Tropical Island Video Game Draft -- Pending playoffs

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Some of the purists might say the first or second was the best but I am going with #3 here.
*Raises Hand*. GH3 is absolutely AWFUL. The people at Neversoft have absolutely no clue.
 
*Raises Hand*. GH3 is absolutely AWFUL. The people at Neversoft have absolutely no clue.

I get how you might like one game slightly more than the other due to the track lists and the story mode challenges, but how can one be "awful" and the others good? Despite the tracks and a few tweaks here and there, they are all exactly the same game.
 
I get how you might like one game slightly more than the other due to the track lists and the story mode challenges, but how can one be "awful" and the others good? Despite the tracks and a few tweaks here and there, they are all exactly the same game.
Actually they're not.

Harmonix made the first two Guitar Hero games, plus Rocks the 80s. They were acquired by MTV and Red Octane who manufacatured the guitar controllers was purchased by Activision. The two companies went their separate ways after Rocks the 80s.

Harmonix was a company formed by musicians and the majority of their employees are musicians, and this was evident all over the original games, from the track selections and the in-jokes to most importantly the timing windows to hit the notes and the actual charting of the notes.

Activision turned over the development of Guitar Hero 3 to Neversoft, who makes the Tony Hawk games. Its very obvious they are not musicians as there are extra notes inserted all over the note charts and the songs no longer resemble anything like what they would be on a real guitar, despite how limited this was in the first place. To make up for this extra difficulty they increased the amount of time you had to strum or hammer on for a note to score correctly which completely takes away from the rhythm aspect of hitting the note and strum bar at the right time.

There's also plenty of aesthetic things like the character art work and stuff, but that's more of a matter of taste. My issue is that they completely broke the gameplay.
 
Resident Evil 4 - PS2 2005
The best RESIDENT EVIL game bar none.

I am not a big fan of first person games on consoles, but this was pretty fun to play. One of the greatest games ever, and the best RE game out.

re4cp6.jpg
 
To make up for this extra difficulty they increased the amount of time you had to strum or hammer on for a note to score correctly which completely takes away from the rhythm aspect of hitting the note and strum bar at the right time.

Okay first of all, I got the whole Harmonix thing, I mean...I know Rock Band just didn't pop out of thin air.

However, I have never noticed what you said above. Strumming and Hammer ons on GH3, to me at least, are exactly identical in GH1, 2 and Rock Band. Can you explain more the difference you see?

edit: ACK! RE4, great pick and true words about it being the best. Dammit, had it coming soon. How can you take the PS2 version though? The GC version came out a year earlier and was completely graphically superior.
 
Resident Evil 4 - PS2 2005
The best RESIDENT EVIL game bar none.

I am not a big fan of first person games on consoles, but this was pretty fun to play. One of the greatest games ever, and the best RE game out.

re4cp6.jpg
ahhh I was debating taking this with my last pick
 
Actually they're not.

Harmonix made the first two Guitar Hero games, plus Rocks the 80s. They were acquired by MTV and Red Octane who manufacatured the guitar controllers was purchased by Activision. The two companies went their separate ways after Rocks the 80s.

Harmonix was a company formed by musicians and the majority of their employees are musicians, and this was evident all over the original games, from the track selections and the in-jokes to most importantly the timing windows to hit the notes and the actual charting of the notes.

Activision turned over the development of Guitar Hero 3 to Neversoft, who makes the Tony Hawk games. Its very obvious they are not musicians as there are extra notes inserted all over the note charts and the songs no longer resemble anything like what they would be on a real guitar, despite how limited this was in the first place. To make up for this extra difficulty they increased the amount of time you had to strum or hammer on for a note to score correctly which completely takes away from the rhythm aspect of hitting the note and strum bar at the right time.

There's also plenty of aesthetic things like the character art work and stuff, but that's more of a matter of taste. My issue is that they completely broke the gameplay.

That explains why some of the songs aren't quite right...
 
Okay first of all, I got the whole Harmonix thing, I mean...I know Rock Band just didn't pop out of thin air.
Well its important to note because one developer is actual musicians, the other is known for making skate games. And all those little touches and musician in jokes are missing from GH3.

However, I have never noticed what you said above. Strumming and Hammer ons on GH3, to me at least, are exactly identical in GH1, 2 and Rock Band. Can you explain more the difference you see?
Its been explained in virtually every review of the game.

Here's one from gamespy, but googling guitar hero 3 timing windows turns up a bunch of hits:
What will likely inspire more debate than the song choices is the overall difficulty of the game, which has gotten a bump up from GH2. A tradeoff was made in that the note charts are significantly more complex, with intricate patterns of three-note chords, but the timing was relaxed a bit, making crazy solos a little more possible to hit. This balance helps some songs more than others: the new "Cult of Personality" solo might be impossible to hit without the more forgiving timing windows, but songs like "3's & 7's" or "Stricken" will twist most players' hands into pretzel-like shapes.
http://ps2.gamespy.com/playstation-2/guitar-hero-iii/834141p1.html

Here is a quote from Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopulos explaining their design philosophy in contrast to Neversoft's:
The guiding philosophy for us when authoring patterns is staying true to the music. What we found was if material in Rock Band was actually easier compared to Guitar Hero, it's because the actual guitar parts are easier, whereas the design mandate for GH seems to be more focused on a gamer mentality in ratcheting up the difficulty. What you see are these note charts that are very disconnected from what's actually happening in the real guitar parts in the music; they might be more crazy from a gameplay point of view, but they're also more disconnected from the music. So for us, that departs from our core design mandate. That said, we are bringing some music to the platform, which we're not ready to talk about yet, that the nature of the music itself is so insane, it will be the most challenging material imaginable to play in the Rock Band universe
http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/f...o-and-evolving-the-music-genre-/?biz=1&page=2

If you don't notice the differences consider yourself lucky to be able to enjoy both games.
 
