Gaming off the Beaten Path

  You learn something new every day I guess. I was very much aware of Street Fighter III: Third Strike. Like, very much aware. I put tons of hours into that game. It barely missed out on being a 10's game. It's the only game I've ever played in any sort of semi-official competition (I won my first round matchup before getting absolutely smashed by someone who actually knew what they were doing in the second). And yet I didn't realize it was actually the third game in the Street Fighter III series. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It's not like Capcom didn't have a penchant for doing this. Street Fighter II was essentially it's own series, there's World Warrior, Champion Edition, Turbo, Super Street Fighter II, Super Turbo, on and on, you get the point. So I guess it makes sense that they would do the same thing with SF III and I shouldn't have been too shocked to see that there were two other games, New Generation and 2nd Impact, that were rele...

  After damn near 30 years of gaming, I finally got the chance to play the original Street Fighter. As a kid, I always thought it was weird that no one ever talked about Street Fighter 1, like, ever. We always just called Street Fighter II "Street Fighter" since it was the first one most people experienced. It was the game on all the store shelves, it was the in all the arcades, it was basically everywhere. Most of us never even knew there was a Street Fighter I, much less what console it was on (the Turbografx 16, for the record) or where to find an arcade cabinet. I learned about it for the first time via the Street Fighter II Turbo/Champion Edition players guide, where it's referenced in the history section. But it wasn't until this past week that I was able to actually get my hands on it, thanks to finally caving and getting the SF 30th Anniversary Edition. It's always interesting to go back and look at first games in well-known series' to see how their r...

  This week I'm going to do something a little different. Hey card gaming is still gaming, right? I know I've talked before about my love of Magic: The Gathering and I've always wanted to write a little more about it, but I've never really had a reason to here. I debated doing something last year when they announced their whole "realms beyond" thing, where they decided to bring a bunch of crossover IPs into the MTG universe. Honestly, I wasn't a fan. As someone who has played since 1996, I don't even like that they have a "multiverse" with "planes" other than Dominara. So when I first saw the "Walking Dead" Secret Lair, I was a bit thrown. "I will never buy one of those crossover things" I thought to myself. I mean, there was talk of mixing in IPs that at least made some sense, like Dungeons and Dragons or Lord of the Rings, but a show about zombies? Stranger Things? Wasn't a fan. Well, then MTGs longtime pub...

  Longplay footage of Street Fighter II Turbo for the SNES. I want to do a run on max difficulty but I figured I'd do a warm up on 6/8 stars. I'm a little rusty, was sloppy with my technique and way to reliant on hadoukens, but it could have gone worse.

I'm going to start this 10's entry off with something I generally try to avoid: a controversial hot take.  So let's get right to it.  Street Fighter II Turbo/Champion Edition is, objectively, the greatest video game of all time. It isn't my favorite (though it's obviously up there). It isn't the most groundbreaking or revolutionary. It didn't push the boundaries of what video games could accomplish as a media or art form. Final Fantasy VI, VII and Chrono Trigger may have been more ambitious.  Madden and FIFA may be more universal. Halo and The Last of Us may have pushed the boundaries of technology more. But in terms of just straight up video games, I don't think it's ever been equaled or surpassed. Just for full disclosure, I played SFII Turbo for this review, I am a Nintendo kid at heart after all.  Champion Edition was the SFII game that Genesis owners got, actually released before it's SNES counterpart. The two games have a few marginally dif...