Lurker > LightningStrikes

Its not totally random timing, they just announced their results for the fiscal year. They did the same thing for the original Switch.

What is interesting is that they dont seem to specify that it will be RELEASED this fiscal year, just announced. Summer 2025 launch possible?

6/10. Its quite interesting how it plays with the traditional case structure and twists what you expect from a typical case. The actual mystery is silly but I think it has some emotional heft to it. Also the way they pay off Kazuma in the second game definitely lessens the worse aspects of it.

GAAC feels very different and I wouldnt even do direct comparisons to main series cases. But if I were to GAA2-5 would absolutely be right up there!

Shogun is really excellent.

Also agreed on The People vs. OJ Simpson, strongly recommend that too.

6/10. Its just too long but otherwise it works. The way they show Ryonosukes development through the case is great.

Star Wars (1983) - The original!
Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader - The technical masterclass and definitive Gamecube launch game!
Knights of the Old Republic - The super influential one!
Jedi: Fallen Order - The modern mainstream mega-hit!

SHINE it is with a heavy heart and the utmost respect that I must regrettably say:

Clickbait topic

Oh oops, my bad. Uhhhhh Star Citizen I guess? It was playable in the 2010s!

Microsoft Flight Simulator

Rogue Squadron II was a technical showcase, the graphics were unbelievable for its time. And it expanded on what the first game was doing. It was the Gamecube launch game.

Mortal Kombat
Street Fighter II
Super Smash Bros Ultimate
Soul Calibur

Thats the hottest take Ive seen in absolutely ages.

Crysis

It was THE benchmark for the rest of the decade, and top end graphics cards couldnt run it well at max settings for years

Star Wars (the vector graphics arcade game).
Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader
Knights of the Old Republic
Jedi: Fallen Order

Rogue Leader was an incredible moment when it came out, dont forget that one.

10/10. The other contender for best base in the series. Notable for being hyper-long but actually using every bit of the time it takes well, its actually incredibly well paced.

6.5/10. Its fun, though while there are some cases in this topic series where Ive been shocked at some of the low ranking, I fully get why this one is divisive.

English local elections yesterday with results coming in now, the key points:

-Nothing short of absolute humiliation for the Tories, who have currently lost a majority of their races. Currently looking like they will go from a narrow first place in terms of councillors to third behind Labour and the Lib Dems.

-Labour have hit their marks with significant gains, their biggest win being the Blackpool South by-election for the Parliamentary seat, where they got one of the biggest swings in history. They are on course for a landslide at the general election as the polls suggest. However, there are a few things to caution them, as they have lost support in some areas including majority control of one council due to Gaza and other social issues. The party has acknowledged this too.

-Lib Dems have done fine but the big contests for them in the south are yet to declare their results. Greens have done very, very well and on track for their best ever local elections result, definitely gaining from dissatisfaction with Labour in some urban areas but also everybody else. The hard right Reform Party (Farages party) have done alright in voteshare for some areas to the Tories cost but no actual wins, nothing to say from that yet but you know the right-wing media will crow about it endlessly.

-The one bright spot, using the term very generously, for the Tories is that they have narrowly won the Teeside mayoral election. Of course, this was a guy who got 73% of the vote last time and enjoys massive cross-party support; the swing from this result and council elections still suggest Labour is on course to win every seat in the area at the general election. Its a bit like how Vermont has a Republican governor to put it in US terms, so the Tories claiming this as a win is hilarious.

TL;DR: Tories demolished, everybody else gaining, some small setbacks for Labour on areas theyve swung rightwards on. Something to be happy with for everybody whos not a Tory!

Tag

The thing is if you skip V because youre not interested in the Big Boss story you are not only missing the best gameplay in the series but also all of the smaller elements that make the writing in that game work. The key plot beats are the least interesting thing about it, what works in the narrative is all of the character side stories.

Easily one of the best puns (well, pun might be going a bit far) in the entire series imho.

9/10.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Incredible physics and chemistry systems, a seamless open world with three layers of verticality (technically more), looks great and actually runs better than Breath of the Wild. Also very few bugs!

