2003 in video games: another weird arcade game, more Pokémon and SimCity, and Mario Kart has its day

 

If you've been following along with my arcade posts, then you know the story from these early 2000s: Street Fighter, and other games like it, aren't top dog anymore because you could play it on your console at home. So, the arcades were trying to bring you into the mall by mixing up games with playing cards and other tangible elements to go along with the experience. 

In 2003, the extra touch was a card featuring your very own fighting beetle that you'd send into battle in this unusual looking game called Mushiking. Check out some footage here and please tell me if you see this anywhere out in the wild.

And it's cool to see Sega still owning all these top games in the arcade while their home console empire was nearly finished its steady collapse. 

In the handheld gaming market, Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire maintains its hold on the top-selling spot, and Nintendo also gets a rare win for these times in the home console wars with Mario Kart: Double Dash stepping up as best-seller for home console games, specifically for the Gamecube.

I've played this plenty of times, so I found an emulator and just gave it a quick spin. I'm not about to claim that getting first place in the Mushroom Cup at 50cc is worth crowing about, but that's where I left things.

Finally, SimCity returns with big sales for the PC market in its fourth version. I found this one much more intuitive than the original and, as I was building a seemingly effective (though admittedly ugly) city, I tried to take a screenshot for this post but it seems there's something in Steam that blocks taking them? Makes sense, I guess. Anyway, trust me: it was ugly. But Bob and Sophia were happy to move in, so who else do I really need to please?

Well, my fire chief, who - get this - wanted a road connecting the station to the neighbourhood! Patience, chief, I was working on it.

And one of my advisors wanted me to cut spending on hospitals, which was frankly way too real-life for me to deal with so I ignored her.

I'll get back to being mayor of the aptly named "New City" later because I was enjoying this one very much.