiday rush - Bionic Commando, Resident Evil 5 and Street Fighter IV are all set for release in the first ten weeks of the year.

This week the Warp Pipe will look at the downfall of Midway, and investigate how they can rebuild and move forward.

Capcom have announced that work on Street Fighter IV for consoles is nearing completion, with the game set to enter the retail market on the 17th of February, 2009 in the United States, before brawling its way in Europe (and presumably the rest of the world) a few days later on the 20th of February.

In addition, Capcom have released a new trailer that shows off the character Gouken fighting against other Street Fighter characters. While it may have been asking a little too much of fighting fans if it was released this year (especially with more than a dozen recent, high-profile releases), rest assured that you wallets will be given at least some chance to recover before Street Fighter IV hits stores early next year.

Trailers have been filtering in from all over the place this week. We have been getting some from the Tokyo Game Show and BlizzCon. There has been a few launch trailers for a couple of games out this week and a few more thrown out so we don't forget about other up and coming games.

This week we hid in the shadows of a former web slinger. Check out what a commando is up to and see if he has a place to conquer. We see a dawn of a new war and a forth fight to be taken to the streets. To wrap it up we see what happens when an inferno is lit under a dark game.

Street Fighter IV is probably the most anticipated fighting game now that Soulcalibur IV has been released. It would appear that Capcom are aware of this, releasing a teaser trailer, presenting some of the back story of the the game. In addition, a trailer depicting a fight between two characters has also made its way onto the mirror.

This year has seen a flurry of "fourths", with Metal Gear Solid 4, Grand Theft Auto 4, and the DS remake of Final Fantasy IV. While it is still unclear exactly when Street Fighter IV will barge its way into our homes for some button-mashing madness, the new trailers should entertain those waiting for the game.

Ah, it must be that time of year again... we've gotten our hands on Capcom's full lineup for this year's E3 Media & Business Summit, a week or so before the event starts.

Of course, there's a bunch of games here that shouldn't surprise you - Street Fighter IV, Bionic Commando, and Resident Evil 5, but they've thrown in a "super secret project" - Flock, tucked in at the bottom of the list.

It's back to regular Warp Pipe programming after another pair of retrospectives. After two series retrospectives in about six weeks, I'm a little worn out on the concept; fortunately, there is little in the way of major franchise releases coming out this year (that we know of), so I should be able to take a decent break. I spent some of my newfound free time checking out the Game On exhibit at ACMI – it's quite a good little show, and it's still running for another month, so Melbourne readers who haven't checked it out should do so as soon as possible.

This week, we look at the issue of quality in licensed products intended for children, revisit the 1994 classic Street Fighter: The Movie, and introduce a new section called Flawed Masterpieces, which looks at games that fell just short of being classics.

Back to its regular scheduled day, this week's Now Playing is not only going to bring you the latest trailers that have caught our eye but also we have a double feature drive in special! That's right, not only do you get the latest clips to grace our file library but you also get a full round up of Ubidays, Ubisoft's day of days to show off their upcoming titles. You will want to check these out!

But before that we head to Castlevania to check on some old friends. Get some beast riding lessons to fight an evil residing in Africa. Head to the streets for a fight and get some combat tips from an assassin before growing up and setting our eyes on universal domination.

Filed under "Didn't we already know this?", Capcom have just gotten around to announcing that Street Fighter IV, the latest title in their "genre-establishing" fighting series will indeed be seeing a release on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC (sorry, the anticipated Wii version hasn't eventuated at this stage).

I need to pay more attention, apparently all of our earlier coverage of the game was referring to the Japanese arcade version only, with no real confirmation that the title would be playable in any other format. However, today, there is light, and information, and a little handful of new screens.

A couple of weeks ago, when we revealed to you the special moves of Crimson Viper and Abel, we also showed you some early concept art of Street Fighter IV's newest contestant, El Fuerte. El Fuerte seems like the potential quintessential gentleman, balancing his life between Lucha Libre wresting and gourmet cooking... I mean.. what more could you want from a man?

Before you all begin to question my sexuality, allow me to bombard you with a collection of new screenshots of El Fuerte. Unfortunately, none of them are of him in the kitchen, producing tasty snacks to feed the arcade gaming fires, but perhaps there could be a spin off along the likes of that once Capcom eventually release Street Fighter IV?

I'm going to ask you two questions. When you think of Capcom, what games spring to mind? It's not hard to name at least a few; Capcom have had their share of enormous success with franchises like Street Fighter and Resident Evil, among many others. Second question: can you think of a single Capcom racing game?!

Recently, we've had a heap of news and shiny videos and screenshots from Street Fighter IV. Today, we've got another bunch of screenshots, along with some information about the moves which the new characters, Abel and Crimson Viper have up their sleeves.

