LogFAQs > #939084423

The 14 Games That Made Bracket:
-Halo Reach
-Mass Effect 2
-VVVVVV
-Call of Duty Black Ops
-Bayonetta
-Red Dead Redemption
-Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
-Starcraft II
-Super Mario Galaxy 2
-Fallout New Vegas
-Heavy Rain
-Civilization 5
-Super Meat Boy
-Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver

Notable Snubs:
-LIMBO
-Assassins Creed: Brotherhood
-Donkey Kong Country Returns
-Amnesia: The Dark Descent
-Vanquish
-God of War III
-Kirbys Epic Yarn
-NieR

Headliners: Mass Effect 2, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver

Busts: Super Meat Boy, Red Dead Redemption

Snubs Analysis:

Just to illustrate my earlier point, 10 out of 14 of these games are Western-made, and this isnt even the most Western dominated year. The ratios get even more outta whack from here.

I wanna touch on the snubs first, because when I was allocating each game to the proper year I thought, Wow, 2010 seems pretty well-represented. Then I started researching potential snubs, and 2010 was the year that made me self-impose an 8 game limit on the snubs list. There was QUITE a bit left out here that would have performed somewhat better than what actually made it in. Not massively, but still.

Assassins Creed has trended WAY down on this site over the years, from going 60-40 with Wind Waker in 2010 to getting more than tripled by FFVI in 2015, but Brotherhood is a relic of the good ol Ezio days and would probably have been a much stronger entry than IV or Odyssey (or at least Odyssey). Swap Starcraft II with it and watch it scare the daylights outta ME3.

With all the dialogue surrounding how much more mature and well-structured God of War 2018 is, along with the fact that it has a continuity reboot style name despite not actually being one, the older God of Wars feel like theyve very quickly faded out of relevance. GoWIII not even making it into bracket feels like proof positive of this (yes I know none of them made BGE 2015, but there was a MUCH lower barrier of entry here). I think thats a shame; the original placed in the top 20 of the GotD1 x-stats, and Im interested to see if the 2018 game really has obsoleted the originals. That and its a damn good game with the reviews, fan reception, and sales that would warrant its inclusion.

While VVVVVV is a great game, I feel LIMBO or especially Amnesia would have made more interesting indie reps. Both those games are the progenitors of very prolifics styles of indie games, and Amnesia essentially transformed YouTubes gaming content into a facecam screamfest that persists to this day. This was for the worse, mind, but you cant say it wasnt influential, and its hardly the games fault that it turned out so poorly.

There are some legacy picks here that Im just sorta surprised didnt make it, even if they wouldnt be worth much. Considering how poorly Tropical Freeze did, Kirby and DKCR probably wouldnt have moved the needle, but theyd be friendly faces for sure. OG NieR and Vanquish making it in out of pure cult appeal and Automatas success are exactly the kinda out of the box picks that would make sense on GameFAQs, so it NOT happening threw me for a loop.

Bust Analysis:

But enough about what DIDNT happen. As the earliest year represented in the contest, it shouldnt be much of a surprise that 2010 did alright on BoomerFAQs, and largely within expectations.

So much so that picking Busts was rather difficult, and one of the games I did pick is being done a disservice. Super Meat Boy is NOT that game; while it wasnt some overwhelming favorite against Sonic Mania, its enormous loss was one of the most striking moments of the contest, and considering how low stakes that match was, thats saying something. Barely breaking 35% in a match considered a complete tossup is the kind of embarrassment that were Super Meat Boy to ever show up in bracket again, theres no doubt people would pick against it almost instinctively. SMB managing to double Slay the Spire puts into perspective how absurdly weak that eightpack was, and why Persona 5 didnt get much props until near the end of the contest.

Red Dead Redemption is a different beast, and if I werent picking a minimum of 2 busts per year, I wouldnt have picked it at all. While I was lucky enough to call the Rockstar games yet again choking on a JRPG, P4 vs RDR was one of the first bracket busters; a 31.05% prediction rate for P4 isnt INSANELY low (though it was still the third lowest in R2, behind Shovel Knight and Horizon making it out of fourpacks against massive casual bait opponents), but that was on a match where either winner would have gotten to Division Finals, and potentially Quarters. RDR cost a lot of smart people a lot of points (picking P4 to win that eightpack is what vaulted me to a top 5 finish on the leaderboard, natch), and though Rockstar choking is a tradition at this point, there was reason to think it could win. The Red Dead series has always seemed a bit more respected on GameFAQs than GTA, with its stronger plot focus and the lack of something as crude as fucking prostitutes and murdering them for the cash you just paid them. The match was certainly close enough that RDR wasnt embarrassed, and considering how well it indirectly performs against Smash Ultimate, its really only a Bust through process of elimination.

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