Note: This topic is my opinion of why I feel each game performed the way it did. While your opinion is welcome, please wait until I`m at least done the first round before making it heard. I`m going to need a lot of space here, and having it all get cluttered with useless arguments is pointless. And please, shut up and keep the fanboyism to yourself. That`s not what this topic is for. Soooo, let`s try this again:

The time has finally come to get this thing rolling once again. But before I do, let me get all the accolades out of the way.

Special thanks go to Slowflake, who is letting me mooch off of nearly everything he has said over the past few months.

Special thanks to creativename, who is giving me permission to tell you peeps to go to www.SC2K4.com. Make sure you visit the site on a regular basis so that I don`t look stupid here.

Special thanks to MMXcalibur, for letting me be the Statistician for the Prophet Challenge. All of these numbers I gathered will be of use in this topic.

Special thanks to lettuce Kefka, for allowing me to use his "Rate the pic of the match" scores in this topic.

Special thanks to everyone involced with creating and providing the recursive rankings, even though I won`t be using them in this topic. This especially goes out to Haste2, who I completely slighted by accident on this. Also, shot outs to Slowflake, creativename, Diamond Soul X, solarshadow, and anyone else involved with creating those crazy numbers.

Special thanks to the Analysis Crew, which consisted of Master Moltar and DpObliVion. Yes I was there too, but I only gave a decent effort for the tougher matches. They however gave it all for every match. Kudos.

Special thanks to solarshadow, for creating the one topic that kept me on this site when I was within seconds of leaving.

Speaking of that topic, a very special thanks go out to the Contest Discussion Crew. Slowflake, creativename, ChichiriMuyo, cyko, Haste2, Kirby Still On Top, Terran, Tarrot, Heroic Mario, solarshadow, NeoElfboy, metroid composite, smitelf, Ngamer64, Team Rocket Elite, EvilNcr, Shake, red sox 777, FasoFalcon05, charmander6000, swirldude, Bananaquest, Sephirot1 Returns, Starion, Sir Chris, Ringworm, DomaDragoon, and anyone I may have missed. Simply put, my best time on this board is when I`m going ape**** for numbers with you guys. Don`t forget that.

Also, a special thanks to everyone who took part in the Oracle Challenge, Ringworm`s Betting topic, the Spread Betting topic, the Prophet Challenge, Forsaken`s contest, the Tubular Tiers, and anyone who made or voted in a contest on this board. Contests are part of our identity, and you kept it going strong. Yay for you guys =)

And in case I missed anyone (Aeon, Amazing Telephone, Xenobi, PepeCamello, etc), I also have to thank everyone who has ever posted on this board. You all drive me to do what I do. I`d like to think that I`m somewhat of a decent asset to this place, but it`s nothing without anyone else around. You all help make this place what it is, and for that, I can`t thank you all enough. And this even goes out to the whiners and trolls. A dull board is a dead board, yet you guys keep it interesting. Just get off my ass and do it to other people once in awhile as well =)

Okay, are we done all of this? Let`s get to the part of the topic that you guys actually care about. Bear in mind that this will take quite a long time for me to finish, so try to refrain from posting unless it is something of dire importance.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

Division 8 Round 1: (1)Super Mario Brothers 3 vs (16)Metal Gear

Super Mario Brothers 3 - 61359 (82.30%)
Metal Gear - 13197 (17.70%)
Total Votes - 74556
Vote Difference - 48162
Prediction Percentage - 86.56%
Match Picture - http://www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b01.jpg
Picture Rating - 6.62/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Super Mario Brothers 3 - 143
Entries for Metal Gear - 1
Total Entries - 144

As you can see, we`ve added two new bits to the analysis this year. The match pic URL gets to stay, as CJayC didn`t delete the pictures mid-contest this time around. And lettuce Kefka has given me permission to use the stats from his daily picture ratings topic, so hopefully this gets more attention to said topic should he decide to do it in future contests. I was also going to give Prophet Challenge averages, but it is incredibly time consuming and annoying. I think I`ll pass on that, but I`ll gladly mention how many people submitted a guess and where the guesses went.

This match was never actually in any doubt. Everyone knew that Mario 3 was going to win, and big. Only MWIS decided to be a joker and swing the other way on this match, despite the fact that he also knew Mario 3 was going to win. This match was instead more about how the rest of the contest was going to shape up, and sadly, it got off on the wrong foot. The first two polls in this contest were placed underneath a 'main' poll which was sponsored by GameRiot. At first, we thought nothing of it. But trust me, there would be plenty of places to put blame on for the low voter turnout in so many matches in this contest. We ended the Summer 2003 Contest by swinging in over 100,000 votes per match. Yet those numbers were ancient memory in this contest. Blame the spring, blame school, blame the video game industry being a mere shell of what it once was, blame the contest not being as popular as it once was, or even blame the contest itself for being rather predictable. But at the very least, something can be blamed for such a drop in contest popularity in a mere six months, and we had yet to deal with a new layout at this point. If you ask me, the contest didn`t have enough time to be hyped up this time around. That, and most people felt that FF7 was a lock to win it all anyway.

Still, it has its good side. After all, it`s a contest on gamefaqs. The boards were busier, polls were getting more votes, and we were seemingly in for one hell of a ride. Bumpy of course, but at least we had something to do for awhile. One thing I need to note about this match before moving on is the prediction percentage. 40090 people filled out brackets, and 5388 of them picked Metal Gear (or 'Meal Gear' if you`re looking at the current stats page) to win this match for whatever reason. If anything in this match stands out, that would be it. Other than that, just a starter match with somewhat of a low turnout. And a free point for everyone, which is always nice =)

Anyhoo, I`m off to bed. I promise that once I`m done with the spotty posts during my working days, I`ll write like a madman come Wednesday and Thursday. But until then, you`re stuck with a few posts per day. Sowwy =( zzzzzzzzz
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Division 8 Round 1: (8)Metroid vs (9)Pac Man

Metroid - 49837 (68.51%)
Pac Man - 22906 (31.49%)
Total Votes - 72743
Vote Difference - 26991
Prediction Percentage - 76.22%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b02.jpg
Picture Rating - 4.41/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Metroid - 117
Entries for Pac Man - 10
Total Entries - 127

Sooooo, does anyone remember this post?

As always, the chattering classes of the spring contest have managed to completely overlook the utter simplistic brilliance of the ultimate video game classic, Pac-Man. This yellow crusader made obesity acceptable years before Mario came onto the scene. Pac-Man brought unconditional acceptance to gamers of all body shapes and masses. Do your friends mock you because life as a couch potato has left you rotund and helpless to do anything but roll around? Is your entire body stained with grease and yellow food coloring? Pac-Man allows you to kid yourself that you too can make a difference in a fantasy world where one wrong move spells death.

The board itself is a masterpiece of subtle imagery, with Masonic imagery filling the narrow confines of the screen in Pac-Man's search for enlightenment. You play the role of an ADD drug addict on the run from the law, aided by a brilliant performance by four demon possessed umbrellas. In what may be the most cutting satire of all, these "good cop" "bad cop" "fast cop" "mad cop" characters are given nicknames reminiscent of the three stooges and shemp, whimsically commenting upon the degradation of American intellect through fluoridation and the prevalence of slapstick comedy. These teletubbie predecessors are as lively as they are despicable, and in many ways they represent the true heroes of the Pac-Man saga, in their tragic confused effort for a cause they can neither comprehend nor justify. Sexual tensions abound between the four, and the prevalence of pinky/clyde fanfiction alone implies that there may have been more going on in the back allies of the arena then the creators were willing to admit.

Pac-Man is in a race against time and the forces of order themselves, in his madcap attempt to fulfill every hippie's fantasy. A slave to his addiction, Pac-Man must consume all drugs on the screen before fleeing the scene of the crime, as reality itself warps around him, sending him hurtling from one corner of the screen to another. With the add of power pellets, the first TRUE product placement in a commercialized video game, Pac-Man is able to call upon all the powers of repressed male sexuality and send the heterophobic "ghost" characters running. But in the greatest irony of all, true evil can never be defeated, only briefly assuaged, as the recently violated members of law will only be back for more.

The apocalyptic scenario our hero finds himself in only grows worse as he is forced to consume all that lies within his path. Policemen, fruit, keys, even small children fall victim to Pac-Man, eater of worlds. His insatiable hunger grows with every level, forcing the player himself to choose between sacrificing Pac-Man's drug-addled soul, or pressing onwards in a futile quest against a system set up to torture the iconoclastic into submission.