If that isn't enough for you guys, we've also got a tiny bit of information about yet another new character - E L Fuerte.

Oh, it's too late to still be sitting at a computer, but I have a pretty thing to share with you (and I know how you love pretty things).

A brand new trailer has been released for Street Fighter IV, and we've got a copy all ready to share with you, to celebrate it being Saturday.

The new video is all in watercolours, and portrays a fight between crowd-pleaser Chun-Li and newcomer Crimson Viper... it's well worth a look!

I've been running around all day organising things and finding information and generally being a good newsbot. I really should be in bed now, but oh no. A newsbot's job is never done, and what sort of an example would I be setting if I went to bed now, and didn't tell you about the new Street Fighter IV video I have for you?

It's three minutes of gameplay footage, all ready to be watched, analysed and put under whatever scrutiny you fans are going to hold it up to.

Earlier this week, we shared with you some new screenshots from Street Fighter IV. Capcom have been busy releasing shiny new art for our consumption in the lead up to the AOU Arcade Show this weekend in Japan. The new art is that of the new playable character to the series - Abel.

Wrapped in shrouds of enigma, Abel is a man with no past, whom suffering amnesia looks toward simply fighting. His fighting style is described as a 'mix of multiple martial arts'.

We've previously brought you news on Capcom's upcoming arcade title Street Fighter IV. The graphics of Street Fighter IV have come a long way from previous instalments and we've got a huge collection of new screenshots and concept art to share with you.

Many of us have fond memories of the original arcade hit, and the latest game in the Street Fighter IV franchise promises both some returns to its classic style, along with some new innovations. What better way to reminiscence than to have a look at some of the re-imaginings of classic Street Fighter characters, along with some new concept art?

What will you remember 2007 for, in terms of gaming?

We asked some of the game admins and network staff to find out their thoughts, but I'll give you a quick recap first:
Australia got the PS3 in a bit of an anti-climactic launch, bringing with it a bit of resistance, as well as a stormy racer. We got a new Command & Conquer, another episode of Half-Life 2, a final Halo and didn't get the latest Grand Theft Auto. The world was thrown into "what-if?" with a little game from Massive, a motley crew of cartoons finally arrived, making up Team Fortress 2, and the Call of Duty was heard on a more modern battlefield. Ingame physics were turned on their head and flipped inside-out with Valve's puzzling Portal, our favourite four-fingered family arrived on almost every console known to man, first-person shooters got genetically-engineered, and the world was overrun by pocket monsters, both handheld and motion-sensitive. It's also been a big year for a little Italian plumber, who not only took over the soccer field, he also had a party or two and even headed into space, as well as turning somewhat more two-dimensional. Blizzard released their first MMO expansion, announced their second, revealed that 9 million people played World of Warcraft, took the covers off of StarCraft II, and still managed to keep tight-lipped on their new project.

The Games Network has done a whole bunch of work behind the scenes, making things a lot nicer and easier to work with, even if it looks pretty much the same. One of the major changes would be the upgrade to our file mirror, which now boasts 10 terabytes of space, so there's plenty of room for games, demos, screenshots, videos and patches. We also upgraded our staff, getting a whole new person to work for us, as well as a handful of new newsbots to bring you updates and good stories.

As a team, we tended to stay pretty close to home this year (other than sending representatives to eGames in Melbourne, GO3 in Perth, and BlizzCon in LA!), but we took the time to recognise the local guys with a big meetup for our Adelaide members, volunteers and gamers on the Australia Day long weekend last year. We had a whole pub to ourselves!

Overall, we must be doing something right, as every month, it seems we get bigger and bigger, with more visits, downloads and members! ...and, of course, you guys are the most important thing. Thanks for all your support, whether you're a regular visitor, someone who pops in from time to time, or just someone who keeps an eye out for interesting files in our library.

Bring on 2008 - but first, read on to find out what the admins, staff and volunteers have to say about 2007!

Back in October, we introduced you to the wonder that is Street Fighter IV, with the first trailer to be released from the game.

Now, I can confirm a bunch of things about the title that has just been officially announced as "under development" by Capcom. Fans of Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li and Dhalsim rejoice, they're all making a welcome return. They'll be placed into stylized 3D graphical settings, fighting with the classic Street Fighter 2D perspective, and the promise of additional 3D camera flourishes added for good measure.

Capcom is currently holding a major media event - and they've already dropped the biggest bombshell of the conference. Street Fighter IV has finally been confirmed as being currently in development - talk about peaking early!

The community site has recently been displaying a countdown, leading to more than a week's worth of speculation about what all the fuss could be about - apparently, it's all been over this trailer.