Word of the triumphant return of classic bonus rounds for Super Street Fighter IV leaked out earlier in the week. Now, you can get a first look via the game's official site.


Click on the "New Mode" thumbnail to see the two announced bonus games.
Veteran SF players will recognize the car pounding and barrel busting
games from older entries in the series. In Super SFIV, you'll encounter
the bonus stages during arcade mode. Clear them once, and you'll then
be able to access them in Challenge Mode.


The video clip also provides a look at some of the new networking
features that leaked out earlier in the week. You can also get a look
at these areas in the official site's network page.


As detailed here earlier in the week, Capcom
has thus far unveiled the network mode's Endless Battle and Team Battle
play modes. Endless Battle is set up like a virtual arcade, with eight
players lined up on a single machine. The loser of a fight goes to the
end of the line to wait for a new chance to challenge. Team Battle is a
team tournament mode for up to eight players, allowing for team counts
of between 1 and 7 players. In addition to manually creating teams, you
can tell the CPU to create teams for you using player points to make
sure the player levels are as equal as possible.


It seems that Capcom is living up to the promise of improved
network play for Super. Both the Endless and Team Battle modes offer
eight player game environments, with the six who aren't fighting able
to watch the proceeding and partake in voice chat


Also featuring into Super's network play is the Replay Channel
mode. Yes, this is just a replay viewer, but it's done somewhat like
viewing television. Players can view channels filled with replays that
share a similar theme -- like boss fights, or fights consisting
exclusively of new characters. This is detailed in the "network" area
of the official site because the channels are shared environments. It's
possible to engage in voice chat with other viewers.


All the above will ship on the Super SFIV disc. What will not be on
the disc is Tournament Mode. Capcom plans on making this eight player
mode downloadable post release (which makes us wonder why they're
announcing it now, at least four months in advance!).


Be sure and check out the official site to see all the new goodies
in motion. And lets's hope the next update brings word of new
characters. It's certainly been a while!