HMs to Doom Eternal for managing that level of visual fidelity at locked 30 and Alien Isolation for looking and running better than the PS4 version.

I have not checked in years, but it became cool to hate 6-5 on the AA subreddit a while back. I dont get it either.

I just feel like giving it to Astros Playroom (still one of the best PS5 games) is a bit like giving it to Wii Sports.

Anyway, Microsoft Flight Simulator. It could be the most technically impressive game!

8.5/10.

This case rules. One of the best minor villains in the series with one of the best breakdowns, great setting and mystery, Trucy is used well, some great music. This kind of feels like what Apollo Justice should have been.

Iron Man
Black Panther
Avengers Endgame
Spider-Man No Way Home

No Way Home was a gigantic event, especially in the context of the pandemic. It was nearly as big as Endgame which is incredible.

Doing a quick comparison, MGSV seems to have a lower early drop off than most games looking at a few sets of Steam Achievements. Take FFVII Remake, which is known to have a pretty high completion rate for a single player game, 87.5% who started it finished the first chapter. If you want a funny stat, 3.3% who start never even fight a single battle!

A lot of people just boot up games and never really play them. Im sure were all guilty of it at some point. Looks like MGSV did well compared to other big single player games though.

foolm0r0n posted...

Probably lack of appeal

Also I bet a huge % of players did not get past the 60 minute intro

I mean thats just video games. Loads of people boot up games they get on sale and never finish them whatever the game is. Looking at the Steam trophy stats, 89.4% finished the intro, and I wonder how many of those 10.6% even started a new game!

Regardless, V is the most successful Metal Gear to date.

Edit: For contrast only 66% finished the prologue in The Witcher 3.

A lot of people just drop off franchises as they keep going. Of course MGSV made up for it by being many more peoples first MGS and would go on to become the highest selling MGS game.

TTYD for sure.

7.5/10.

This one was a lot of fun with an entertaining villain.

Alan Wake II

It has the combination of very high end visual fidelity with actually using the SSD effectively with the switching between worlds. On which note, HM to Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. That is the most impressive PS5 feature and its barely been used at all.

Xenoblade Chronicles X

Breath of the Wild is a worthy competitor for its physics and scale, but bloody hell I have no idea how Monolith did this on a Wii U. It looked better than basically all of its contemporaries on PS4 and Xbox One at time of release, it had an absolutely huge seamless world with complex systems, and it had rock solid performance too. For the hardware I actually think this is one of the most technically impressive games ever, at least of the modern era. Will be making the argument for Tears of the Kingdom when we get to the Switch though.

And yeah, Fast Racing NEO is very impressive. Just let them do an F-Zero Nintendo!

Its easily V. Still one of the greatest stealth action gameplay systems ever made. And the beauty of it is that you have all of these options and systems, but you can also just use the reduced down watching enemy paths and so on, or play it as a shooter (but why would you). Ground Zeroes also has the mechanics at that level and is stripped down to just focus on the stealth mechanics.

LightningStrikes posted...

Yes, Nolan is an American dual national by birth from one of his parents. This is also why his brother has an American accent and he doesnt, because they grew up on different sides of the Atlantic with different parents.

Anyway:

Georges Melies
Akira Kurosawa
Ingmar Bergman
James Cameron

I feel like Melies should get the George Washington slot here.

Remove James Cameron
Add Alfred Hitchcock

So James Camerons Canadian filmography consists of a single short film (funded by a dentist lol). That seems like it doesnt fit the spirit of the criteria even though it might technically qualify him. By contrast Alfred Hitchcock was making movies in the UK for nearly two decades before he went to Hollywood, he was already a very successful director. So he absolutely fits.

Yes, Nolan is an American dual national by birth from one of his parents. This is also why his brother has an American accent and he doesnt, because they grew up on different sides of the Atlantic with different parents.

Anyway:

Georges Melies
Akira Kurosawa
Ingmar Bergman
James Cameron

I feel like Melies should get the George Washington slot here.

I dont even know who any of those are!

LightningStrikes posted...

Malenia (Elden Ring)
Mike Tyson (Mike Tysons Punch-Out!!)
Lingering Will (Kingdom Hearts II)
Sans (Undertale)

Remove Lingering Will

Add Final Song (Drakengard 3)

We need your help Star Fox, youre the only hope for our world!

