Lurker > LightningStrikes

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.

I have no clue, maybe Tearaway?

But also there were stats at the time suggesting that most Wii owners had another contemporary platform as well. It raises the question of whether the Wii really was reaching THAT many people who had ever played games otherwise, more than the PS2, everybodys favourite DVD player? Or the Switch? Im not so sure.

The Wii sold a tonne of software, had a very good attach rate, and people did play it a lot while it was new, the people didnt buy any games for it just Wii Sports or Wii Fit thing was always a myth but it crashed hard much earlier than anticipated. It was selling faster than the PS2 ever did at points but hit a wall eventually. The same went for software, software sales just collapsed after about four years.

Yeah no hate on CE to be clear just funny that one board has to create a kind of silo on another board to have the same discussions we were having basically 100% civilly already rather than just let us keep the topic.

Sheep007 posted...

My knowledge of Scottish politics isn't the best, but from what I know I'm inclined to think Regan will fall in line - the SNP knew who they would need onside when deciding to piss off the greens and presumably knew they were willing to offer something she'd like. Surely needing to appeal specifically to a mega-transphobe will not have any repercussions. I didn't know Sinn Fein had a similar split re: the more conservative side, but it tracks. Plaid Cymru have a pretty conservative voter base of rural Welsh speakers and I assume it's a similar case for Sinn Fein?

Best case for Labour is probably no election and not having to run another campaign, maybe less for the costs reasoning and more because they wouldn't want the unpopularity that comes with holding power while the UK is running like shit, especially right before a general election which could see them return in Scotland. Although I'm not sure they would win enough to be the dominant party even with the SNP such a mess.

Yeah especially given the direction the SNP is already taking recently, but true either way, the SNP pandering hard to Regan cannot lead anywhere positive. Quite likely she even ends up back in cabinet. I agree that itll likely be a government victory but no way the SNP dont come out of this bruised whatever the outcome.

As for Sinn Fein yeah there are some differences in the exact topics (much more focus on abortion and immigration) but its a similar split. Their base is a mix of Catholics, nationalists and urban leftwingers, not hard to see faultlines emerging! But especially since the riots theyve been playing hard to the anti-immigration crowd and I dont think its gone down well with the younger more socially liberal part of their base. When you have a major nationalist party thats also at least partially progressive this just happens I guess.

Of course Ireland is odd because in the Republic there isnt really a big far-right or right wing populist party or movement but a lot of these same views still exist. The people who hold them just vote for Sinn Fein or independents instead of a big right wing party.

I have been summoned! Alas I need to now have CE in my posting history lol but it is what it is!

Yeah the Scottish government stuff is pretty interesting. Its quite the gamble by the SNP as there will now be a confidence vote that is going to be extremely close. Assuming nobody jumps ship the opposition has it by a single vote but theres a wrinkle. Now Labour, the Conservatives, and the Lib Dems are all voting against the government of course, and the Greens have indicated they will as well. However, there is one MSP called Ash Regan who was elected for the SNP and even stood for the leadership last year but left for a small nationalist party called Alba (the reason being shes a transphobic crackpot and wanted to make a big deal out of that by defecting). Now if she votes with the government, itll be a tie, the Presiding Officer will break the tie and presumably vote with the government. It seems she has said she hasnt made her mind up yet so the SNP will presumably be lobbying her pretty hard.

Now what is very apparent is a recent rightwards shift in the SNP, which is in part due to them trying to keep their big conservative faction in check. The SNP are basically split down the middle between the left-leaning progressives usually from Scotlands central belt and the conservatives usually from the rural areas, all united by support of independence. They seem to be about equal in number, though the left-leaning faction has been dominant for years and years. So my assessment is that the SNP are facing the same problem as parties like Sinn Fein in Ireland where they have two diametrically opposed factions tearing the party apart.

If it does go through it will most likely lead to an election with Labour as the big winners as theyve peeled off both moderate unionists from the Tories and Lib Dems and left-leaning nationalists who are fed up with the SNP. Of course paradoxically this could hurt Labour in the general election due some time this year by making them spend money on a whole other campaign. So yeah, quite an interesting situation!

UshiromiyaEva posted...

People giving Microsoft too little credit here because they're thinking of Xbox and not Windows.

But also the Xbox 360 is probably the most influential console since the Playstation anyway with the possible exception of the Switch (waiting to be seen). All modern consoles are working off the 360s blueprint.

Microsoft have PC gaming, something that always gets forgotten! So Microsoft>Atari>Sega.

Yeah lets commit, Fire Emblem Warriors. Looks good, animations are very impressive (seem just taken from the Switch version?), lots of characters on the screen. Thats a New 3DS exclusive and shows it.

