The Console & Video Game Topic

[Hyperspace]

Was that contest on Game FAQs? I've tried to enter but they always tell me that I'm already registered, when I'm not.

Yes, it was. As for you trying to enter, how long ago did you attempt to enter? Which contest were you trying to enter? The current on-going Best Game Ever contest or one of the past character contests?

 

[C.]

I can't remember which contest it was; when I tried to figure out what the problem was it said something about my server and that there was someone with a similar IP already registered or something. I can't remember.

 

[Hyperspace]

That's odd. Though you do need an account on that site to fill out a bracket and enter the contest. You can even fill out more than one bracket if you wanted to, but it requires you to have more than one account since you can only fill out one bracket per account. You can only enter once for prizes, but if you want to fill out another bracket, it must be a "fun entry" (not prizes eligible). I actually filled out two brackets of my own, one real bracket and one bracket designed to get as few points as possible. For my real bracket, I am getting my ass kicked. This is my bracket for the current contest:

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/2398/bracketf.png

A game highlighted in green is worth 2 points. Yellow is worth 1 point and red is worth 0 points. These point amounts will double each round. Which means this:

Round 1: Green is 2 points and yellow is 1 point
Round 2: Green is 4 points and yellow is 2 points
Round 3: Green is 8 points and yellow is 4 points
Round 4: Green is 16 points and yellow is 8 points
Round 5: Green is 32 points and yellow is 16 points
Round 6: Green is 64 points and yellow is 32 points

In all of those rounds, red is worth 0 points. As of right now, I have 66 points out of a maximum of 92 points. After today's match ends (the Zelda: Wind Waker one), I will be at 70/96.

How a game can be highlighted in green - You predict a game to finish in first place and it actually ends up finishing in first place. Or you predict a game to finish in second place and it ends up finishing in second place. Example: I predicted Tetris for first place and Donkey Kong for second place. I was correct on both of them, so both are highlighted in green.

How a game can be highlighted in yellow - You predict a game to finish in first place and it actually finishes in second place. Or you predict a game to finish in second place and it finishes in first place. Example: I predicted Street Fighter II to finish in first place and Sonic the Hedgehog for second place. Instead, Sonic the Hedgehog finished in first place and Street Fighter II finished in second place. I was correct in that both games would advance, but I put both of them in the wrong order. So both are highlighted in yellow.

How a game can be highlighted in red: You predict a game to finish in either first place or second place and it fails to get either first place or second place. In other words, you predict a game to advance to the next round when it fails to get the second place (or first) required to move onto the next round. Example: I predicted Contra to finish in second place. Contra was unable to finish in first place or second place. Instead, it was Metroid that got second place. Contra would be highlighted in red because of this.



C., did you read that story I posted earlier?

 

[C.]

Street Fighter II, one of the greatest games of all time. It deserves to be in the top.

I just read your story, and it was...interesting. I guess it would be more humorous if I actually knew more about these contests/competitions.

Imagine though, losing to L-Block!

 

[Hyperspace]

I just read your story, and it was...interesting. I guess it would be more humorous if I actually knew more about these contests/competitions.

Imagine though, losing to L-Block!

I'm not expecting you to know much about these contests. I still find it funny that Link could lose to... a f*cking Tetris block. I voted for L-Block every single time it was in a match.

The 2008 character battle featured the defending champion L-Block, but it could only make it as far as round 3 before being eliminated. I wasn't expecting it to win the entire contest again, since it only won in 2007 because it got outside support from many different internet websites.

List of all of L-Block's matches: (so you can also see the date they occured on)

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?search=L-Block

 

[C.]

Yeah, that is pretty sad, to lose to a shape.

I mean, c'mon, Link is a character! He has attributes! What the hell is heroic or noble about L-Block?

 

[A7]

I tried Street Fighter IV last night. Goddamn, this game is frustratingly hard. I tried using Fei Long and even on easy, Abel is nearly impossible to beat.

 

[Hyperspace]

Yeah, that is pretty sad, to lose to a shape.

