Desert Island Video Game Draft Playoffs - Round 1 6/11

[Capt. Factorial]

Capt. Factorial​

1. Super Mario Bros. (NES)
2. Tetris (NES)
3. Metroid (NES)
4. Astro Bot (PS5)
5. The Legend of Zelda (NES Mini)
6. Myst (Macintosh)
7. Pac-Man (Arcade)
8. Centipede: Recharged (PS5)
9. Final Fantasy (NES)
10. River Raid (Atari 2600)
11. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES)
12. Astrosmash (Intellivision)
13. Out Of The Park Baseball 21 (Macintosh)
14. Ice Hockey (NES)
15. Stray (PS5)


vs.

Sluggah​

1. Counter-Strike: Source (PC)
2. God of War (PS4)
3. Resident Evil 4 (Nintendo GameCube)
4. StarCraft II (PC)
5. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (PS2)
6. Dead Space (PS3)
7. Team Fortress 2 (PC)
8. Halo (Xbox)
9. Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS3)
10. Ninja Gaiden (Xbox)
11. Lumines: Puzzle Fusion (PSP)
12. Infamous (PS3)
13. Ghost of Tsushima (PS4)
14. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 (Xbox 360)
15. Battlefield 2 (PC)

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

Nostalgia for the win!

 

[hrdboild]

Hey look it's Tetris vs. Neo Tetris! These are two very different lists, one leaning heavily towards the early classics and the other showcasing a sampling of the best modern games. There's a lot of these that I haven't played so I decided the best way to go about picking a winner is to just rank all 30 games based on how much I think I would enjoy them and then add up the scores.

1. Myst (Capt) = 30 "An all-time favorite for me, so an easy #1."
2. Ghost of Tsushima (Sluggah) = 29 "The modern game I most want to play."
3. Pac-Man (Capt) = 28 "The Mona Lisa of game design, still as fresh as ever."
4. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (Sluggah) = 27 "Yes, you can play as Rodney Mullen in this one so count me in."
5. Stray (Capt) = 26 "I'm not sure where to go next but I love just wandering around."
6. StarCraft II (Sluggah) = 25 "Never played it but I played Starcraft a ton, I'm sure I would like it."
7. Team Fortress 2 (Sluggah) = 24 "Same as above, but with Team Fortress Classic."
8. Out of the Park Baseball 21 (Capt) = 23 "I got really into Baseball Mogul 2006 about 20 years ago and brought Frank Thomas and Milton Bradley to the A's as virtual GM about 2 months before the actual A's acquired both players. So I guess my A's fandom peaked in 2005-2006. Sadly, the actual 2006 A's did not win a championship but they did win 93 games and swept the Twins for the last playoff series victory in Oakland history. I'm always up for a baseball sim."
9. Centipede: Recharged (Capt) = 22 "Not sure I like all of the modern graphical flare, but this is an arcade game I can actually play."
10. Dead Space (Sluggah) = 21 "Looks like more of a shooter than the survival horror in space game that I picked, but close enough that I'll probably still like it."
11. Batman: Arkham Asylum (Sluggah) = 20 "Never played it but I like stealth games and Batman is the only super hero I would actually want to play as."
12. Final Fantasy (Capt) = 19 "I'm not sure how to rank this one. The oldest FF I've played is V and this is considerably older. Looks charming though."
13. River Raid (Capt) = 18 "Well it looks fun from the gameplay videos anyway."
14. Resident Evil 4 (Sluggah) = 17 "Haven't played a RE game since RE2, but I hear good things about this one."
15. Counter-Strike: Source (Sluggah) = 16 "Another Half-Life multiplayer spin-off game that I enjoyed once upon a time."
16. God of War (Sluggah) = 15 "Never played a GoW game so it's hard to rank this, but this resembles a game called Genji: Dawn of the Samurai that I played on PS2 and mostly enjoyed. Seems like an awful lot of grunting though."
17. Lumines: Puzzle Fusion (Sluggah) = 14 "I think the EDM music would drive me nuts after an hour... so pretty much like the original Tetris then. It looks like there's enough variety here that it might otherwise be entertaining."
18. Ice Hockey (Capt) = 13 "Always love a good ice hockey game."
19. Battlefield 2 (Sluggah) = 12 "I don't think I would ever play this actually, and the setting and historical context make me slightly uncomfortable -- but there's a sniper class so I can't fully hate on it."
20. Astro Bot (Capt ) = 11 "I'm way too emo for this kind of aggressive color explosion. But 3D Mario with a jet pack doesn't sound awful."
21. The Legend of Zelda (Capt) = 10 "I believe this is the only Zelda game that I've played! Mostly I remember dying a lot but that Zelda theme song alone ought to be worth 10 points."
22. Ninja Gaiden (Sluggah) = 9 "On the one hand, I do want to be a ninja so this might have been ranked higher... But I've played games like this and I'm pretty sure the jumping puzzles combined with the auto-rotating camera would make me want to throw the controller."
23. Halo (Sluggah) = 8 "I can't play console shooters so same problem as Ninja Gaiden here, broken controller and/or TV in no time."
24. Astrosmash (Capt) = 7 "Why is this not Breakout? I would have ranked this 10 spots higher if it was Breakout."
25. Tetris (Capt) = 6 "Yes I can admit it's a good game, but a better name for it would have been Anxiety. I'm perfectly content to let other people play it well."
26. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (Capt) = 5 "I didn't know that Zelda was ever a side-scrolling 2D platformer. Not a fan."
27. Infamous (Sluggah) = 4 "It's close enough to being a super hero game that I just can't be bothered."
28. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 (Sluggah) = 3 "I hear Marvel and my brain just shuts off at this point. I don't want to be a hater though, it's just not for me."
29. Metroid (Capt) = 2 "I understand that for a lot of people this is peak gameplay. This is the type of game that requires repetition and dedication to master though and there are too many other choices out there for me to make the effort."
30. Super Mario Bros (Capt) = 1 "I really do not like this game."