Also, Dreamcast.

I would say the Switch was also definitely a giant cultural moment of reaching people that had never touched games before. It was just at its height during the pandemic so not as much dedicated attention to it as the Wii (though I still saw it get covered on the news).

MZero posted...

does anyone care about console wars anymore i feel like that died over a decade ago

Unfortunately console wars still exist but have been largely confined to Twitter. But yeah if anything console wars should be a point AGAINST getting on the Rushmore!

Leonhart4 posted...

Yeah, I don't understand having the Wii instead of the Switch. The Switch has done everything the Wii did, only better. I think you can only put the Wii on here if you're just giving it credit for doing it first.

Absolutely, and even then you could say the NES, PS1, and PS2 were also breaking into the mainstream before the Wii.

Sure the Wii was a huge moment but so was the Switch. There are lots of people who have only ever owned a Switch as well, especially those who got one in the pandemic.

The things you can say for the Wii are that it codified Nintendos plans to not go all in power, it normalised releasing old games on modern consoles, and motion controls are here to stay, albeit as a minor feature. None of that quite adds up to Rushmore worthy. It was also amusingly I think the first home console with wifi capabilities out of the box as the OG Xbox 360 didnt have it, but nobody is touting the Wii as the most important online console.

Lets be real though: the SNES is an absolute pretender to the throne here. No reason to vote for it at all other than nostalgia, sure it had a great library but so do all of these except the NES. Honestly even the N64 has a place above the SNES due to its importance in the shift to 3D.

Anyway, the 360 is a system I never even owned but should absolutely be on here because of how important it was to modern gaming, especially with its use of online features. Its the base of all current consoles, were all basically playing Xbox 360s now.

If you wanna see some

There are more New 3DS exclusives than PS5 exclusives lol. But yes, lets combine them together. I still dont think its Xenoblade because its kind of a messy port.

My instincts are either Monster Hunter Generations or another New 3DS exclusive in Fire Emblem Warriors. Ill have a think.

NES
PS2
Xbox 360
Switch

Abigail RPG. I can see it.

Yeah I think the Wii also as a system that was behind its contemporaries in terms of power by a much bigger than normal margin (probably still the biggest gap to date for a major console) also made the games that were really punching above their weight stand out more. Also there are some games that still do some pretty technically impressive things even now, but the rate of progression has definitely slowed down.

Not sure if I can do this but Ill try. Sheep, Im in Ireland but would probably still benefit from a UK list as streaming-wise theyre 99% the same, that would be a huge help thank you!

Also sure, put me down to host a DCEU ranking in the near-ish future. Should be a nice shorter one. Unless someone else wanted it!

Yeah LotR is about as mainstream as it comes, and so are life sims. Theres going to be a lot of overlap.

Which just highlights how wild it is that there hasnt been a really huge high profile LotR game adaptation of any genre to hit the mainstream! It feels like the Mordor games could have been it but they shot themselves in the foot with the leadup to the sequel. So who knows, maybe this will be enormous!

In theory this should be a slam dunk but I did not like the look of this trailer.

Yesterday
Hey Jude
Here Comes the Sun
Strawberry Fields Forever

I do want to give an honourable mention to Skyward Sword as it was basically on a level with a lot of big 360/PS3 games and doing a lot of interesting things with motion controls.

That was a classic case of game has a higher age rating due to one scene along with Arkham Knight and that one Shadow Hearts game. I didnt know Ace Attorney had it in it!

Xenoblade Chronicles

The scale of the world and the draw distance were super impressive for consoles, and unbelievable on the Wii. Also wouldnt say it looked like ass, just the character models which were a sacrifice for the environments. It took them four games to get to good looking character models haha.

Leon you took the words right out of my mouth! Yeah 5-4 is not the full story but it does have a beginning, middle, and end, same with 5-5. The last two of GAA2 is the only time the distinction feels arbitrary.

The Cosmic Turnabout - 7.5/10. Yeah its not a full mystery but its good, and there is at least a clear end point.

Turnabout for Tomorrow - 9/10. I love this one too, it crams a lot into a case thats actually on the shorter end for a final case. It might genuinely have the most disturbing moment in the series.

While Crysis 3 is impressive, I will actually go with Rise of the Tomb Raider.

https://youtu.be/kXX31BFwFs0?si=qJbyZyaKceOKv23N

MacArrowny posted...

Sometimes achievements are more impressive due to when they released. It's why Uncharted 2 is a fair pick over Uncharted 3, because it's 2 years older and looks almost as good (and why most people picked DKC1 over DKC2 or 3).