(continued)
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

In the end, Pac-Man, like Jesus, must sacrifice himself to end the cycle of violence that is tearing his world apart. His tiny form is inverted upon itself as he literally eats his own tail... only to be reincarnated at the touch of a button. Pac-Man raises even deeper questions about the nature of death, salvation, and a belief in an existence beyond the twisting nether. The misunderstood savior continues his Pavlovian quest after a fulfillment that is denied to him by the forces of bigotry and hate. It is impossible to leave Pac-Man's symmetric dystopia without reflecting upon the futility of pleasure and search for higher meaning we must all face.

Pac-Man is the template from which all true video games were wrought. Unlike the sell-out Pong, it gave us a new genre which pushed the limits of the level of violence that would be acceptable for an American audience. We are all Pac-Man on the inside. It gave us a second look at a world we too often hide away, and let us in on the deepest mazes and ghost filled caverns of our own souls.

Pac-Man died for your sins. A vote for Pac-Man is a vote for God. [Villianous Magus]

Pure genius right there. Unfortunantly, Pac Man was surprisingly blown out in this match. The match was the first of the contest that had any board hype whatsoever coming into it, but Division 8 and its voting block was all about nostalgia. Along those lines, Pac Man simply doesn`t fit the bill on our site. It appeals to the old-time gamers more than anyone, as it was one of their first titles. And when I say old-time, we`re talking guys like ChichiriMuyo over here, or the old women that go and play Pac Man slots in the casinos. Our little gamefaqs fanbase whose average age is between the teen years and the young twenties doesn`t care about Pac Man as much as a game that has the word Metroid in the title. I think it`s that simple, when it comes down to it. Hell, Pac Man lost to a piece of lettuce named Kefka last year, so it`s no surprise that he lost to a badassed bounty hunter with a knack for Kid Icarus.

Yet all this being said, board hype was high, prediction percentages were low, and the hype surrounding the Metroid games having a chance to beat the Zelda games was beginning to take form. Yeah, we wish.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Division 8 Round 1: (5)Phantasy Star vs (12)Contra

Phantasy Star - 35513 (38.98%)
Contra - 55593 (61.02%)
Total Votes - 91106
Vote Difference - 20080
Prediction Percentage - 56.40%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b03.jpg
Picture Rating - 5.56/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Phantasy Star - 48
Entries for Contra - 74
Total Entries - 122

When the bracket first came out, there were only three matches in Division 8 that were hard to call at all. One of them was this match, Phantasy Star vs Contra, where CJayC`s flawed nomination system took precedence. You were only allowed to pick one game per system. This caused all sorts of chaos on parts of the bracket. We won`t get into the example of this until later, but I`m sure everyone can guess what it is.

The problem with this system? The weaker systems that only have one or two notable titles got their best games into the bracket with ease, while the more competitive systems had to duke it out with games from their own system to get in the contest in the first place. Many undeserving games got into the contest because of this, which shafted a few legendary titles. As such, Phantasy Star, one of the few notable games from the Sega Master System, got into this contest as a 5 seed. Meanwhile, Contra has to claw and scratch its way through Nintendo nominations just to get in. It`s reward? One of the most overhyped matches of the first round.

Not only did Phantasy Star prove to be totally undeserving of its seed, but it helped prove that franchises don`t help games with individual matches. The success of Phantasy Star Online was supposed to be the deciding factor in Phantasy Star`s victory here; instead, Contra beat Phantasy Star all over the place in this poll. I guess franchise votes don`t matter much if your game`s title doesn`t have 'Final Fantasy' in it somewhere. It`s a shame too, because barely half of the bracketmakers managed to get this one correct. The 5 seed was reassuring for some reason, but it failed miserably. The game with the rugged soldiers and the most legendary cheat code in the world moves on with relative ease. This not only proved that Contra has quite the fanbase, but that Phantasy Star 4 had zero chance whatsoever of taking down Super Metroid.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Pfff it's easy to say that afterwards.

Now, if you truly knew this contest, you'd have had all the choices correct in your bracket.

Oh, wait, it's you.

Okay, good job.
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"I know more because some people are blinded by the truth" -mrduckbear3

tagged
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"You want a piece of me fat boy? I'll spork your ass"

are you going to do this for every match?
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Now this is funny.
http://www.greenfaces.se/upload/uploads/pro_nap.jpg

Cool ^_^. Thanks for taking the time to do this =).

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

Man....
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http://www.aria-of-sorrow.tk - Tons of information
http://www.hitmanforum.com - Best place for the Hitman games.

Division 8 Round 1: (4)Final Fantasy vs (13)Pitfall!

Final Fantasy - 86938 (87.64%)
Pitfall! - 12256 (12.36%)
Total Votes - 99194
Vote Difference - 74682
Prediction Percentage - 96.46%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b04.jpg
Picture Rating - 7.5/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Final Fantasy - 123
Entries for Pitfall! - 0
Total Entries - 0

As you can see, this was a beating of epic proportions. Not only did Final Fantasy completely own this poll despite having no exclamation points in its title, but it managed to have the second highest prediction percentage of any match in Division 8. Many of the stat nuts on this board were, including myself, were wondering why Super Mario 3`s prediction percentages were so low, but I think much of the blame can be placed on Final Fantasy. Honestly, go look at the percentages for this half division. It makes no sense for Mario 3`s stats to be so low in an eight pack that it had no chance of losing, but the numbers don`t lie.

In other news, isn`t it nice to see high-scoring polls? We didn`t get too many of them, but this poll was uninterrupted. The old layout, one poll, no distractions. The good old days, which sadly shall never return to us. Another thing that was sad was how obvious it was that Contra had no chance to beat Final Fantasy as this poll was taking place. Sheer dominance for one of the more mediocre games in the series.

Am I missing something here....?? Oh of course! I AM THE BLACK MAGE! I CAST THE SPELLS THAT MAKES THE PEOPLES FALL DOWN!!

Like you were getting through this analysis without an 8 Bit Theater reference. Keep dreaming.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

One more before I go to bed this morning:

Division 8 Round 1: (6)Donkey Kong vs (11)Duck Hunt

Donkey Kong - 48587 (50.07%)
Duck Hunt - 48444 (49.93%)
Total Votes - 97031
Vote Difference - 143
Prediction Percentage - 73.22%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b05.jpg

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Donkey Kong - 86
Entries for Duck Hunt - 43
Total Entries - 129

This was the most hotly-debated first round matchup within Division 8. Phantasy Star/Contra and Pong/River City Ransom came close, but most people knew where those polls were going. In this poll however, each game had a decent shot of pulling it out. And why? Because for whatever reason, Donkey Kong has become one of the weak links for the Nintendo franchise in these contests. Back in 2002, Donkey Kong was the first to show us what it was like to wear out the F5 button on our keyboards during his matchup with Aya Brea. He fell behind early, but came back with the morning vote. After the two characters were tied for what seemed like forever, Donkey Kong finally took the lead for good. In 2003, Donkey Kong had a similar matchup with Tommy Vercetti of Grand Theft Auto fame. Vercetti took a small early lead on Donkey Kong, but the big ape spent the entire day fighting his way back into the match before bracket voters were barely able to put Donkey Kong away.

With Donkey Kong`s tradition of getting into close matchups in this contest, the bracket was kind enough to give him Duck Hunt as his first round opponent. What seemed like a simple 6-11 victory turned into a massive board debate once people learned of Duck Hunt`s good chances at winning the match. Erasers were taken to brackets all over the board, and this turned into a bigger Division 8 upset special than Phantasy Star vs Contra. Again, most people on the board knew that Phantasy Star had no chance. In Duck Hunt`s case however, it was much different. Even the Prophet Challenge was only favoring Donkey Kong by a 2:1 ratio, which never happens for a game that was once so heavily favored to win its match. In the span of a few days, Donkey Kong went from a lock to win the match to a game with a bullseye on it for upset-minded bracketmakers.

Unfortunantly, the poll started around as bland as it could. Donkey Kong jumped out to an early 60-40 split in the poll, and Duck Hunt was all but dead in the water. All that excitement for nothing, apparently...

...or was it? (continued)
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

By the time 10:30 AM Eastern rolled around, Donkey Kong was seemingly in complete control over the match. He had a commanding lead of nearly 3300 votes, and it was nothing more than waiting for the next poll to open up after so much hype had been put into the match.

But hold the phone here. Did Duck Hunt just cut into the lead? Eh, no big deal. It was only one update.

Wait a second, did Duck Hunt just slice into the lead again? Aww, who cares. Donkey Kong is still up by over 3200 votes.

But do my eyes deceive me? Did Duck Hunt just cut into the lead again? And again? And AGAIN? Oh believe it, for the comeback trail was on. Duck Hunt began throwing everything it had at Donkey Kong in this match in its efforts to come back, despite the fact that the largest succesful comeback ever seen in any contest was merely 1500 votes in the Sonic/Samus match of 2002. Still, Duck Hunt could care less. It felt that it could easily come back from being down over twice as much, and put on one of the most amazing charges ever seen in one of these contests. Throughout the day, Duck Hunt kept chipping away at the lead, with minimal resistance from Donkey Kong in retaliation. Duck Hunt also picked up a ton of steam as the day progressed, and managed to tear into Donkey Kong`s lead with updated in which it cut over 100 votes off the lead all at once.