Final Scores: SLUGGAH = 244 defeats CAPT. FACTORIAL = 221

This ended up being pretty close but my distaste for Capt. Factorial's first 3 picks was just too much to overcome in the end.

 

[Warhawk]

This ended up being pretty close but my distaste for Capt. Factorial's first 3 picks was just too much to overcome in the end.

His first two picks were probably the ones I liked the best (that he selected). Both were on my list, particularly Tetris. I didn't think Tetris would go so soon.

 

[hrdboild]

His first two picks were probably the ones I liked the best (that he selected). Both were on my list, particularly Tetris. I didn't think Tetris would go so soon.

Yeah... I'm sure that I'm in a very small minority in not liking those games.

 

[Padrino]

While @Sluggah's list contains two games that I really want to play (Dead Space; Ghost of Tsushima), @Capt. Factorial got my vote here for two reasons. 1) He selected some absolutely classic bangers in Super Mario Bros., Tetris, and Metroid. What a run of top-3 picks! Then he grabbed The Legend of Zelda and Pac-Man, and his desert island instantly became a retro gamers' dream. And 2) He went way off-book with his final pick. I love that Stray feels like such a... well, a stray pick to take last given everything that had come before. It's also a fun little game that more people should play.

 

[Sluggah]

Hey look it's Tetris vs. Neo Tetris!

Appreciate your thorough methodology in these voting threads. I’m just going off of vibes in the moment.

 

[Sluggah]

Just realized I’d have to vote on my own matchup to see the votes. Feels weird. I assume I’m getting trounced…it was immediately clear I was going to be on a desert island of my own in this draft.

 

[SLAB]

Sluggah takes this one easy. The more modern classics of that list take lead over nostalgia. Arkham Asylum is probably my favorite game on the list, but RE4 and God of War are also top-tier.

 

[Löwenherz]

Just realized I’d have to vote on my own matchup to see the votes. Feels weird. I assume I’m getting trounced…it was immediately clear I was going to be on a desert island of my own in this draft.

You are most decidedly not getting trounced.

You are the only island where I could be Batman. That gives you a punchers chance at the very least.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

Just realized I’d have to vote on my own matchup to see the votes. Feels weird. I assume I’m getting trounced…it was immediately clear I was going to be on a desert island of my own in this draft.

Clearly not getting trounced. Early declarations (not by me!) that Capt. had won the draft after the first two rounds were apparently VERY premature.

 

[Insomniacal Fan]

A Histogram of games picked by release date. I think it's interesting that there's almost no overlap between the two lists. Very distinct eras of gaming

 

[Löwenherz]

Early declarations (not by me!) that Capt. had won the draft after the first two rounds were apparently VERY premature.

You still might!

And I still absolutely freaking love your island. Brings back memories of those old school NES days, half dozen kids crammed into my cousin’s room playing Super Mario Brothers, Rygar, Castlevania, Rush’n Attack, Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!, T&C Surf Design, Rad Racer, Kung Fu, Elevator Action, Rampage, The Karate Kid, Mickey Mouscapade, R.B.I Baseball - a total mix of trash and treasures encapsulating absolutely anything and everything we could get our hands on and it didn’t really matter we couldn’t tell the difference. It was all exhilarating fun and those flickering pixelated tones ranging from magenta to cyan became forever embedded in my brain as shorthand for carefree adolescent zen.

In other words, you had my vote. Even though I really loved being Batman.

I also like StarCraft. Ninja Gaiden, and am eager to play Ghosts of Tsushima, so that’s big.

Oh and with hrdboild writing evaluative essays and Insomniacal Fan bringing charts, I really feel a need to up my game, as it were. You guys came to play.