Lurker > Master Moltar

Guest’s Analysis - DpOblivion

It’s time for another contest! Which means another season of the Contest Analysis Crew. As a former Crew member and reigning Guru, I’m honored to do the guest write-up for this first match, and frankly, I have no idea how the hell this contest will go. I guess some years will beat some other years or something? What will the match pictures be like? How will console releases be weighted against game releases for the voters? Is this Allen’s rally-proof contest, or will a rally still happen, and what year(s) would get a rally? Needless to say, I’m not feeling confident about repeating as Guru champ.

Questions unanswered, we come to the first official match of the contest, which begins with a Wildcard round. This match-up pits the year of 1979 against the year of 2009. Wow, fascinating. Well, the bracket page offers up some information other than being just two years, aside from the obvious. They are 30 years apart, so you will see some very early, classic gaming against some modern gaming. And it’s a fairly weak set of early, classic gaming, and a fairly strong set of modern gaming.

1979 featured notable games such as Adventure, Asteroids, Galaxian, Lunar Lander, and Akalabeth, and notable new platforms of TI-99/4 and Microvision. I haven’t even heard of some of these. This is pretty much just generic old year of gaming.

2009’s notable games include Uncharted 2, Minecraft, Dragon Age: Origins, Street Fighter IV, and Batman: Arkham Asylum. I also particularly remember Assassin’s Creed II came out the same year as Uncharted 2, so I’ll throw that in there. It’s a very strong group of games, and for my money, the best year of the PS3 generation. I would consider both Uncharted 2 and Assassin’s Creed II among my top five games of all time, two sequels that paved the way for very popular new series.

So, 2009 wins pretty easily here. I honestly think 2009 could beat 2008 in Round 1, but that could be the bias talking as 2008 appears to be the unanimous pick, but if 2009 does win that, YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST!

Dp’s bracket says: 2009 is a better year.

Dp’s prediction is: 2009 wins 82%-18%.



Crew Consensus: 2009 opens the contest with a blowout
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Moltar Status: contest woo
Contest Analysis Crew Archives: http://thecrew.speedrunwiki.com/

Leonhart’s Analysis

I have no idea how to approach this contest or how to analyze the individual matches, but I’ve got a responsibility as a member of the Crew to give it a shot, so here we go!

1979 won the first vote-in, but I have a feeling it only did because it was the most recent year in the poll. GameFAQs trends old, but not quite THAT old! Pong was probably the most well-known game shown in the poll, and its year finished a distant third. The only game from 1979 that’s ever been in a contest is Adventure, the recipient of the biggest blowout in Games Contest history when it faced the original Legend of Zelda in 2004. So yeah, I don’t have any real expectations of it to do well here.

2009 is a strange year. Its GOTY (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2) is probably bad fodder by now, and it features a bunch of games that have done decently in previous Games Contests but have been outclassed when put up against the big boys. The strongest game from that year is probably a toss-up between Uncharted 2, Dragon Age: Origins, and Arkham Asylum. Fortunately, 1979 has no big boys in it, so 2009 doesn’t have much to worry about here. Next round will be a problem, but I imagine it wins easily here.

Leonhart’s Vote: 2009

Leonhart’s Prediction: 2009 with 75.55%


Kleenex’s Analysis

Hello crew readers! I'll be honest, I wasn't sure we'd actually see another contest after the one-two punch of CB9 and BGE3. There's no way to tell if this contest is going to get hit by another rally, but my inclination is that it's probably pretty safe, because who has strong feelings about years? Regardless, I actually think this is one of the most interesting contests we've had in a long time from a prediction standpoint, because everything is pretty much an unknown quantity. Sure, we know the general strength of all these games, but we don't know if each year is going to be carried by one game, or the combined strength of everything + consoles.

That being said, these wildcard matches are preeeeetty boring. We all know that new games aren't as strong as the late-90s bastion on this site, but if there's anything weaker than a game that came out in the past 10 years, it's a game that came out before most of the site was born. With 1979, we're looking at hard hitters like Asteroids and Adventure.

https://www.gamefaqs.com/poll/1606-division-8-round-1-the-legend-of-zelda-vs-adventure

That Adventure.

Make no mistake, 2009 is going to be very weak, even among the most recent years, but I'm pretty sure Uncharted 2 alone could topple the entirety of 1979.

2009 with 80%
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Moltar Status: contest woo
Contest Analysis Crew Archives: http://thecrew.speedrunwiki.com/

Wildcard Round – 1979 vs. 2009

Moltar’s Analysis

contestboyz

So admittedly my excitement for this contest isn’t all that high, even after the drought since the last one. Usually I get started on Crew work once the bracket is released, but I’m writing this on the day before the first match and haven’t even filled out my full bracket yet. Maybe it’s because I’m too busy playing games like Zelda and Persona and mobile stuff to analyze them for contests.