As you could imagine, the board was going nuts by the time the evening rolled around. The update topics were on fire, the bracketmakers were going at it all over the place, and with each new update, the hysteria only grew louder. Only on GameFAQs could Donkey Kong and Duck Hunt going at it ever be exciting. In the evening hours, Duck Hunt managed to get the lead to less than 1000 votes, and the anticipation of the closing of the match was imminent.

However, Donkey Kong had almost 75% of the brackets, time, and bracket voters on his side. Throughout the evening hours, Duck Hunt`s gains grew smaller and smaller, and Donkey Kong even managed to win an occasional update to keep himself from being upended in the match. But on the other side of all of this, Duck Hunt was still making a push to try to win the match. And had time not run out, Duck Hunt would have most definitely won. For the last three hours of the match, the voter turnout slowed down to the point where Duck Hunt`s gains simply weren`t enough for it to be able to overcome the bracket voters before the end of the match. For every small push Duck Hunt made within the final few hours, Donkey Kong managed to fight back just enough to hang on tight to the lead, as well as the match. This irritated the Duck Hunt fans to no end, but it was still fun to see.

Within the final hour, Duck Hunt made a huge push to close the gap to 143, but the poll closed before any more damage could be done to the big ape. Despite being battered, bruised, and beaten halfway to hell for 16½ hours of the poll, Donkey Kong walked away a winner. How did this happen? If bracket voting was ever the difference in a match, this was it. Compared to how close the match turned out to be, an overwhelming percentage of people had Donkey Kong winning in their brackets. And while I firmly believe that people don`t care about their brackets given the right match, I don`t exactly think this was one such matchup. Donkey Kong, despite all of his strengths and the various pleas from Donkey Kong (the user on gamefaqs named Donkey Kong, of course =p) himself, found himself in another knock-down, drag out match. Only this time, it is obvious that he would have lost had the poll gone on just a tad bit longer.

(continued)
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Donkey Kong, in his own right, is a gaming legend. His game was the first to feature Mario (or Jumpman for you technical people), and it was one of the games that influenced the indistry. But as a character, he doesn`t seem to be able to get the love that his fellow Nintendo brethren are able to see. Outside of the Donkey Kong Country series and the original title, he doesn`t come across as being as well-loved as the heavy hitters of the franchise, which causes him to be about as unreliable as they come in these contests. It`s not like Nintendo has made any real effort to boost Donkey Kong`s popularity, either. His last game was Donkey Kong 64. Think about how long ago that was, then think about how bad the game was. Not fitting for a character who is trying to make it to the next level in our popularity contests.

By the sheer letter of the match, Donkey Kong won. But in spirit, his game got his ass handed to it by Duck Hunt. For the better part of 16 hours, Duck Hunt was winning nearly every update in the poll. And we aren`t talking weak updates here either. We`re talking a consistent push on the lead, with 100 vote gains mixed in to make sure Donkey Kong was being threatened. In this match, Donkey Kong was very lucky to have his bracket and fan support, because he could have easily lost otherwise. And any doubts as to how unreliable Donkey Kong is were proven beyond any doubt in its next match.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Anyway, I`m going to sleep. I wrote up all of that while half-asleep at my computer, too, so forgive me if it sucks.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Wait a minute... Another one?

tag
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If you put everything necessary to make a watch in a small box and shake it up for eternity, will the contents ever make a watch?

Yeah. If you look at the old topic (don`t post in it, let it purge), it was ruined by a certain poster who likes to start arguments. But that won`t happen here, as he`ll simply be ignored.

Which goes for all of you if he posts. Just ignore hi, mark the posts as trolling, and move on. Don`t clutter the topic, mmkay?

Now, off to bed with me.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

I got thanked....? *blushes*
Thank YOU Ulti.
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SpC2K4: Picks 59/63 ... Points 169/192
Pepe's Final Rank: 232

I also missed LordOfDabu, Umaro, Horatio, Smurf, Kirin... tons of people. You simply can`t remember everyone.

And you`re welcome, yo =)
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Nice job with DH/DK. I remember being on GunBound during that match, and telling the GameFAQs guys who were there (IIRC, it was me, Cena, Shake, and Odd) that Duck Hunt was catching up big time, and had a chance to win. I even pulled a few tricks over on them. Heh. =P
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Moltar's Comics - http://www.stripcreator.com/comics/Moltar
Final Bracket Score: 167 points. Finished in the top 416 brackets.

That remind me Moltar. I hate you so much.
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Nominate Id from Xenogears and Kain from FFIV for SC2K4
SpC2K4 Status - Winner: Crono Trigger - Finalist: FF7 - Semifinalists: SM3, FFX

If only there were an edit function... reminds*
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Nominate Id from Xenogears and Kain from FFIV for SC2K4
SpC2K4 Status - Winner: Crono Trigger - Finalist: FF7 - Semifinalists: SM3, FFX

lol, all in good fun.
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Moltar's Comics - http://www.stripcreator.com/comics/Moltar
Final Bracket Score: 167 points. Finished in the top 416 brackets.

I remember that match...
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Married to SemiFinal vs Belarus since June 1st, 2004.

*tags*
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AKA: BertTheOne
Can't hurt this Bert!
boards.tokyotosho.com/

Tag again.
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...........................................................

500 topic -__-
Nice work ulti , you deserve the 10 games ! now let us hope you win em !
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Best.Game.Evar contest results so far : 53/60 Win % : 88%
Rank : 1002/42484

I feel sorry for smitelf..........seems like you spend on your time on this worthless analysis. It easy to know why what won over what. Its whatever game the age groups of 10 - 16 like best.
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Starcraft: Game of the Decade: 90's
XBL Gamertag: OmniGeist

Tag? I thought it was bump.
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Supporter of Starcraft and Ocarina Of Time in the Spring Contest!

Bump brings a topic up from below. Tag is for the purpose of putting it in your posted messages for easy reference later without having to search for it.
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"All in all, sometimes it's a wonder that pesants[sic] actually live long enough to learn how to farm....."-mysterygilgamesh4
{34}

yes, tag indeed.
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Revenge is a dish best served cold.-Old Klingon Proverb
Congrats to UltimaterializerX, winner of the Guru Challenge.

Congrats man

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"You ignorant hicks have spent so much time playing banjo in the woods you don't realize that I, Hercule, am the martial arts champion of the world!"

hey congrats, and thanks for that awesome SSBM tourney...^_^
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"Attack Me If You Dare, I Will Crush You."
Ken Masters

Yeah, I`m decent with predicting percentages, but my bracket now blows. If we take all things into account, I think I know how the rest of it will go, and it doesn`t look good.

-Ulti, from our analysis topic. Looks like everything turned out good after all.
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Moltar's Comics - http://www.stripcreator.com/comics/Moltar
Final Bracket Score: 167 points. Finished in the top 416 brackets.

*Cant wait till ulti gets to the SC/Halo match...*
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ALL YOUR VOTE ARE BELONG TO CATS
Final Spring Placement: 175 Points, Tied for 72nd place

tag

Bump for the afternoon
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Theifenburg Uncertainty Principle - Without any witnesses, who's to say what happened?
Proud warrior of THE LUCA BLIGHT ARMY

Can't wait for the Starcraft/Halo match... which includes orgasms. LOL!
____________________________________________________________
Nobuo Uematsu - God of Music

...which is kinda awkward and sad. But the Starcraft analysis bits should be good anyway.
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This is a great topic.
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AKA Kamikaze Squirrel
God plays but one video game, and that video game is Tetris. Don't let anybody tell you different.-The immortal Amazing Telephone

Hmmm... that nomination for most underrated user is now starting to hit home...

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Sign and help SAVE the Summer Contest! http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?board=7&topic=14242163

-Ulti, from our analysis topic. Looks like everything turned out good after all.

That`s because it looked like we were getting 3 Zelda titles in the Final Four.

deth: I thanked everyone that I may have forgotten too, if you would have read the post =p
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Just the fact that I'm forgettable enough not to mention is good enough for me....

=P back atcha.

