Desert Island Video Game Draft Playoffs - Round 1 7/10

[Capt. Factorial]

hrdboild​

1. Metal Gear Solid (PS1)
2. Final Fantasy VII (PS1)
3. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End (PS4)
4. Deus Ex (PC)
5. Interstate '76 (PC)
6. Alien: Isolation (PC)
7. Riven [2024 VR remake] (PC)
8. Fallout (PC)
9. Xenogears (PS1)
10. The Dig (PC)
11. Rollercoaster Tycoon (PC)
12. Bushido Blade (PS1)
13. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (PS4)
14. The Settlers II [Gold Edition] (PC)
15. Star Wars: TIE Fighter [Collector's CD-ROM] (PC)


vs.

whitechocolate​

1. EarthBound (SNES)
2. Diablo (PC)
3. Resident Evil (PS1)
4. Demon's Souls (PS3)
5. Kenshi (PC)
6. Battle Garegga Rev.2016 (PS4)
7. Fight'N Rage (PS4)
8. Furi (PS4)
9. Hard Corps: Uprising (PS3)
10. Hotline Miami (PS3)
11. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (PS2)
12. Star Fox 64 (Nintendo 64)
13. Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. (PC)
14. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Nintendo Game Boy)
15. Gungrave G.O.R.E. (PS4)

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

I dunno what to tell you: I've played one game on both lists combined. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[whitechocolate]

I did it. Two spots out of last. A new best for me. I've been last and second to last before, but now I reach new heights. I knew video games would be a source of common ground. I voted for myself. It might be bias, but I really like the games on my list.

 

[whitechocolate]

Hard Corps: Uprising is a Contra game.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

I like both these lists, since I didn't rank them all and vote, all I know is hrdboild's on the surface is in my top 2 or 3. Interstate 76 and Tie Fighter lead the charge.

 

[hrdboild]

I had to double-check, but yes it appears that I had @whitechocolate's list ranked #2 overall. I don't have time right now, but I'll come back later and rank / leave a comment about all of the game's you picked. I suppose I have to vote for myself since obviously I picked the games that I most want to play but I'm just happy to be here.

 

[Padrino]

This one was really tight, and mostly because both lists featured far more games that I haven't played than games I have. Though @hrdboild's list contains Alien: Isolation, a game I absolutely adore, the edge went to @whitechocolate because of Earthbound, Star Fox 64, and Link's Awakening, which is one of the weirdest and most inventive of the 90s Zelda entries. He also snagged Demon's Souls, which is a game I have not played, but which comes from one of my favorite developers/game directors.

 

[SLAB]

I did it. Two spots out of last. A new best for me. I've been last and second to last before, but now I reach new heights. I knew video games would be a source of common ground. I voted for myself. It might be bias, but I really like the games on my list.

I love the games on your list. You were near the top of my board. Rounds 1-4 are each S-tier.

You take this round.

 

[Insomniacal Fan]

I've actually played the fewest games on @whitechocolate 's list of anybody in the draft with 5 games. All of those that I have played I loved, which makes me think I'm going to be looking to this list for the next time I find myself in a gaming rut. You've already sold me a copy of Kenshi! Challenge based games are a bit of a blind spot for me...

 

[whitechocolate]

Kenshi is more of a decision based game. The world is just punishing. Characters dying, losing limbs, being enslaved, it's just part of the game. The more you know the world, the easier it becomes to thrive.

Here are a couple beginner tips.

Athletics is the most important stat. Being able to outrun threats is critical. Getting knocked unconscious in a fight can lead to bleeding out and dying, being eaten alive, having food stolen, being captured and stripped of your gear, depending on who beat you. So you want to watch the health of your legs and be ready to run if you have to.

That being said, getting knocked out and especially getting back up with enemies still around is the best way to get tougher. Toughness is the best indicator of how a character will fare in a fight. But if you don't want to get back up, go into sneak mode while knocked out, and the character will go into a playing dead state when they recover where they can wait for the threat to leave.

 

[whitechocolate]

I had to double-check, but yes it appears that I had @whitechocolate's list ranked #2 overall. I don't have time right now, but I'll come back later and rank / leave a comment about all of the game's you picked. I suppose I have to vote for myself since obviously I picked the games that I most want to play but I'm just happy to be here.

If I were to rank your selections by my interest in them:

1. Final Fantasy VII
2. Metal Gear Solid
3. Deus Ex
4. Bushido Blade
5. Roller Coaster Tycoon
6. Interstate '76
7. Fallout
8. Riven
9. Alien Isolation
10. The Dig
11. Star Wars: TIE Fighter
12. Xenogears
13. The Settlers II
14. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
15. Uncharted 4

 

[hrdboild]

If I were to rank your selections by my interest in them:

1. Final Fantasy VII
2. Metal Gear Solid
3. Deus Ex
4. Bushido Blade
5. Roller Coaster Tycoon
6. Interstate '76
7. Fallout
8. Riven
9. Alien Isolation
10. The Dig
11. Star Wars: TIE Fighter
12. Xenogears
13. The Settlers II
14. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag
15. Uncharted 4

It is definitely interesting to see other people's take on things. I can't say enough good things about the whole Uncharted series -- to me each of those games have got the best parts of Indiana Jones, James Bond, and Tomb Raider all mixed together. But everyone else has picked some absolute classics that I have very little interest in, so I get it. There's a huge variety of game types across these 12 lists which does go a long way toward explaining the success of the video game industry as a whole.