Malenia is also optional tbf.

Malenia (Elden Ring)
Mike Tyson (Mike Tysons Punch-Out!!)
Lingering Will (Kingdom Hearts II)
Sans (Undertale)

Red Dead Redemption 2

HM to Forza Horizon 5.

Yes GameFAQs is now being moderated entirely by the publishers from American Fiction. So try spelling it with a ph instead.

Yeah I see no problem with some CE people taking part if theyre willing to match the vibe and culture (and most importantly, general politeness and friendliness) of B8 and the Containment topics. After all its not like there was a shield around the board before these topics were banned. But it should be understood that there is a specific culture to be preserved here. I wasnt joking when I said in a Board 8 topic on the politics ban that these topics are unironically one of the least toxic places to discuss politics online.

Sheep007 posted...

Interesting that people with right-wing populist beliefs tend to go to Sinn Fein! I would have thought Fianna Fail would try and draw them in as we've seen a lot globally with the centre-right, although I'm not super clued in on Irish politics so I've probably missed something. Regardless of the many, many problems in the UK (again, I can't speak for Ireland but as far as I'm aware it's not quite so messy there right now?), the ultra-right have generally managed to be kept out of power, even though the Tories keep leaning in and flirting with them.

Most of my experience with nationalist parties is with Plaid, who are generally a bit more left than the SNP. And since Welsh national identity basically died until the 90s, outside of rugby and language in pockets, they've basically had to construct half of a more progressive national identity from scratch (I've got a migrant background and rarely feel unwelcome even when I have to mention my name to Welsh nationalists). Still some more conservative voters as I mentioned but it's very interesting to see how the different nationalist parties are taking different approaches, both socially and from the "get us the hell away from England" angle.

Thats a good point about Fianna Fail and to be honest with you I dont really know why they havent capitalised on that audience so to speak. To speculate a bit it could be as simple as the fact that they never recovered from the recession and their 2011 drubbing, they went from the largest party in every election for eighty years to half or less of where they used to be. A lot of their working class Catholic or nationalist base went over to Sinn Fein and simply never came back. Also, their current leader is pretty liberal and has been around forever, so I think the party itself has moved on social issues as well. And yeah you hit on the interesting paradox of these progressive nationalist parties! For what its worth I am no expert on Wales but I think it has historically been much to the left of Ireland and Scotland (and England) going back centuries too. So that probably affects things too.

Anyway, sounds like the UK general election might be getting called on Monday? We can only hope.

The Last of Us Part II

What tips it over the edge for me is the comparison to the first game on PS3, which was using pre-rendered cutscenes and had performance that was much more unstable. That they pulled this off on a base PS4 is very impressive. It obsoletes Uncharted 4, which wasnt even the most technically impressive PS4 game released that month imo (that would be DOOM).

HM to Red Dead Redemption 2.

Hold on a second.

Discusses the illegal OR recreational use of drugs

Meaning that technically we can get modded for talking about caffeine, cool cool cool (jokes on you, I just switched to decaf).

Yeah thats obviously not what it meant but it does further show a general lack of care and thought into writing these rules now.

Why oh why
Why oh why
Dont you wanna stay with me?
Why oh why
Why oh why
Are you giving up on me?

IMO:

If its out on day one, its a launch game.

If its out during the first full quarter after launch, that would be a launch window game.

So Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is a launch window game.

LightningStrikes posted...

NES
PS2
Xbox 360
Switch

Okay, then I will use this last opportunity to potentially inject some chaos and change PS2 to PS1. It feels weird to leave the PS2 off, but it looks set to get overtaken by the Switch in sales terms anyway and sales is the big thing it has (and library of course, but again almost all of these have fantastic libraries). The PS1 was the big shift and is definitely the best rep for the 90s here.

I went with Metroid pretty much purely because I think Prime 4 would be a great launch title. You want to have a big prestige game for the base available at launch. Yes Metroid hasnt been a huge seller but being a launch title would boost it a lot. Look what happened with Breath of the Wild!

Though Mario Kart should be on the poll.