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Sign and help SAVE the Summer Contest! http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?board=7&topic=14242163

Division 8 Round 1: (3)The Legend of Zelda vs (14)Adventure

The Legend of Zelda - 92894 (95.20%)
Adventure - 4686 (4.80%)
Total Votes - 97580
Vote Difference - 88208
Prediction Percentage - 99.02%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b06.jpg
Picture Rating - 5.64/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for The Legend of Zelda - 123
Entries for Adventure - 0
Total Entries - 123

This is about as dominant a performance as you can get. This match set records all over the place in terms of pure beatings, and Adventure, while very influential in the industry, got its ass whipped in this match. It`s simply too old and far obscure to do much of anything in a poll on our site. Why did it make it, you ask? The nomination system. Few titles from the various Atari systems are noteworthy, but Adventure would be one of them. There is also the tidbit that CJayC openly stated that he tweaked the bracket a tiny bit to get more interesting matches. So maybe he knew how influential Adventure was and put it in to see how it would do? Who knows.

A couple of interesting things to note about this match before I move on. Adventure managed to make the Top 100 list on IGN`s list. And while their list truly has some issues (no Mario 3 or Final Fantasy 7), Adventure even being mentioned was something. Also, Aventure managed to make it all the way up to #13 on our FAQ list on the site during this match. Another thing of note is that this match featured the highest prediction percentage of any in the contest.

As for The Legend of Zelda, this was no surprise. It`s Zelda. But when your opponent sets a record for futility set back in 2002 by Mrs. Pac Man during a time when vote totals were lower than they are now, you are showing some true power. And it wasn`t like it was even close, either. Adventure beat Mrs. Pac Man`s record by at least 500 votes. Zelda fever started hitting the board after this matchup, and many people, including yours truly, were wondering whether or not Zelda was going to completely own this contest. I originally had Zelda 1 over Mario 3 in the Elite 8, but this match made me think twice about it. I`m sure it made others do a double take as well. 95% of the vote against anything is no joke, and the female population of gamefaqs outnumbers the people who voted for Adventure in this match. Scary.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Side note of Interest....

Since I looked at the results and saw my vote wouldn't make a difference. I voted for Adventure. I can remember playing it on my Atari 2600, and it used to be one of my favorite game back in the day.

*DeThAddR's SPOILER fun tip of the game*







What is fun is to that the Goblet (Enchanted Chalice) and put it near the mouth of your castle, and then find the bat at take him to that screen. You can actually release the bat, and MAKE THE BAT WIN THE GAME FOR YOU!

All you need do is make sure he picks up the chalice, and flies by the raised gate of your castle while you are in the screen!

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Sign and help SAVE the Summer Contest! http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?board=7&topic=14242163

Division 8 Round 1: (7)Pong vs (10)River City Ransom

Pong - 57674 (68.01%)
River City Ransom - 27130 (31.99%)
Total Votes - 84804
Vote Difference - 30544
Prediction Percentage - 71.71%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b07.jpg
Picture Rating - 7.70/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Pong - 103
Entries for River City Ransom - 16
Total Entries - 119

This match was a perfect example of when not to listen to board hype. If you had Pong in your bracket and thought it would win because few people have ever heard of River City Ransom, a winner is you. In the hours leading up to the match, River City Ransom fans and bracketmakers swore up and down that RCR was a huge favorite and that Pong was too old to do any damage in this match. When the match picture was brought up and we all saw this dinky little yellow thing named Pong, the cries to give RCR some respect got louder.

This all wound up being followed up by one of the biggest letdowns of the contest. Pong nearly managed 70% of the vote against River City Ransom. Pong fever took over the board that day too, in the form of multiple links pointing people toward playing Pong. Normal Pong, Mini Pong, Newgrounds Pong, 3D Pong, Giant Pong... you name it, you had a link for it in this match. Throughout the day, the normal board argument of the better game not winning broke out, which leads me to ask a question. How many people remembered that this is nothing more than a popularity contest? I`m a firm believer that the best games didn`t always win, and I even had to go against some of my favorites in my bracket, but it doesn`t exactly matter who wins. Does your favorite losing in a poll affect your life in any way at all (unless you`re a Starcraft fan)? No. And I`m not trolling the SC fanbase, by the way. More on what I meant later.

As for River City Ransom, it was a huge dud in this contest. Billed to be the game out to finally gain some respect for itself, it let the second video game ever made beat it all over the poll. But hey, at least it made our GameFAQs Top 50 for a little while. And to this day, it is still on the Top 10 NES lists for Message Board activity and FAQ hits. The fanbase is definitely there, it just didn`t show up in today`s match. Come to think of it, some guy at EB tried selling me a rerelease of RCR the other day. I laughed at him and bought Link to the Past.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Tag!
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Final SpC2k3 Score: 163 (It's all Starcraft's fault)
RPGs beaten: 54 and counting

*tags*
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"Thank you, Mario. But our princess is in another castle."
-Toad in Super Mario Bros.

Quoteth:Billed to be the game out to finally gain some respect for itself

Personally, I feel the game that actually DID get some of the Respect it deserves was Final Fantasy (1). It even game SMB3 an AWESOME run.

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Sign and help SAVE the Summer Contest! http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?board=7&topic=14242163

Good topic Ulti. Congrats on your well deserved victory my good man.
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Jon Thomson - final score : 138/192

Great.

Tag.

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Nintendo & Dream Theater
Forever

tag
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No sig at the moment.

Starcraft got the respect it deserves in this contest.Well, most of it anyway.

Ulti, I resent that comment about a game winning not affecting your life.A lot of people get annoyed or unhappy when their game loses, thus affecting their lives.Just because it means little to you, doesn't mean you can flame people that take it more seriously.
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Supporter of Starcraft and Ocarina Of Time in the Spring Contest!

*tag*
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"Haha SMRPG wins because this is RPGFAQs." "If SMRPG wins then GameFAQs has no credibility." - Fanboys.

Ulti, I resent that comment about a game winning not affecting your life.A lot of people get annoyed or unhappy when their game loses, thus affecting their lives.Just because it means little to you, doesn't mean you can flame people that take it more seriously.

I`m onyl going to say one thing, because I don`t feel like having an argument break out again. Getting upset over a game losing is perfectly normal, but whining about it for weeks on end is a bit over the line if you ask me. And that wasn`t flaming. Mark it as such if you feel you must, it won`t be deleted.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

tag

Congrats, Ulti, on the win.

Tag.
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"I learned nothing in college. Maybe it's because I had a double major: Psychology and Reverse Psychology..."

I wasn't trying to make anything of it and I didn't plan or marking you.

Can't wait for your next analysis :p
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Supporter of Starcraft and Ocarina Of Time in the Spring Contest!

taggy tag tag.
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This sig is better than yours.

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

*Eagerly awaits more.*
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Theifenburg Uncertainty Principle - Without any witnesses, who's to say what happened?
Proud warrior of THE LUCA BLIGHT ARMY

Great job so far Ulti. =)
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Nintendo® - We Make Games Worth Playing
Ultimaterializer > Nintendo

Division 8 Round 1: (2)Tetris vs (15)Galaga

Tetris - 66124 (78.25%)
Galaga - 18377 (21.75%)
Total Votes - 84501
Vote Difference - 47747
Prediction Percentage - 88.60%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b08.jpg
Picture Rating - 5.43/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Tetris - 115
Entries for Galaga - 2
Total Entries - 117

And with this match, the archaic division`s first round came to a close. Everything in this division was about nostalgia votes, and every match went as expected without any real upsets. The only thing to really note about this match is that Galaga performed far better than expected for much of the poll, and it was a late push by Tetris that really pushed its percentage higher. Tetris`s performance was so 'neh' that our very own Slowflake made a couple of great posts about how Pong might shock the world and beat Tetris in the next round. Scary I know, but a 2 seed underperforming for much of the poll is never a good thing.

But still, Tetris survived and advanced, which is all that counts. I`m just curious as to the 11.4% of bracketmakers who actually thought Tetris was winning this match. Galaga performed better than expected for a long time, but it still got its ass kicked.

As my final note of the evening (I`m about to go to work), this division was clearly the easiest to call in the contest. Aside from a near-flop by Donkey Kong and the imminent clash of Mario 3 and Zelda 1 in the divisional final, none of these matches were particularly hard to see coming.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

True, only 1 first round match wrong in the 8-bit bracket for me. Very easy to predict.
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Moltar's Comics - http://www.stripcreator.com/comics/Moltar
Final Bracket Score: 167 points. Finished in the top 416 brackets.

Keep it up, man.
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I lost a bet to Captain Obviousx1. Who would have thought that A Link to the Past would win in Round 3?

this deserves a tag.
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"You called down the thunder... Now reap the whirlwind." - Ghost

*joins in the tagging fad*
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The Starcraft matches were more fun than the game is. ~ Neo04

tagaterialize
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Fanboy of good games

Supa tag!
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This is the alternate account of swirldude.
Ulti owned my sorry ass in the Spring Contest!!

Tag

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M is for Money. Money is the root of all evil in the world. Money causes your parents to fight. You should take your parent's money and mail it to... ME!

