The Failing of PSN, XBL, and Wii Online

The year is 1990. My parents and I were living in the small rural mountain town of Coarsegold, CA. Its a friday night, and i was partaking in a rare treat. It had been a long week, and we had decided that it was a pizza night. It wasn't just any pizza night, though. While we usually had it delivered from one of the few local places in the area, tonight, we were taking the fight to the Pizza Parlor. The drive is short, but the anticipation makes it feel 10 times longer. Not anticipation for the pizza or the breadsticks or even the chance that i might run into a friend there.

This pizza parlor had arcade machines. Not just any arcade machines, they had Street Fighter 2.

The car had barely stopped before my seat belt was off, sprinting at full speed into this poor old building. The ambiance was incredible. Now you usually don't hear terms like “ambiance” thrown around to describe Pizza Parlors, but if you grew up in my generation, you can relate. The Smell of greasy frisbees made from pure cholesterol, the salad bar that kept everything at just a few degrees below room temperature, and the tables that were sticky from years of grease and soda spills.

It was heaven.

My parents had begun to order but i didn't care. My attention was focused in on the measly “arcade”. Like any sneaky mischievous 8 year old, i started to slink away, hopefully unnoticed by the benefactors of my habit. i get 3 steps away and i hear my name called. “ANDREW, Get BACK here. You can play games when you're done eating” My heart sinks. I know i’m going to love the pizza and the soda, but that's not why we're here. I was here to play.

Sure i had a Nintendo like any other kid of my generation, I even had a decent collection of games, but It was a poor substitute for this. I could play single player games until my eyes bled, but multiplayer was not the greatest on NES. The arcade had this cornered. packs of sweaty teenagers gathered around a nondescript wooden box just waiting for their chance to play; for their time to shine.

The pizza had arrived, i had scarfed it at warp speed and sat there with a longing look in my eyes. My mom looks at me, sighs and grabs her purse. Holy shit this is it! Her hand reaches in and pulls out her wallet. one by one she begins handing me quarters. I don't even see them as currency anymore, these are chances. Chances to play, Chances to Win, chances to impress. I say thanks, and begin my trek over to the machine.

It's a fairly busy friday night and one of the few pizza places in town. There are 6 or 7 kids (most of them older than me) all standing around this Street Fighter Cabinet. I look up and see the screen. Ryu is Pummeling Blanka. But that's not what i’m looking for. The object of my attention is right below them, on the bottom of the monitor. There lies the quarters. a row of quarters marking the play order of the gladiators in this arena. I sneak over to one side and place mine into the group. Now we wait.

The next few matches are exciting, with most people playing wither Ryu or Ken (pretty much the same as the tournament scene today). These kids are good. Really good. A perfect here, a hadouken or shoryuken there. I’m in way over my head. I don't care, i came to play, winning is a bonus. Finally my turn is up, i walk up to the machine, the glares of the gods on me, and assume my position. I reach up and grab my quarter. My hands are shaking. I’m sweating bullets. I slide the small metal coin into the slot and hear that beautiful sound.

Now, the real fun begins.

Capcom announces Street Fighter X Tekken. *Mind Explodes

It seems Capcom is single handily trying to revive the fighting genre on its own by releasing a mass amount of fighting games. So far we've gotten Street Fighter IV, Tansunoku Vs. Capcom, Super Street Fighter IV, Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 and now Street Fighter X Tekken is on the way.

Now if your like me, this announcement caught me by surprise and I'm really curious about how this one is going to play out. From the description on Capcom-Unity it looks to be a Tag style game with the Tekken character coming into the Street Fighter universe and graphics engine used by SFIV. I've was really into Tekken Tag back in the day, but really haven't been following the series since then. I will be watching this game closely to see what new features they may be adding to differentiate it from the others. The merging of brands and reviving retro games has been on Capcom's agenda for awhile now and it seems they aren't going to be stopping any time soon. I think that if anyone has a chance at bringing a series back into the forefront of gamers minds and be succuessful at it; it will be Capcom. They've spent a lot of time focusing on their rabid fan base and it looks like its paying off in spades.

Are you looking forward to another VS fighter from Capcom?
Do you still play Tekken?