While in general this is a fair point, MGSV is more impressive even for its time. Like a lot of early PS3/360 games MGS4 is scales back pretty significantly from the last gen entry in terms of scope - MGS3 is the bigger and more complex game. On the other hand, MGSV was doing wild stuff for a 2015 game in terms of systems and the level of interactivity with the world.

Right film won! Even though I guess that has to be a minority opinion lol.

Jack Nicholsons performance is what stopped The Shining from ranking higher for me, and turned a potential 5/5 into a 4/5. Its cartoonish when it shouldnt be, and he just feels fundamentally miscast. I warned there was a hot take coming back near the start! But yeah hes pretty bad in this. Its not that its a maximalist performance, its that hes acting like a deranged madman when hes not supposed to be to the point that it strains believability that anybody would not instantly run from this man. And hey, supposedly Kubrick didnt like it either!

Shelley Duvalls great though.

Im just saying, MGSV is a straight visual upgrade on MGS4, runs about as well, and has more complex systems and larger worlds. It would be real silly for 4 to be there over V!

Because people confused the internet with real life next question.

Espeon posted...

Goddammit Lightning. I was reading your write-up and you referenced one of my least favorite scenes in all of cinema.

Its interesting as I always thought the original was less disturbing, but I guess it goes to show how subjective it is. Sorry about that!

Anyway, I think The Shining is number 2 and The Thing wins.

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

Not only does it look great, shockingly close to the PS4/Xbox One versions at a glance (albeit at a lower resolution), it also pulls off a large world and complex systems. That it runs comparably to MGS4 despite looking much better and being much larger is the cherry on top.

Going to take the no guts no glory route and say The Shining.

Disagree but also in Possession (hot take alert) the husband performance isnt bad.

+5 Super Mario Bros 3
+4 Super Mario Bros
+4 Paperboy
+3 The Legend of Zelda
+3 Metroid
+3 Kirbys Adventure
+2 Balloon Fight
+2 Ninja Gaiden
+2 Punch-Out!!
+2 Excitebike
+1 Mega Man
+1 Super Mario Bros 2
+1 StarTropics
+1 Ice Climber
+1 Soccer
+1 Mother/Earthbound Beginnings
+1 Final Fantasy
+1 Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light
+1 Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six
+1 Top Gun

Not a giant NES person, for instance I really should play more of those Mega Man games. Really looking forward to future systems though!

Possession is tremendous and Isabelle Adjani gives the single best performance on the list. Super happy to see it place so high. While I was watching it I was worried it would be very divisive but it wasnt really.

Guessing A Nightmare on Elm Street next.

Monstrous Turnabout - 5/10. Its fine but surprising to see it rate so high.

Turnabout Academy - 8/10. Robin is problematic but other than that its a belter with one of the best minor villains in the series. Kind of typified the switch to making the middle cases actually important.

Ah the KH games are going to split the vote and let Hunters win.

Also 358/2 Days is a game that takes place over 358 Days for two characters. It is actually pretty simple in concept just a weird way to write it.

Anyway, this one is easy, God of War: Ghost of Sparta.

None of those sound like flaws to me!

I think its Possession now. A top four of The Thing, The Shining, The Fly and Nightmare on Elm Street just sounds right.

Shes a treasure!

Okay, after looking at some videos I am satisfied that Kingdom Hearts Re:Coded is building on what 358/2 Days was doing technically so gets my vote.

President Wilson

BECAUSE I AM THE PRESIDENT OF THE GREAT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

Going to guess Beetlejuice. From the sounds of it Inviso ranked Possession low, and at this stage I think both it and Beetlejuice will have similar high placements at the top, which would favour Possession in a tiebreaker as I cant imagine Beetlejuice getting much hate. Then again after some of the Gremlins rankings maybe I will be surprised! Speaking of which I moved Possession down one at the last minute and in retrospect am not sure about that so if it loses the tiebreaker its my fault.

On Videodrome, wow that was divisive, half of rankers have it in the top 3 then a big gap. It was an interesting watch but not my favourite. The Fly is Cronenberg doing the melding of humanity and technology better in my view.

I have to think about this one. Hunters was very impressive but is early on. That Wizard of Oz game looks crazy, basically like a 3DS game. My instinct is to say Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days for similar reasons to Chain of Memories. It had multiple FMV cutscenes, this time with full VO, and the 3D graphics and sound were very impressive for the system. If I remember correctly they had an extra large cart just for that game. However, I never played or even saw much of Re:Coded, is that more impressive than Days is?

Cant say because its political lmao. But lets say its truly international.