I got the 8 bit division perfect...except for duck hunt.

*tags and goes to play DDR*
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MELON BREAD of the GUNSTAR HEROES
Bacon, you are indeed a god among men. - Sabey 30

I called division 8 right, straight to SMB3 winning it.
Wish the rest of my thing was even half that good...
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"All in all, sometimes it's a wonder that pesants[sic] actually live long enough to learn how to farm....."-mysterygilgamesh4
{34}

Ulti, I don't think Tetris underperformed, Galaga is a much bigger game than most people on this site know.I guarantee that if there were a worldwide net poll on what game is better, Galaga would beat out Tetris.The oldies would say "Screw Tetris" and vote for the classic arcade shoot 'em up that is Galaga.

but then you have to question if Galaga got in, where was Space Invaders?

I got one match wrong in the 8 division, and that was Zelda VS Tetris.I knew it was a risk though.It's funny that some people actually got Phantasy Star VS Contra wrong.
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Supporter of Starcraft and Ocarina Of Time in the Spring Contest!

Ulti, I don't think Tetris underperformed, Galaga is a much bigger game than most people on this site know.I guarantee that if there were a worldwide net poll on what game is better, Galaga would beat out Tetris.The oldies would say "Screw Tetris" and vote for the classic arcade shoot 'em up that is Galaga.

IMO, Tetris is t3h classic. So simple, yet so addicting. And you acutally use your head instead of senseless shooting.

Even so..I think Tetris did ok. It wasn't really gonna change the fact it would beat LoZ, now was it, or at least on GameFAQs?
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"Haha SMRPG wins because this is RPGFAQs." "If SMRPG wins then GameFAQs has no credibility." - Fanboys.

The final score doesn`t show Tetris underperforming, but it wasn`t doing as well as everyone thought it would until the evening vote. It was stuck at 70-73% for quite a long time, not good for a game that some people thought would take down Zelda 1.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

As my final note of the evening (I`m about to go to work), this division was clearly the easiest to call in the contest. Aside from a near-flop by Donkey Kong and the imminent clash of Mario 3 and Zelda 1 in the divisional final, none of these matches were particularly hard to see coming.

Personally, I think this is debatable. In my opinion, the 32-64 division was remarkably easy to predict, as long as you weren't wearing Nintendo-tinted glasses. (While FFT nearly pulled an upset, so did Duck Hunt). I think the one legitimately confusing match in the 8 division was RCR vs. Pong. RCR lost because it's unknown... but if it's unknown, how did it get the 10th seed on the NES?? Duck Hunt and Contra obviously weren't unknown.

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Current Score: 113
Today's bracket pick: FF VII | Today's Oracle pick: FF VII with 56%

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

Keep up the great work!

Okay, so I guess I'll also join the argument about the difficulty of the each division.

8-bit division:

Contra vs. PS and DK vs. DH were the only 2 real matches that were quite split in their winners. RCR vs. Pong comes in 3rd, but the amount who missed it was not overwhelming. If you missed any R2 or R3 matches you were in the great minority. SMB3 vs. LoZ was a little hard to call, but wasn't even close...

16-bit division:

SMRPG vs. SFII and EB vs. Doom were the two hard-to-call R1 matches, while a few had Super Metroid or Sonic 2 winning in R2. A few thought CT's demise would be in R3, and FF3/LttP was very split. CT vs. LttP was also somewhat split.

32-bit division:

Pokemon vs. XG and PD vs. SotN in R1. Surprisingly few people thought FFT would take out MGS, but GE vs. SotN was somewhat split. Otherwise a very easy division, until Zelda: OoT vs. FF7, of course.

128-bit:
Let's face it...everything was hard here, bar maybe 3 Round 1 matches, and a Round 2 match.

Rankings of difficulty:
1) Division 128
2) Division 16
3) Division 32
4) Division 8

I think most would agree on that...

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UltimaterializerX owns me in every aspect of life...I mean, of GameFAQs Spring Contests, that is.

Somehow, I got a perfect 128 bracket. SMRPG over Ct round 2 killed me.
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"Yes, yes, yes….the black wind howls…wails…blows…….does a somersault….whatever" ~MMXcalibur

Difficulty Ranking (Hardest --> Easiest)

1. Division 128

Quite the given - especially with so many StarCraft wins (call them upsets, or whatever you want, most didn't see the last one happening). Also, SSBM was quite the bracket-buster and everyone (except StarCraft) really underperformed. But when actually filling out the bracket, it was hard too. FFX v. SSBM; MP v. WW; VC v. KOTOR - all matches seemed that they could go either way.

2. Division 16

The SNES is seen as the console with some of the best games ever. Because of this, many heavyweights were in this group and were destined to face each other. Crono had to go through two Marios - and many predicted upsets. LttP had to go through two Squares - and many predicted upsets. SM, LttP, and SMW were the Nintendo big guns that faced off against the 1 and 2 seeded (respectively) CT and FFIII/VI. With the added power that Sonic 2 seemed to have, this wrecked havoc on the board's opinion on each match. When bracket picking, any match involving any of these could be seen as going either way and required tough analysis for each pick.

3. Division 32-64

FFVII v. OOT. Only tough match worth big points. The board was split - everyone was. Probably though, everyone knew deep-down that FFVII would win (albeit probably not by that much). The only tough parts in this division were a few early matches: Pokemon v. Xenogears; PD v. SOTN; PD/SOTN v. GE. Many people saw 50-50 splits on all of these, and they proved the most difficult when picking the bracket.

4. Division 8

Easily the easiest. A SMB3 v. LoZ final was destined, and the matches to get there required little guess work. Contra v. PS - the toughest for most. However, when actually thinking about it, this one was pretty easy. RCR v. Pong - same thing. SMB3 was seen as the easy champion but with the power that Zelda games seemed to have, some predicted an upset. Most saw through this and easily selected a SMB3 victory in their bracket.

***Final Four and Beyond***

I'm not ranking this, but I felt like talking about it.
The Final Four can be seen as ranked in this order (again, hardest to pick to easiest):
SSBM --> CT --> SMB3 --> FFVII
The matches between them, however, were tougher. The SMB3 v. CT match was easily the toughest (costing me 10 games had SMB3 won, and 3 had I picked CT instead). Some (like me) saw Mario v. Crono 3 with Mario pulling the victory in the last seconds again. This match was seen to be the toughest match of the Final Four and Beyond by me (and probably by most, too).
FFVII's victory over whoever people had as their Division 128 winner was the easiest. FFVII only had one competition - OOT, and it could easily defeat any game thrown at it from Division 128.
The Final match was seen as, alas, quite easy to predict. Only four possible games could win - SMB3, CT, FFVII, and OOT. And many even saw FFVII v. OOT as the championship match. Again, if the champion's name from Divisions 8 and 16 was not named OOT, then FFVII had this match in the bag. When about 40% (is that right?) of people predict the final correctly, you know it can't be too hard.
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SpC2K4: Picks 59/63 ... Points 169/192
Pepe Camello's Final Rank: 232

Come to think of it, some guy at EB tried selling me a rerelease of RCR the other day. I laughed at him and bought Link to the Past.

River City Ransom EX is pretty danged good, while you should already own a copy of Link to the Past. *shakes fist* The "Gamers" gang has names from Disgaea, among other sources! You must buy it! The power of evil compels you! </8bit>
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FFT Versus Tournament Round 2
http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/gentopic.php?board=19482

Tetris`s performance was so 'neh' that our very own Slowflake made a couple of great posts about how Pong might shock the world and beat Tetris in the next round.

I can just smell all the sarcasm on that "great" there. Seriously, I so didn't expect RCR to finish second to last. Oh no.
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SpC2K4 Status (FINAL) --- Points: 169/192 --- Matches: 54/63 --- Rank: 00232/40940

Good start. But please, finish it this time ;_;!
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The Reaper is always a step behind you ncr...
Go Flames Go! Current Status: 3-4 vs Tampa Bay Lightning. Current mood: Plotting to murder Kerry Fraser.

tag
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ALL YOUR VOTE ARE BELONG TO CATS - Commander of the CATS ARMY
Official The CATS Army WebBASE - http://www.geocities.com/thecatsarmy/THE-CATS-ARMY-BASE.html

I forget, was it Ulti or DSX who wasn't able to finish their post-contest analysis of 2K3? ^^;

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When I think of Suikoden, I think of fifty (censored) guys standing in a burned-down village and groping each other. -http://videogamerecaps.com/

*tag
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They try to tell us we're too young... too young to really be in love...
Nominate MEWTWO for the 2004 Summer Contest!