 

[hrdboild]

No need for scoring here, but here's how I would rank my interest in the games on @whitechocolate's Desert Island:

1. Diablo "Another game from 1997 for @Löwenherz's score book! Like you, this is also my favorite game in the series (though I haven't played IV at all) and the one I would have picked if it were still available in the middle rounds. I didn't realize this series was so popular! I thought I had a decent chance of scooping this up in round 7 or something. The Tristram Theme is such a mood setter and just the overall concept of there being one little town with dozens of levels of hellish dungeons lurking underneath its cathedral is wonderfully evocative. It has an ethereal, dream-like quality to it. Like we're playing inside the brain of a 16th century peasant and experiencing their concepts of good and evil, or we've been transported inside of a Hieronymous Bosch painting."
2. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater "I haven't played this one but I really want to! I got stuck somewhere half way through Metal Gear Solid 2 and that was where my experience with this series ended until MGS V came out. I am also interested in the remake coming out soon, not that I even have the PS5 to play it on. But if it's good enough... maybe."
3. EarthBound "Add this to the list of unplayed classics that I would love to play through if I ever find the time."
4. Resident Evil "For all of the reasons you mentioned in your write-up, this was a formative experience for me on PS1 too. I don't even like survival horror games all that much aside from this and Alien: Isolation but this just nailed the vibe of cheesy zombie horror movies so well back before we were inundated with so much new wave zombie-related media that this genre has since become more overdone than covers of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah".
5. Furi "Anything with this much visual style must be worth playing."
6. Hotline Miami "This is another game with a really unique visual style that I would definitely want to try. A lot of the more recent retro-style games feel a little cheap -- they're relying on their visuals to sell an idea of what they might be and most don't live up to the idea. This one looks like it probably will though."
7. Star Fox 64 "This one was a big deal when it came out. It was bundled with that Rumble Pack accessory which I remember as the first version of Force Feedback, but I might be wrong. I never owned an N64 though so I had to rely on friends being cool enough to own this game. Also... 1997!"
8. Gungrave G.O.R.E. "Okay so it's a John Woo movie right? Which reminds me -- there was that time that John Woo and Chow Yun Fat were both featured in a sequel to the best of their movie collaborations, 1992's "Hard Boiled", but it was inexplicably made as a video game instead of a movie. This looks like a better game than Stranglehold but I'll take any excuse to talk about John Woo and Chow Yun Fat."
9. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening "The overall look of this game is cool but in the gameplay video I watched, the sound effects are pretty grating. I'd have to play it with the sound off."
10. Kenshi "I read a story about the development team at Origin Systems designing the world of Ultima Online with a simulated ecology so that animals in the game world would keep each other's populations in check. But then they let players into the game and they killed everything that lived so quickly that the entire ecological system was just dead on arrival. This game reminds me of that story."
11. Hard Corps: Uprising "This isn't a style of game that I've played a lot of. Some of it looks fun. I like that there's a stealth-based level."
12. Battle Garegga Rev.2016 "I'm not going to be any good at this but it looks cool."
13. Fight'N Rage "There were a lot of games like this back in the day. Altered Beast on Sega Genesis was probably the one that I played the most. I'd have to play it to see why this is good and not just trading on nostalgia."
14. Demon's Souls "There are so many games with some variation of Demon's or Souls in the titles and combine that with the existence of a PS5 remake of this title and I'm not even sure that I know what this game is. There was melee-based dungeon crawler on PS1 called Vagrant Story that might be kind of similar? I can't tell. This ranking is mostly an indication of my general level of confusion here. I don't know anything about Dark Souls either, other than it has a board game adaptation that is really expensive and not very good."
15. Virtua Fighter 5 R.E.V.O. "Just not my thing."

 

[whitechocolate]

Thanks for the write up.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater "I haven't played this one but I really want to! I got stuck somewhere half way through Metal Gear Solid 2 and that was where my experience with this series ended until MGS V came out.

3 is great. The main difference is the camera angle. In 3, the camera is lower to the ground while the original's camera looks down from up high. This changes what you can see, and how the stages are designed. The original might have a more stealthier vibe, but 3 is still designed to encourage fast, zero kill, zero alert runs.

Fight'N Rage "There were a lot of games like this back in the day. Altered Beast on Sega Genesis was probably the one that I played the most. I'd have to play it to see why this is good and not just trading on nostalgia."

If you like Altered Beast, you should check out the Metamorphic Force port on PS4 and Switch.

I wrote what I wrote about Fight'N Rage. It's not a nostalgia grab. It's among the very best in the genre with faster, more intricate combat, and the enemy and stage design to make the player use it well. It should be mentioned next to the best games of the PS4 generation.

Gungrave G.O.R.E. "Okay so it's a John Woo movie right? Which reminds me -- there was that time that John Woo and Chow Yun Fat were both featured in a sequel to the best of their movie collaborations, 1992's "Hard Boiled", but it was inexplicably made as a video game instead of a movie. This looks like a better game than Stranglehold but I'll take any excuse to talk about John Woo and Chow Yun Fat."

I didn't think of this description at the time, but it's like a rail shooter (House of the Dead), except you have to push yourself forward, dealing with movement and spacing.

A lot of the more recent retro-style games feel a little cheap

Hotline Miami is very well designed. The gameplay lives up to the style and music.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

Congrats @hrdboild - you are moving on to the 2/7 matchup!

 

[whitechocolate]

He also snagged Demon's Souls, which is a game I have not played,

I haven't played Elden Ring, even though I've played Demon's Souls, Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Sekiro.