I mean, c'mon, Link is a character! He has attributes! What the hell is heroic or noble about L-Block?

I've played Tetris before and there are 6 different blocks available. I-Block, J-Block, L-Block, S-Block, T-Block, and Z-Block. I find the L-Block to be a considered a hero in the game since it can be rotated to squeeze into spots where I need assistance in clearing out a row of blocks. The Z-Block however could be considered the villain since when I usually get a Z-Block, I can't seem to find a way to use it to help clear a row of blocks. Although the Z-Block has been useful on some occasions, but not very often.

Oh yeah, a relatively recent tradition with the contests on GameFAQs has been to host a bonus match on the day after the final match of the contest. The bonus match must feature the winner of the contest as one of the 4 options. Here were the bonus matches from 2007 and 2008:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=2926
http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=3308

The 2007 bonus match features L-Block and it lost big time to ? Block, but still got second place. The other 2 characters were Weighted Companion Cube (from the shooter game "Portal") and Paddle (from Pong). I thought Weighted Companion Cube's performance was kind of weak since the game that it came from was less than a month old at the time of the match. In the 2008 contest, Weighted Companion Cube gets first place in round 1 just like L-Block did. In round 2, it gets second place. In round 3, it manages to get second place again where as L-Block failed to pull that off in round 3 in its match. Then it gets eliminated in round 4 by Cloud Strife/Solid Snake.

The 2008 bonus match featured Link (as Classic Link) and 3 other versions of Link. CD-I Link acted as a joke character, starting out the match really strong. The match looked like this at just 5 minutes in:

Classic Link 48.83% 627
Young Link 6.15% 79
Toon Link 13.55% 174
CD-I Link 31.46% 404
TOTAL VOTES 1284

From that point in the match until it finally ended, CD-I Link dropped by over 14% and most of that lost percentage went to Classic Link. Classic Link destroyed the competition big time, but I think this has more to do with the match picture used for that match:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/shared/cb7/cb7-64.jpg

The picture used for "Classic Link" actually says "Link" and not "Classic". People are probably more likely to vote for "Classic Link" if the picture for it says "Link" instead of "Classic".

 

[C.]

I've played Tetris before and there are 6 different blocks available. I-Block, J-Block, L-Block, S-Block, T-Block, and Z-Block. I find the L-Block to be a considered a hero in the game since it can be rotated to squeeze into spots where I need assistance in clearing out a row of blocks. The Z-Block however could be considered the villain since when I usually get a Z-Block, I can't seem to find a way to use it to help clear a row of blocks. Although the Z-Block has been useful on some occasions, but not very often.

That's true. I guess that could be considered heroic.

But if that's the case, then Straight Block would be the ultimate hero, because that's the one that can get you a Tetris!

I tried Street Fighter IV last night. Goddamn, this game is frustratingly hard. I tried using Fei Long and even on easy, Abel is nearly impossible to beat.

I miss playing Street Fighter.

 

[Hyperspace]

That's true. I guess that could be considered heroic.

But if that's the case, then Straight Block would be the ultimate hero, because that's the one that can get you a Tetris!

Whoops, I forgot about O-Block. So there's really 7 blocks in Tetris.


For the most part, the current ongoing Best Game Ever contest has been boring up until just yesterday. Yesterday's match was Super Mario Bros./The Legend of Zelda/Super Mario Bros. 3/Super Mario World. I remember that in the first hour of the match, people were already claiming Zelda is done for and has no chance of coming back and getting into second place in order to move onto the next round.