I forget, was it Ulti or DSX who wasn't able to finish their post-contest analysis of 2K3? ^^;

DSX, he never did finish the last fouur characters.
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Theifenburg Uncertainty Principle - Without any witnesses, who's to say what happened?
Proud warrior of THE LUCA BLIGHT ARMY

I can just smell all the sarcasm on that "great" there. Seriously, I so didn't expect RCR to finish second to last. Oh no. [Slowflake]

That wasn`t sarcasm in the least. You made a few posts in the stats topic that made me think about the possibility of Pong winning the match.

Good start. But please, finish it this time ;_;!

Yell at DSX, foo`. I finish what I start.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Division 16 Round 1: (1)Chrono Trigger vs (16)Secret of Mana

Chrono Trigger - 71697 (79.39%)
Secret of Mana - 18610 (20.61%)
Total Votes - 90307
Vote Difference - 53087
Prediction Percentage - 92.20%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b09.jpg
Picture Rating - 7.55/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Chrono Trigger - 113
Entries for Secret of Mana - 3
Total Entries - 116

And thus, Chrono Trigger`s bid to prove that it was deserving of the 1 seed in Division 16 begun. Division 16 was the second hardest division in this contest to call, simply because it seemed like it would be such a tossup between the three heavy hitters of the division. There were also lesser titles that seemed like they had a decent chance at causing some upsets within the division as well. And then there is the issue of many, many gamers thinking that the era this division represents is indicative of the golden age of gaming. Within it were difficult RPGs (an oxymoron nowadays), legendary titles that have stood the test of time, revolutionary games that are simply a standard for what gaming is supposed to be, and quite possibly the best console ever created in the SNES. Only taking 16 games to represent this era seemed like an insult, but that`s simply the way the bracket was laid out.

It all begins and ends with Nu, er.... Chrono Trigger. CT nabbed the 1 seed in the division, and quite fairly. Chrono Trigger has become one of the board mascots over the last two years, so it was only fitting that Chrono Trigger somehow manage to land the 1 seed within the division. But could this translate into success in the polls? Well, yes and no. Considering we know how the contest plays out, it`s easy to say that Chrono Trigger performed as expected. But if you looked at the match against Secret of Mana, you might have been scratching your head for awhile. Chrono Trigger got off to a fast start, but lost a ton of steam when the time came for the afternoon vote. It lost so much steam that its percentage was actually going down against a 16 seed. Ouch. But Chrono Trigger managed to recover to win with nearly 80% of the vote. But even then, people were concerned for awhile, as this was not the 1 seed style beating indicative of a game that was supposedly a lock for the finals in the eyes of many bracketmakers. The odd thing is that Chrono Trigger would take on this pattern in every match it was involved with. The question was whether or not it would cost Chrono Trigger a match down the line. Beating a 16 seed in this manner is nice, but what of Chrono Trigger`s well-being should it take on such a lax approach with the afternoon vote against a game that could actually beat it? Only time would tell.

Speaking of which, I haven`t yet mentioned that the starting time of the poll was changed prior to this contest. In the past, the poll would start at 1 AM EST. For this contest, it seems that CJayC has updated the poll starting time to 3 AM. It makes enough sense when one considers that 3 AM EST is Midnight Pacific, but I personally think it took a huge part of the fun out of the contest. Not everyone on the eastern half of the US has the pleasure of being able to stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning to see the ending of the poll, and even the western crowd may have had issues. Staying up until midnight every day is not all that easy to do, especially for the younger crowd of gamefaqs. This change also varied the trends within the contest. We used to simply have a night vote, morning vote, afternoon vote, and evening vote. But with the start time changed, we now had five different voting blocks going in every match. To be simple, this created hell in many a match, including causing multiple matches to have comeback victories. But if there was one game in this contest that simply owned the night vote no matter who it was up against, it was Chrono Trigger. And it had to prove it time and time again in this contest.

That wasn`t sarcasm in the least.

Really? o_O I'd have expected so, because I'm like the only Pong fanboy in the world... you know the Black Mage spoof.
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SpC2K4 Status (FINAL) --- Points: 169/192 --- Matches: 54/63 --- Rank: 00232/40940

T3h Tagz0rz
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I am Mew!
Nominate MEW for the summer contest and I'll give j00 a cookie!

For this contest, it seems that CJayC has updated the poll starting time to 3 AM. It makes enough sense when one considers that 3 AM EST is Midnight Pacific, but I personally think it took a huge part of the fun out of the contest. Not everyone on the eastern half of the US has the pleasure of being able to stay up until 2 or 3 in the morning to see the ending of the poll, and even the western crowd may have had issues.

You do not know how much I agree with those sentences. During the Summer Contest, I always used to race for the first vote, watch how crazy the early vote went (CATS/Cloud), etc., but now, I can't do that. I didn't want to stay up until 2 AM for the new polls to be put up, so I went off to bed. Now I always have to vote in the morning and read about what happened at night. *sigh*
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Moltar's Comics - http://www.stripcreator.com/comics/Moltar
Final Bracket Score: 167 points. Finished in the top 416 brackets.

I will say flat-out that the 128 bracket was the hardest one to predict.

See sig.


the 16- bit division only cost me ONE point --- I overestimated Earthbound, a game i've never even played.

The 32/64 division cost me one match, 2 points...

I overestimated Final Fantasy Tactics, having it beat Metal Gear Solid.

The 8-bit division hurt me, I was expecting Final Fantasy to beat Mario3... AND Zelda 1.

grr..

But starcraft killed me anyway.

Oh well, it's all in fun.

If this was a contest on the SNES and PSX/N64 era, I would probably be in the top 100 or so.

However, my lack of knowledge of pre-SNES games hurt me here; and the newer games have far more volatile and hard-to-predict fanbases.
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Starcraft cost me too many points for me to even be CONSIDERED close to winning. I had Halo going to the final 8.

*Tag*
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Ahem! There's LETTUCE in my boots!
http://www.geocities.com/lettucekefka/

Division 8 - I had Tetris over Zelda.That was the only points I lost there.

Division 16 - I expected Street Fighter to beat Mario and like the guy above me, I overestimated a game I've never even played, that game being Earthbound.

Division 32 - I overestimated Pokemon and Underestimated Castlevania.

Division 128 - I underestimated Starcraft by one round, overestimated Metroid Prime.

Overall mistake in the contest - I refused to belive FF would be dominant.Basically, I overestimated the taste of many of the visitors to this site.
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Supporter of Starcraft and Ocarina Of Time in the Spring Contest!

Hey Ulti... which difficult RPG are you referring to? Certainly not either of the heavy hitters of the division. CT and FF6 were both at least as easy as any of the 32bit RPG's. SoM wasn't that hard either. Are you talking about PS4 or Gunstar Heroes or what?
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"Yeah keep making jokes, that'll win the war."-Griff
Proud tactician of THE LUCA BLIGHT ARMY

Tagged

and Cid, its your own fault that you even had halo going to the elite eight. even if starcraft performed as a 16 seed should, halo was never going to the elite eight. you screwed yourself over, before starcraft even did a thing.

and besides that, starcraft is waaaay better anyways. 100K people every day on battle.net can attest to that :)

Great job so far Ulti, I was looking forward to your analysis again this year. I think you even get extra credibility for winning the contest. Way to go dude, good for you.

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http://diabloii.net/columnists/a-b-a-l-a-n-c-e.shtml <my article
5/24/04 6:56-6:57 PM #5 I helped LUE count to 10!!!

Kicking ass so far, Ulti. Expecting a great one for the clash of the SNES behemoths :)

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If you add monster truck tires to the Pope-mobile, religion suddenly becomes funny - SSJ3 Popo

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

Meh.

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TU NE CEDE MALIS SED CONTRA AUDENTIOR ITO.

tag
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I think FFDragon just became my new Idol. Screw Clockspider. ~Crimson Sword
Married to Pepsi Plunge on June 05 2004.

Nice
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<33>
The Truth

Divisions from easiest to hardest:

1) 8 bit. If it wasn't for somehow picking Pacman over Metroid (which, for an 8v9, didn't seem inconceivable, particularly if we'd have known that the Metroid series would underperform throughout), and Tetris over Zelda (this, on my part, was silly) I'd have been perfect.

2) 32/64 bit. Only dropped one point, Perfect Dark against SOTN, which could have been avoided. I can't say FF7's title win was obvious and then say FF7-OOT was tough to predict.

3) 16 bit. Perfect top half apart from the SF2-Mario RPG fiasco. Bottom half was my fault, having Super Metroid beat LttP (not an awful pick really), and Doom beating FF6 (oops).

4) 128 bit. You could probably make a case for any one of eight games winning. Lots of coin flips. Starcraft. Only division where my final four candidate didn't make it - it didn't even get out of round 2.

