Anyone who ever picked up a controller for a Super Nintendo and got to scrapping it out as their favorite Street Fighter II character will have enjoyed hitting the special stage. There, instead of a sumo wrestler with a flurry of slaps, or a green swamp monster with electric power, you could take a break by mashing buttons and beating the absolute seat stuffing out of a Lexus L400.

Why? Well, the reason was pretty convoluted. According to the official Street Fighter lore, the car-bashing scene was supposed to be a used-car dealer's stunt in disposing of unsold inventory. In actuality, it might well have been inspired by U.S. autoworkers smashing Japanese imports in protest in the 1980s.

Whatever the case, battering a digital car made for a cathartic break in the game, and a moment that many a grown-up gamer looks back on with nostalgic fondness. With the new live-action Street Fighter movie opening October 16, fans will no doubt be delighted to see a brief glimpse of scenes where cars are again getting smashed up by fighters in the most recent trailers.

Here’s something even better: the Street Fighter bonus stage Lexus has been taken out of the digital world and into the real one. Officially, the game car isn’t actually a Lexus L400, as it wasn’t licensed, but basically everyone’s always known that’s what it is. Since those cars actually exist, making one look like it was rendered with 16-bit graphics was a unique challenge.

For the team at Vehicle Effects, which built many of the cars for the Fast & Furious series of movies, it wasn’t a particularly high-difficulty setting.

Source link