Super Mario Bros. 3 built up a pretty good lead over Zelda overnight and during the morning up until people started coming home from school. At one point, Super Mario Bros. 3 was holding a lead of 1458 votes over Zelda. I thought Zelda would really stand no chance of coming back being that far behind. It was around 2:30 PM EST (my timezone) where people start coming home from school (middle/high school) and that's when Super Mario Bros. 3 was in real trouble. This is only a partial list of how many votes Super Mario Bros. 3 was ahead by during the critical parts of Zelda's come back:

Time (PM) ||| Lead
2:45 - 3:00 | 1350
3:00 - 3:15 | 1259
3:15 - 3:30 | 1228
3:30 - 3:45 | 1179
3:45 - 4:00 | 1094
4:00 - 4:15 | 1048
4:15 - 4:30 | 992
4:30 - 4:45 | 945
4:45 - 5:00 | 908
5:00 - 5:15 | 861
5:15 - 5:30 | 814
5:30 - 5:45 | 801
5:45 - 6:00 | 796
6:00 - 6:15 | 737
6:15 - 6:30 | 702
6:30 - 6:45 | 599
6:45 - 7:00 | 515
7:00 - 7:15 | 484
7:15 - 7:30 | 413

Super Mario Bros. 3 was pretty much dying on the spot once the kids from the United States started coming home from school. It wasn't even trying to put up any kind of resistance here. The 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM block was the worst for Super Mario Bros. 3. People were blaming the west coast on this (especially California) since they were coming home school around this time. And then the final 2 hours:

10:00 - 10:15 | 104
10:15 - 10:30 | 73
10:30 - 10:45 | 72
10:45 - 11:00 | 52
11:00 - 11:15 | 15
11:15 - 11:30 | -9 (Zelda took a 9 vote lead)
11:30 - 11:45 | 53 (And Super Mario Bros. 3 takes the lead over Zelda again)
11:45 - 12:00 | 39

The big reason for Zelda almost coming back to winning this match was because the United States had the most amount of control over the day time voting period. Zelda just happens to be more popular in the United States than in any other part of the world. In fact, Zelda completely won the match in the United States alone:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=3502&region=US

But the remaining parts of the world helped out Super Mario Bros. 3.

 

[C.]

That would be tough for me, because I'd have to say that Super Mario 3 is one of my favorite games of all time. I'm considering making it my next GBA game purchase.

Yes, I still have a GBA. I have not upgraded to any of the new consoles at all. But I bought my GBA for a great deal; the DS had just come out and the store was practically giving away all the old GBAs (and I got a year's worth of free rentals!).

Funny, but I haven't played my GBA in ages until a few days ago, I just got into this mood to play on it, so now I'm back on a Pokemon kick. Even though I pretty much cleared all of Emerald, I'm working on clearing the Battle Frontier now.

And what is up with GameFAQs these days? Did they change their format again? I tried to go on there about a week or so ago and I couldn't access any of the menus.

 

[Hyperspace]

That would be tough for me, because I'd have to say that Super Mario 3 is one of my favorite games of all time. I'm considering making it my next GBA game purchase.

I voted for Super Mario Bros. 3 in that match. If there was any part of the world that voted correctly, it was Finland, Sweden, and Mexico.

Finland: http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=3502&region=FI
Sweden: http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=3502&region=SE
Mexico: http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=3502&region=MX

The result was Super Mario Bros. 3 > Super Mario World in all 3 of those countries. There isn't any easy way to view the results for the above 3 countries in any poll, because they are secret options. There's no links on the poll results page to view results for those 3 countries. In addition, there are also secret options for Germany and Italy, but the result was not Super Mario Bros. 3 > Super Mario World in those 2 countries:

Germany: http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=3502&region=DE
Italy: http://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/index.html?poll=3502&region=IT

Yes, I still have a GBA. I have not upgraded to any of the new consoles at all. But I bought my GBA for a great deal; the DS had just come out and the store was practically giving away all the old GBAs (and I got a year's worth of free rentals!).

I'm guessing you don't have a Wii, then? So you must have the GameCube version of Zelda: Twilight Princess since there's a Wii version of it. I also have a GBA, but I have a DS as well that can play GBA games. If you are going to buy a DS, buy either a DS Lite or the original DS. Don't buy the DSi, because it can't play GBA games. The DSi is a new version of the DS that has the ability to browse the internet, act as a music player, and be used as a photo camera. Basically, it's got some of the same features that the PSP has.