Final four itself was OK to select, just a case of who was going to lay down and let FF7 walk all over it. I thought I'd go for the game that was actually released in Europe.
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Jon Thomson - final score : 138/192

tag

bump

Divisions from easiest to hardest to predict:

1: 8 bit division, obviously. Everyone with half a brain knew it'd come down to Zelda VS Mario, with Mario most likely winning, since the original Zelda is one of the weaker titles in the series. There were a few first-round picks that were arguably difficult (Metroid VS Pac-Man, Phantasy Star VS Contra and Duck Hunt VS Donkey Kong) and then there was Pong VS RCR, where the RCR fanboys blew RCR's chances way out of proportion. Everything else was a breeze, though, and Tetris really is the least deserving Sweet 16 candidate ever.

2: 32/64 bit division. Final Fantasy VII VS OoT was, admit it, tough to predict. Given how the Link VS Cloud / Sephiroth battles have been thrillers throughout the character contests, almost everyone was expecting a nailbiter even the day before the match itself. FFVII was always the favorite, but OoT was in the best possible position to upset. No one could stand up to FFVII or OoT in this division: Metal Gear Solid, the third strongest game in that division, couldn't get 30% against FF7 and wouldn't have done all that much better against OoT. Almost everything else was fodder, though the first-round matches between fodder were hard to guess. Xenogears VS Pokemon was tough, given we've never seen Xenogear's strength in this tournaments, and Pokemon had to be stronger than Pikachu. Perfect Dark VS Castlevania VS Goldeneye was all a brainteaser as well; I remember many debates about those three games' standings before the matches began.

3: 16 bit division. Chrono Trigger, the #1 seed in this division, was not considered a definate to beat Super Mario World by some, let alone LttP or FF6. FF6 would be stronger than Kefka, most reasoned, and thus it could have given everyone's bracket a jolt...never underestimate anything Final Fantasy, espesically the second most popular title. LttP was severely underrated and yet some rationally explained how it could fall to Super Metroid. Street Fighter VS Super Mario RPG, Sonic's dismal performance against SMW, there were many elements of this division that no one could have possibly expected. Given how poorly CT performed in round one, many then predicted CT would inevitably fall to the Zelda juggernaut; yet it did not.

4: 128 bit division. A bunch of popular new games barely seperated from each other. Let's face it: when the final four participant from this division barely wins its first match, you know you have one tight-knit group of games. Starcraft, Halo, Wind Waker, SSBM, Vice City, or FFX could have very well won the division had a few hundred or thousand votes swung their way in pivotal matches. Even Kingdom Hearts and MGS2 could have eradicated their foes if they were as strong as some people believed they were coming into the contest. Eight of the sixteen games in that division were feasible elite eight or final four fighters.


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TU NE CEDE MALIS SED CONTRA AUDENTIOR ITO.

Division 16 Round 1: (8)Super Mario RPG vs (9)Street Fighter 2

Super Mario RPG - 54390 (56.24%)
Street Fighter 2 - 42314 (43.76%)
Total Votes - 96704
Vote Difference - 12076
Prediction Percentage - 47.83%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b10.jpg
Picture Rating - 7.31/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Super Mario RPG - 76
Street Fighter 2 - 42
Total Entries - 118

This match had quite the board hype going for it in the days leading up to the match, and for good reason. It was the hardest match to call in the first round of Division 16. It was also the first match in which less than half of the bracketmakers managed to get the winner correct. It makes perfect sense, because few polls could have been split down the middle more than this one.

On one end, there is Super Mario RPG, one of the more fun RPGs out there, and labeled with the fact that it is Square, Nintendo, an RPG, and in a poll on gamefaqs. All of these things mixed together seemed like the perfect combination for a win, but not so fast. Mario RPG, while one of the most fun games I`ve ever played, is one of those games that can be referred to as a cult classic. Big when it first came out, but only a small fanbase remains vohemently dedicated to it nowadays. As a side note, I happen to have just entered Moleville a few minutes ago. Everything that Mario RPG needed to win the match was there, but the game itself was no where near strong enough to allow people to lock it in for a win. Especially not when you consider what it was up against.

If anyone has looked at this board since this match, you are now a scholar in the art of Street Fighter. You know that it is the fighting game that revolutionized the genre, as well as the first fighting game that featured combos. For its day, the graphics were amazing, the characters stood out from one another, and the gameplay was so fun and addictive that Street Fighter 2 was to arcades during its prime what Dance Dance Revolution is to arcades in present day. Arcades literally stayed open with the revenue brought in by Street Fighter 2 back in the day, and the amount of fans that are still loyal to and play the game on a regular basis are a testament to how good the game truly is.

But all this aside, the games had nothing to do with one another. You either sided with one or the other, and each game had great reasons why it should win. After all of the pre-match discussion was done and overwith, the match finally started. Mario RPG jumped out to an early 62-38 split, but it didn`t take long for Street Fighter 2 to claw its way back into the match. Throughout the first 5 hours of the poll, Street Fighter 2 managed to not only climb back into the match, but it took a lead of around 120. But we soon learned that Mario RPG was not released in many foreign countries, specifically Europe, and this is why Street Fighter 2 was able to do what it was doing early on. Fighting games are quite big in Europe, for Square doesn`t like them for some reason.

(continued)
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

At any rate, the American fanbase, as well as the gamefaqs bias toward Square RPGs, begun to kick in the with morning vote. Mario RPG not only came back from being down by that small amount, but it soon blew Street Fighter 2 out of the water. It wound up being one of only three matches I missed in the entire contest, but that isn`t the half of what went wrong in this match. Once Street Fighter 2 lost, it began the single longest chain of whining ever seen from any fanbase on the board. Most of the 'How in the hell did ______ lose?' topics end after a few days. But not Street Fighter 2`s fanbase, oh no. The topics are still going on, even now that the contest is over. Granted it`s just a fad by this point, but some people are actually serious about them. If anything, Street Fighter 2 has quite the loyal fanbase behind it.

But the topics make enough sense. Street Fighter 2 is seriously that good. Without it, fighting games would still exist, and they would all suck. But don`t let this sound like I`m upset that Mario RPG won or anything. It`s one of my favorite games, and one that I was planning on getting with my prize until Tanya brought her SNES collection home from her parent`s place one day. It`s a fun little Square-Nintendo RPG that I would recommend to literally anyone, save the random fan of the Street Fighter franchise that might smash it with a hammer ~_^

All in all, it was a good match. Two even games went at it, and only one could win. Sucks, but 63 of the games in this contest were destined to go home unhappy. As for the overall effect of the match, it wasn`t as big as some would make it seem. Neither of these two games had any chance in hell of taking down Chrono Trigger, so in the end, it meant one measly little point. Big deal. The true fun of this contest is everything that surrounds it, not just the brackets.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

tag
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Chaos Knight-Cerebral Insomniac of the CoS
summoner? wtf! summoner=Yuna Taru=midgit GaryPayton LA

8 bit was the easiest. I got two errors, RCR vs Pong (overestimating a game I'd never played) and Contra vs Final Fantasy. I wasn't sure about this pick, because I knew taht FF had a huge fanbase.. yet at the same time, I have never heard FF1 talked about and revered the same way as Contra. I guess I overestimated the voters' knowledge...
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The Starcraft matches were more fun than the game is. ~ Neo04

Note: This topic is my opinion of why I feel each game performed the way it did. While your opinion is welcome, please wait until I`m at least done the first round before making it heard.

Hmm...
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This is the alternate account of swirldude.
Ulti owned my sorry ass in the Spring Contest!!

8 bit was the easiest. I got two errors, RCR vs Pong (overestimating a game I'd never played) and Contra vs Final Fantasy. I wasn't sure about this pick, because I knew taht FF had a huge fanbase.. yet at the same time, I have never heard FF1 talked about and revered the same way as Contra. I guess I overestimated the voters' knowledge...

16 bit was second easiest for me. I got the Mario RPG vs SFII one wrong (which could be expected) and ... really, that was it. I felt like I was taking a risk with LttP over Super Metroid at first because Metroid had a huge fanbase... not to mention that many sites rank Super Metroid as TEH BEST. GAME. EVAR. Fortunately, SFF tok over. LttP vs FF6 was really never in doubt for me until everyone started to wonder about it.

Then was 32/64. I missed Xeno vs Pokemon, a shocker, and of course the heavily debated SotN vs Perfect Dark vs Goldeneye contest. I picked SotN over both, and failed. Meanwhile FFVII as predicted, demolished OoT as well as any other game taht dared resisted its wrath.

Div 128 was of course the hardest to predict, and it took me 100% off guard. I picked Starcraft over Halo on the basis that Halo was an Xbox game. I picked Soul Calibur over Kingdom Hearts on the basis that Kingdom Hearts was considered "kiddy" and went on to have Soul Calibur over Starcraft. (This logic also applied when I predicted Metroid Prime over WW and then Soul Calibur). I also picked GTA over SSBM because I had seen that it had a huge long FAQ list and a sick amount of high ratings... and of course, I overestimated FFX.

