Zangief is a character from Capcom's popular Street Fighter series. Zangief, the so-called "Red Cyclone", is revolutionary in the fact that his appearance in Street Fighter II marks the first time a player could control a predominant grappler in a fighting game. He also was the first "360 degrees" fighter, whose main special move, named the Spinning Piledriver, required spinning the joystick nearly 360 degrees and pressing a punch button. The timing of this move is tricky, as Zangief will simply jump if the stick is tilted upwards for too long, and often it has to be chained with another attack to get it to work properly. Mastering this maneuver would eventually pay off since, in the first few versions of Street Fighter II, the Spinning Piledriver is the most powerful move in the game for any character.

History:
angief made his first appearance in Street Fighter II as one of the original eight playable characters, appearing in all subsequent revisions of the game as well. In the Street Fighter II games, Zangief was characterized as a former professional wrestler who participated in the tournament to represent his country under the request of the Soviet President.

Zangief would return in Street Fighter Alpha 2 and its follow-up Street Fighter Alpha 3. In the Alpha series, Zangief is a national Russian hero nicknamed the "Red Cyclone" who becomes acquainted with Gorbachev at the end of Alpha 2 and ends up fighting Shadaloo in Alpha 3.

Zangief has also appeared in all of Capcom's fighting game crossovers with Marvel, which includes X-Men vs. Street Fighter, Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, Marvel vs. Capcom and Marvel vs. Capcom 2. In the Marvel vs. Street Fighter game, an alternate version Zangief named "Mecha-Zangief" appears. Zangief also appears in Capcom vs. SNK, as well as in the Street Fighter EX games. He appears in Street Fighter IV as the only implied winner of the World Tournament.

Source: Capcom Database, capcomdatabase....

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