Funny, but I haven't played my GBA in ages until a few days ago, I just got into this mood to play on it, so now I'm back on a Pokemon kick. Even though I pretty much cleared all of Emerald, I'm working on clearing the Battle Frontier now.

I haven't played Emerald yet, or Ruby/Sapphire which are also similar to Emerald.

And what is up with GameFAQs these days? Did they change their format again? I tried to go on there about a week or so ago and I couldn't access any of the menus.

What menus are you talking about? Oh, and the site layout was changed a bit near the end of April.

 

[C.]

I'm guessing you don't have a Wii, then? So you must have the GameCube version of Zelda: Twilight Princess since there's a Wii version of it. I also have a GBA, but I have a DS as well that can play GBA games. If you are going to buy a DS, buy either a DS Lite or the original DS. Don't buy the DSi, because it can't play GBA games. The DSi is a new version of the DS that has the ability to browse the internet, act as a music player, and be used as a photo camera. Basically, it's got some of the same features that the PSP has.

No, I haven't bought a Wii yet. Since Twilight Princess was released for GameCube, I bought that version since I figured it would be a while before I got a Wii and it would likely be the last new game I'd buy for my GameCube.

I haven't really considered getting a Wii yet because I have read several reviews online saying that the Wii is not really designed for left-handed folks (and, since I'm left-handed, this is obviously a concern for me), that they have difficulties playing it. And for another, I also just like old-fashioned hand-held controllers. I just don't want to get as interactive with the games as Wii is encouraging.

What menus are you talking about? Oh, and the site layout was changed a bit near the end of April.

That probably explains it. The pages don't load properly for me anymore, when you go into the sections for the FAQs/Walkthroughs, you don't get the list of FAQs that have been written, etc.

 

[A7]

 

[C.]

If you are going to buy a DS, buy either a DS Lite or the original DS. Don't buy the DSi, because it can't play GBA games. The DSi is a new version of the DS that has the ability to browse the internet, act as a music player, and be used as a photo camera. Basically, it's got some of the same features that the PSP has.

Btw, thanks for this advice. I'll keep it in mind when I'm in the market for a new Game Boy.

 

[Oakenson]

Slowly but surely I am working through the Mana Khemia game ... has anyone else played this? As for my favorite game ever, that title assuredly goes to Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night! ... any avid fans out there of SoTN as well?

 

[DemonXeno]

speaking of videogames everyone go and get the new batman game! its awsome, and fun.

 

[Teleute]

Yeah I heard good things about that one too, Xeno.

Myself, I've been WiiFit'ing myself to death and bought Lego Indiana Jones but haven't played it yet. Been trying to reorganize my PC games... I don't keep them in their boxes/jewelcases cuz it takes too much space, and I have a snazzy lil holder to keep my most used ones in, but I'm still trying to figure out what to do with the older ones... incl all my old Windows 95 games I can't throw away! *sigh* one of these days I'll devote an old comp to Win95 gaming. Such fond memories from back then I've never been able to get them to run perfectly in XP.

I'm thinking I might have to pick up a 360 now that the price has dropped a tich. Not that I'll have time to do more gaming what with school and work, but eh, a girl can dream Suggestions for 360 games to get, if I do decide to take the plunge?

 

[Zellie]

PORTAL. PORTAL. PORTAL. This game amazes my brain. It is magic to develop a fascinating, tension-packed storyline using only ONE speaking character.

I'm also enjoying Bioshock but it's too creepy for me to play when I'm by myself so in the meantime, my friend Amanda gave me the Metal Gear Solid series and lent me Psychonauts (yes yes she rocks ).

The reason she gave me the MGS set is because I played a character for her in a Metal Gear Solid radioplay she wrote. We have freaking 20,000 downloads.... check it out! (or search itunes for Cracks in the Armor). She cast me online but we happened to live five minutes from each other in real life. Crazy serendipity!

She also runs an interview site called The Back Room and has interviewed a bunch of the voice actors from the games. Some of them are going to make cameos in a revamped version of the radioplay (and one already is in the radioplay )