Today as I picked up the incredible Street Fighter Anniversary Arcade stick at my local EB Games I thought, "fifteen years?" It's been fifteen years since my first experience with Street Fighter at my local Wal-mart. It wasn't even the most memorable moment because that one particular time my Mom didn't have any change on her so I was forced to sit and gaze at what looked like a really awesome version of Yie Ar Kung Fu. That Summer on a trip to Gatlinburg I opened an Electronic Gaming Monthly and to my surprise there was a feature on an arcade game ready to take the US by storm, the sequel to "that game I almost played at a Wal-mart," Street Fighter II: The World Warrior.

I can remember being mesmerized by the amazing artwork for some of the most brilliantly designed characters I had ever seen. Next to each character's profile was a brief description of the character's motivations in the tournament. I spent the majority of the five hour car ride researching "moves," profiles, and the history for each character. Hoping for the life of me that this Gatlinburg place had at least one arcade with a SF II machine. Normally Gatlinburg would've been a boring, nightmare for an eleven year old kid, lucky for my brother and I there were arcades on nearly every corner, and yes most had at least one SF II machine. And the love affair began.

From tournaments with many friends to even my parents at one point, there was much fun to be had with this game. Even today one of my friends still uses SF II to settle "who's driving?" disputes with his roommates when they leave the house. It's still so awesome, I'm wrappin this entry up now because I have to play some more. Anyway, Street Fighter II is still a game that many of us hold in high regards as one of the greatest games of all time.

Mario Kart DS seems to be eating up all my recent free time.  I'm trying to play through the single player, but I seem to constantly get sucked back into the online component everytime I turn my system on.  It's too easy to get a match started, and soooo difficult to stop playing especially when the matches are close and intense.  The single and multiplayer easily make this the best Mario Kart yet, which makes me curious to what the future of online handhelds has to offer.  And then there is Animal Crossing...

Assuming it was just a port of the Cube version with multiplayer, my friend and I began brainstorming what kinds of mini-games we could create to get the most out of the already addictive gameplay.  One idea was to take a section of our shared town and layout a soccer field with trees and flowers.  Create different shirt designs for home and away jerseys.  Next we contact other friends and family members to visit our town.  All that is left would be to find the single ball that seems to spawn daily somewhere on the map and the first annual Animal Crossing World Cup begins.  This of coarse is just one idea that online multiplayer in Animal Crossing can open up.

Taking the console versions of games: streamlining them, adding new features, and adding an online component is the almost unbelievable trend that seems to be happening with the Mario Kart, Animal Crossing, and possibly Metroid franchises.  It will be interesting to see what this can do to other third party franchises.  Imagine what this DS formula could do for a future Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles release.  Personally I think it could take this "8.0" franchise and make it a AAA title.