I'll date myself terribly here, but I can remember standing around the Street Fighter cabinet in our little arcade at college, jockeying for position and putting down quarters to try and get a turn. Getting a turn meant getting your @$$ handed to you by the resident expert, whose upset everyone was secretly rooting for. Man, those were the days...

Reliving the good old days is possible with Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max, which may go down in history as the ultimate Street Fighter compendium. One measure of success is the awesomely retro 2D feel of every screen and great over-the-top effects. Arcade perfect, C64 perfect, GBA perfect... depending on what iteration of the Street Fighter series you happened to jump in on, you'll find that every screen is like settling into that comfy old sofa your mom/spouse/roomie wants to put out on the street.

What's "maxed" out in Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max is the list of game modes that is longer than Dhalsim's arm. From the top, you've got a Training Mode that allows you to set every aspect of each character and practice your moves. Arcade is what anyone returning to the SF series will remember, and it is lovingly preserved here. A huge mode, World, feels more like a RPG than a traditional "Ready, Set, Fight" game. Over a series of themed levels, some with very different battle conditions, you build up a character for use in other modes. A lazyman route is through Edit Mode, which also lets you tweak every single dimension of the standard characters to create something that truly matches your style of play. The customized characters from World or Edit Mode can become entries for other modes.

Uneven fights with or against the computer are also an option, as you get a chance to go 2-1 or 1-2. If you're more of a masochist, you can enter Survival Mode or VS 100, where the odds are against you and it's the old "one man leave" scenario. Hint: It probably won't be you... Final and Free Battle allow you to choose the end boss or any character you like for a single battle, or build a team of three characters for a long slog. And this is all just the single player stuff! Getting into the multiplayer and networked modes allows you to build wi-fi tournaments of up to eight players to work through a series of battles, fight cooperatively against a computer-controlled opponent, or play as a league.

As you might expect, the depth of customization possible in Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max means that everyone can get a piece of the action. The Arcade mode, true to the original, is sufficiently difficult to make you earn the victory, but it's not out of reach. Changing game modes and the ISM settings will significantly change the flow of battle, and the speed settings can make a difference in how the game feels. Four difficulty modes, including one modeled on the original Street Fighter II, adjust things like combos, power and character abilities. These seem to mostly be available for providing more challenge for players steeped in Street Fighter history, who find the regular modes too easy.

If you've ever spent much time in the Street Fighter world, you'll know that button-mashing can only get you so far. Maybe against the computer, you'll do alright, but against seasoned players you'll get hosed. The thing that has kept this series on top for so long is the balance between the economy of options and the amazing twelve-button combos. On the economy side, you have three types of kicks and punches (one button for each), blocks, throws and special moves. The weight of techniques like throws, escapes or blocks and the damage dealt in each kick or punch really defines each character. Several pages in the manual outline special moves, and the Edit Mode helps to see where a character is strong or weak. Playing to a character's strength is always ideal, but Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max is deep enough that you could conceivably use Edit or World to build up that super "hybrid" character you always wanted.

The ISM system deserves a mention, for Street Fighter neophytes. X, A, and V are progressively more open for combo play, which can turn a battle instantly in your favor or against you. I-ISM is a custom mode that reflects changes made in World or Edit Modes. Each style allows for slightly more complex use of Super Combos, both in terms of what it takes to trigger a combo and what damage can be done. Each time you enter battle, you see what ISM your opponent is using, which may change the strategy you use against him or her.

The depth of this game is unbelievable. Apart from a lack of content to download, which would have scored this a perfect review, it's hard to find anything missing in Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max. The only gripe from a player standpoint is the button config on the PSP D-pad, which is not as friendly as the config in the arcade was for those multi-button combos. Nitpicking doesn't change the fact that Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max is epic in every way. As I said to a friend, this is the game that shows you why 3D didn't necessarily add much to the excitement we all felt in the arcade back in the day, waiting for our quarter to come up.