Are you one of those sorts of people that take offense when people around them do not have discriminate palates regarding the subjects that interest you? Like the sort of fan who blows a gasket when they hear people say something like "A's version of Blahblahblah was just as good as B's version of Blahblahblah"?
 
Are you one of those sorts of people that take offense when people around them do not have discriminate palates regarding the subjects that interest you? Like the sort of fan who blows a gasket when they hear people say something like "A's version of Blahblahblah was just as good as B's version of Blahblahblah"?
Take offense? Tradepeja asked for me to clarify twice, so I did.
 
Shy of getting my hands on the actual game code, how would you propose I better answer?

The original question was "how can one be 'awful' and the others good? Despite the tracks and a few tweaks here and there, they are all exactly the same game."

The designers themselves openly acknowledge the difference in their game design and its been discussed at length in countless reviews and interviews. What more can I say?
 
Time for another classic.



The Legend Of Zelda (1987) - NES

The one that started it all. I have so many different directions I wanted to go here, but I wasn't expecting this to fall back to me. I never technically finished this game (after you beat Ganon the dungeon locations change and you play again; never got around to beating it again), has anyone?


You know, I grabbed LTTP and noticed this has slipped. I was hoping this would continue to fly under the radar. Oh well.
 
You know, I grabbed LTTP and noticed this has slipped. I was hoping this would continue to fly under the radar. Oh well.

I wanted to grab this in the 2nd round or 3rd round, but I wanted Super Metroid and needed a Mario game. And since most of the people who picked Zelda games were below me, I figured it had a good chance of falling back to me
 
my pick:

Super Smash Bros. (Nintendo 64 1999)
250px-Supersmashbox.jpg


so what if the single player sucks. I will beat master hand and level 9's over and over and over and over. This game made my world.
 
My next pick:

Perfect_dark_box.jpg


Perfect Dark (2000) - Nintendo 64

Review

This game is very similar to Goldeneye 007, and in some ways, better. I'd have to call it a draw as to which one is actually better because I really enjoyed both of them

[yt=Perfect Dark]IDZNOXyLL2E&feature=related[/yt]
 
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My next pick:

Perfect_dark_box.jpg


Perfect Dark (2000) - Nintendo 64

This game is very similar to Goldeneye 007, and in some ways, better. I'd have to call it a draw as to which one is actually better because I really enjoyed both of them


OOOH MY GOD. Seriously, my list is just.....crap now. Everything I truly want gets taken while the things I take probably would all have stayed. This is easily my favorite multiplayer FPS and is much, much better than Goldeneye. I never got the people who thought Goldeneye could even compare. Sure, Goldeneye is the original multiplayer FPS....but you gotta realize improvement when you see it.
 
Honestly, I'm disregarding the multiplayer rule. When looking over the lists deciding who to vote for in the end, I'll remember multi-player heavy games for the awesome multiplayer I got to play on them and I won't think of them as the single-player shell of a game they often are.

In Perfect Dark's case however, it had an awesome, lengthy 1P mode and dozens of challenges to beat. It was a complete game.
 
The multiplayer rule is why I sat out this one. The "future" of games has been multiplayer for 15 years + now. But the rules are the rules so you should follow them :)

Some people have drafted amazingly well sticking to single player games with long term island staying power. Not fair to punish them for playing the game the way the rules are written.
 
I've only taken single-player games as well. I'm just saying, in the event of a drafted game with a great multiplayer (like SSB and PD above) when I'm going over it later, I'm going to end up judging their list as if it had the whole game, not just the single player version of the game.

I have monkeys on my island.
 
The multiplayer rule is why I sat out this one. The "future" of games has been multiplayer for 15 years + now. But the rules are the rules so you should follow them :)

Some people have drafted amazingly well sticking to single player games with long term island staying power. Not fair to punish them for playing the game the way the rules are written.

Agreed. Multiplayer changes the draft strategy, even though most of the games chosen are pretty good stand-alones as well.
 
With my next pick I select what was easily the best game of 2007

Bioshockcoverfinalcropped.jpg


Bioshock (2007) - Xbox 360

Already a classic FPS, this game is basically perfect. Awesome FPS combat system with RPG-elements, some of the best graphics ever (even a year later), game-changing decisions to be made, and a top 5 storyline in any video game I have ever played.

There is a (now famous) cutscene in this game that, and I'm sure any of you who have played this game will agree, is so riveting and just so dramatic and real that it leaves a lasting impression upon you after seeing it.

If there is a game out there that proves that video games are a form of art just like music or film, this is it.
 
Nice choice. While I personally have not played this game yet (so it wasn't on my list), I plan to get it for the PC someday....


I have had it sitting on a shelf for the last 3-4 months, but have not yet installed it yet. It had a real nasty copy protection program apparently, so wanted to make sure I had the time to fix anything it might screw up when I eventually load it up.
 
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