The Official Xbox Magazine scored the exclusive first review rights for Street Fighter IV. What’s the verdict? Check out what OXM had to say about the newest installment in the king of fighting games.

An excerpt:

“If you’re a fan of the older games, you’ll drop right in and enjoy yourself; the classic six-button controls feel perfect, and as you take different characters through Arcade mode, you’ll unlock alumni who didn’t appear in the coin-op edition, like Cammy, Rose, and Dan. Everyone looks as you remember them, only better. Exaggerated new facial animations make every attack look like it really hurts, and the game’s distinctive painted graphic style gives it the classy look of an interactive work of art.”

OXM’s final score: 9.5 — can’t say I really expected anything less, and I’m sure the PS3 version will fare just as well. The PC version, well, that just seems weird.

Pick up the February ‘09 issue of OXM to read the full review in all its glory.

UPDATE: Or pick up PlayStation: The Official Magazine, which gave the game a 5 out of 5. Both magazines are owned by Future Publishing and both have exclusive reviews for their respective consoles.

“Sha————a–a—-a–a——a–a—–ake!!!”

As we reported earlier, the disc that comes with the February issue of the Official Xbox Magazine has three downloadable Rock Band songs that can’t be found anywhere else. Are the tracks good enough to warrant buying the magazine from the newsstands?

Obviously, this factor is completely irrelevant if you subscribe to OXM because you already paid for it. You also got a better deal on the songs considering subscribers only pay about $2 per issue. But considering a magazine at the store is about the same price as a 3-song track pack from the marketplace, the question remains: are these songs worth the price of admission?

Let’s first take a look at what you’re getting:

• “Sprøde” by Freezepop

• “Rock Rebellion” by Bang Camaro

• “Shake” by Count Zero

There are already songs in the game by Freezepop and Bang Camaro, so you should have an idea what you’re in for with these two bands. Personally, I find OXM’s songs to be slightly better than the two already on the Rock Band disc. I especially like “Sprøde” for its flat-out kookiness.

The mystery song here is “Shake”. To be completely honest, the song annoyed the piss out of me when I first heard it. The “chorus”, if you can even call it that, is just a whiny “Sha-a—a—–a—a—ke” that lasts a good 4 to 6 seconds. About three-quarters through the song, however, it started to grow on me.

The guitar is fun to play, as are the drums. Surprisingly, even though I find Count Zero’s singer to be mildly irritating, singing the song was actually pretty fun as well. That is the whole point of the game, so I guess I can’t really bitch too much about it, can I?

Maybe you don’t need my opinion since you got the videos right there, but I’m giving it to you anyways. So, combine my first-hand account of the experience with what you see in the vids and decide for yourself whether or not the songs rock.

In short, I would say that if you don’t find the price of the track packs on the marketplace to be too rich for your rock-infused blood, this is actually a worthwhile purchase. Basically, you are buying the songs and getting a bunch of extra crap on a disc, as well as a free magazine.

The February issue of OXM will be available at newsstands for about another week, if you’re interested.

Official Xbox Magazine’s February issue will come packed in with new Rock Band songs Bang Camaro’s Rock Rebellion, Count Zero’s Shake along with Freezepops’ Sprode. I read OXM– it’s a great magazine with a fantastic group of writers and I bear no ill will toward them or Harmonix. But this pisses me off beyond belief.

Did Harmonix come to the conclusion, “how can we screw the small group of people that stuck with us in the transition from Guitar Hero by making them buy a magazine?” Or even better, “can we rip on our PS3 audience by not even giving them the chance to get these songs so conveniently?”

It’s great that they’re making three songs semi-free. Even Activision gave away a free song (the Halo 3 theme). But that was readily available to anyone who had an Xbox Live account. PS3 users, not so much. Even so, I’m not so sure many PS3 users would want to jam out to the MJOLNIR mix anyways.

Let’s just hope I never get to rant about this ever again.

Source: Official Xbox Magazine