What this means is I’ve done a lot less reading on the board about what people are speculating will happening and going more with my own logic (that probably wont work out well). I think something that most people will agree upon based off over a decade of contest data is that kinda old games (1990s and 2000s) > new games (2010 on) >= super old games (1980s). We’ll see how long that holds up.

Anyway, on to this first match. 1979 has uh...Adventure, which suffered one of the biggest blowouts in the history of these contests, while 2009 has a bunch of high-fodder/low-midcard titles of franchises that people generally like. I would take all of those standout 2009 games over anything from 1979, so this shouldn’t be close.

Moltar’s Bracket: 2009

Moltar’s Prediction: 2009 - 85%



transience’s Analysis

Contest !! What is this contest? How are people even going to vote in it? I think that's the theoretical question to grapple with here more than any individual match. Weirdos like me can rattle off a dozen big games for every notable year of video games but average people are going to see a poll, make a snap decision in about five seconds and go. What gets into the match picture? Will entrants be wildly variable in strength between matchups because different games will show up? That's the stuff that probably determines this contest.

It's kind of nice that we get some joke-y matchups up front. We need a barometer by which to judge where we're going. These pre-85 years are like those play-in games in the NCAA tournament who would get the right to play a 1 seed. Congratulations, Asteroids, you beat out Crystal Castles. Now don't get me wrong, 1979 has games that are special to me -- I've rocked this xyzzy signature for well over a decade -- but just about nobody is going to vote for it. The high watermark game got nondecupled by The Legend of Zelda. I'm not even sure if nondecupled is a word. Let's go with it.

2009 isn't a very good year. It's got rallying potential - we'll get there - but it lacks a good Nintendo or Square game and neither is likely to get into the match picture anyway. Despite that, the likes of Uncharted 2 or Street Fighter IV is still likely to beat down Asteroids.

transience's prediction: 2009 with 84.86%
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Moltar Status: contest woo
Contest Analysis Crew Archives: http://thecrew.speedrunwiki.com/

hi

Welcome to the Contest Analysis Crew topic! In here, you will find a group of the most passionate, most experienced, most eager, and most knowledgeable GameFAQs users writing well-researched, thorough, informative, and exciting analyses about the Best Year in Gaming contest.

What you will not find in here is a bunch of jaded, negative, know-nothing GameFAQs users writing two sentences about matches, making blind guesses, saying illogical predictions with no good reasoning, and pretending to know what they’re talking about.


not gonna find that in here at all



nope



Meet the New Crew, Same as the Old Crew

5/1

Crew Confidants

The Emperor: Master Moltar
Level 1

The Hierophant: transience
Level 1

The Justice: Leonhart
Level 1

The Chariot: Kleenex
Level 1

The Fool: - Guest
Level 1



Current Guest List: Send write-ups to [email protected]

1979/2009 - DpOblivion
1983/1989 - Luster Soldier
1981/2006 - Haste
1978/2005 - t_kizzle


1995/1986 - whatisurnameplz
1985/1987 - Yoblazer
2001/2014 - Bane
2008/(1979/2009) - Spike

1997/1999 - Dilated Chemist
2007/2012 - Ranticoot
2000/1990 - tennisboy213
1996/(1983/1989) - spooky
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Moltar Status: contest woo
Contest Analysis Crew Archives: http://thecrew.speedrunwiki.com/

thanks for the crew shoutout guys <3
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Moltar Status: contest woo
Contest Analysis Crew Archives: http://thecrew.speedrunwiki.com/

same
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Moltar Status: Property of DpOblivion
Contest Analysis Crew Archives: http://thecrew.speedrunwiki.com/

3DSRage posted...

If Moltar shows up, I will leave lefty for him!

Likely unlikely, however!

"oh"
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Moltar Status: Property of DpOblivion
Contest Analysis Crew Archives: http://thecrew.speedrunwiki.com/

so apparently this is a thing soon aka

Pick a match

Do the write-up

Send to [email protected]



Wildcard

1979/2009 -
1983/1989 -
1981/2006 -
1978/2005 -


1995/1986 -
1985/1987 -
2001/2014 -
2008/(1979/2009) -

1997/1999 -
2007/2012 -
2000/1990 -
1996/(1983/1989) -
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Moltar Status: Property of DpOblivion
Contest Analysis Crew Archives: http://thecrew.speedrunwiki.com/