Ulti, your analyses are awesome.
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The Starcraft matches were more fun than the game is. ~ Neo04

Ulti, you forgot to add that SMRPG wasn't released in Europe, which could have potentially been a good reason for Street Fighter 2 to win.
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Nominate Sarah Kerrigan for the Summer Contest!

Did I?

But we soon learned that Mario RPG was not released in many foreign countries, specifically Europe, and this is why Street Fighter 2 was able to do what it was doing early on. Fighting games are quite big in Europe, for Square doesn`t like them for some reason.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Fighting games are quite big in Europe, for Square doesn`t like them for some reason.

That should have read 'Square doesn`t like Eurpoe'. My bad.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Division 16 Round 1: (5)Sonic the Hedgehog 2 vs (12)Shining Force

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - 78387 (80.71%)
Shining Force - 18739 (19.29%)
Total Votes - 97126
Vote Difference - 59648
Prediction Percentage - 89.25%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b11
Picture Rating - 6.57/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - 93
Entries for Shining Force - 3
Total Entries - 96

This matchup set off a chain of four straight predetermined blowouts pitting big name games against games that most likely didn`t even deserve to be in the contest, let alone have a chance to actually win a match. The first of the four blowouts was Sonic 2 vs Shining Force, and frankly, the only entertaining thing about this match was Popo making a topic asking why Sonic 2 was being put up against a made-up game. Yes, we tried that hard to get drama from this thing. Speaking of which, how did 10.75% of people think that Shining Force stood any chance whatsoever? A little-known Sega RPG stands no chance against Sega`s mascot.

The odd thing is that Sonic 2 peformed quite well in this match. So well in fact that a large contingency of Sonic fans on the board began gathering steam in their efforts to convince people that Sonic 2 could very well take down Super Mario World. After all, it`s Sonic vs Mario, right? And 4 seeds always have issues with 5 seeds, yes?

HEH. What wound up happening in that match was something else entirely, but we`ll get into that later. I think I did a nice job of filling up a post on a match that no one could have honestly cared less about, yes? Good. This will be my last post of the evening, as I must eat some dinner before going to work tonight. And hey, tonight is my Friday! You know what that means. I`ll be writing like a madman in the next two days, so stay tuned.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Anyways, 32/64 Div. was the easiest for me.

I personally think than SSBM was cursed by Pokemon, making it weaker.

And this proves than characters aren't comparables with games (SF2 bowing down to SMRPG while Ryu was in R3, no Mega Man or Kirby, CT killing 3 Mario games, Half-Life's performance, etc.).

And another fact: Some Homestar Runner menus (2 to be precise) had Adventure references, thus explaining its 5% (But hey, who hates Strong Bad?).
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Nominate Sakura Kasugano & Mr. Game & Watch for the Summer Contest 'cuz they pwn j00.

and Cid, its your own fault that you even had halo going to the elite eight. even if starcraft performed as a 16 seed should, halo was never going to the elite eight. you screwed yourself over, before starcraft even did a thing.

Yes, I am aware of that.

I had thought I put FFX over Halo, but whatever.

It didn't matter anyway.

Heh.

As for sonic/mario, I could see that one coming a mile away.

Sonic>Mario, but SMW>Sonic2...
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Starcraft cost me too many points for me to even be CONSIDERED close to winning. I had Halo going to the final 8.

Halo going to the elite 8 makes plenty of sense, now more than ever. In the extrapolateds, it's barely behind Zelda, and the difference is small enough that random chance would mean either could win in such a much. Had Starcraft gone out in the first round, it's entirely possible that SSBM would have beaten Halo instead.

Mario would never lose to Sonic on this site. And if you people want to think so, then be my guest. You`re the one who will be missing points should the match ever happen.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

---kris you can run but you cant hide
I think FFDragon just became my new Idol. Screw Clockspider. ~Crimson Sword
Married to Pepsi Plunge on June 05 2004.

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

Halo is only just behind zelda in the extrapolateds because of starcraft and its variable strength - it makes halo look stronger than it actually is. I think in an open match Zelda would win by a handy percentage. A 54-46 win for Zelda would not surprise me in the least.

And SSBM would just destroy it.
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Sp2k4C-120 pts.
Kerrigan for S2k4C!

tag
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Best. Game That Didn't Make It Past The First Round. Ever. Championship!
http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?board=8&topic=14476391

Ulti, did you get the full list of the ratings? And I kind of lost FFVII vs. Chrono Trigger, well, the purge did. So I don't have that one, other wise it's a full list :P
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Ahem! There's LETTUCE in my boots!
http://www.geocities.com/lettucekefka/

Divisions from easiest to hardest to predict:

Division 8: I had a perfect division 8 in my bracket. It was rather obvious to anyone that the final in div. 8 would be SMB3 vs. Zelda. It also seemed most likely that SMB3 (probably the most popular of the series) would defeat Zelda I (one of the weaker titles of the series). This division wasn't without its difficult matches though. Donkey Kong vs. Dunk Hunt gave us our first close match, plus Contra vs. FF and Metroid vs. Pac-Man weren't the easiest to predict. However, anything past the final four of this division was cake to predict.

Division 32/64: I lost 3 points to this division, not too bad if you ask me. Picking the final 2 in this division (FF7 vs. OoT) was easy, prediction how the division would get there was the hard part. Xenogears beating Pokemon was a surprise to me as it was to many other people. Then there was the hard to predict and highly debated SOTN-Perfect Dark-Goldeneye matches. Many people lost at least some points to this trio. Then came the second closest match in GameFAQs history (at least I think so) when Metal Gear Solid beat Final Fantasy Tactics by less than 40 votes. The rest of the division was rather boring with FF7 and OoT as predicted destroying all futile attempts to stop them. That is of course, until they hit each other. This was one of the most talked about matches from before the tournament right up until the day before the match. Both sides made good arguments as to why there pick would win. In the end, FF7 defeated OoT by a bigger margin than expected, but OoT did take a lot of brackets with it to the grave.

Division 16: This division was fairly hard to predict, with no clear winner (or even finalists for that fact) in mind. Chrono Trigger was the 1 seed but it was debated whether it would even make it past SMW. Link to the Past wasn't really guaranteed to make it past Super Metroid. Then when the two faced each other another good match ensued. This match spawned the 50,000 OMFG TEH POLL WAS TIED!!11!!11! topics throughout the day. I think the general consensus was that without a lead in the day LTTP would fall to CT, but this match also wasn't a lock. Along the way there was also SM:RPG vs SFII (the first match with under 50% of the brackets predicted it correctly) and Earthbound vs. Doom, two difficult matches to predict.

Division 128: Division 128 anally raped my bracket. Along with many other people I went from contention to confusion after Division 128. There was no clear front-runner of this division, with 8 of the competitors being feasible elite 8 candidates. This division was simply hard to predict. The first match of the division caused over 75% of brackets to lose a point. I mean, after the FIRST MATCH a #1 seed and some peoples elite 8 candidate was gone. The division winner of SSBM wasn't even a lock to beat Vice City in round 2. It could have easily lost that match. This difficult division also featured a 16 seed going to the division finals (something less than 8% of brackets predicted correctly), another defeat of a Metroid game by a Zelda game, the two games making the division finals NEVER receiving more the 60% of the vote in their matches, and lastly...many ruined brackets such as my own.

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8th Place in Spread Betting

The fact that 8% of bracketmakers HAD a 16 seed going that far is proof enough of just how royally screwed up that division was.

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If you add monster truck tires to the Pope-mobile, religion suddenly becomes funny - SSJ3 Popo

Ulti, did you get the full list of the ratings? And I kind of lost FFVII vs. Chrono Trigger, well, the purge did. So I don't have that one, other wise it's a full list :P

I have everything but the final, and I wasn`t planning on using those pictures anyway. Is there even a URL for them?
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

There's a URL. It's just a .php not .jpg
http://www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b63.php
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Ahem! There's LETTUCE in my boots!
http://www.geocities.com/lettucekefka/

Division 16 Round 1: (4)Super Mario World vs (13)The Simpsons

Super Mario World - 79257 (81.47%)
The Simpsons - 18028 (18.53%)
Total Votes - 97285
Vote Difference - 61229
Prediction Percentage - 95.91%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b12.jpg
Picture Rating - 6.81/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Super Mario World - 98
Entries for The Simpsons - 1
Total Entries - 99

If anyone thought Mario was somewhat weakened after the events of 2002 and 2003, I hope they were at least put to rest after this match. The Simpsons arcade game is no slouch whatsoever, yet Mario World completely killed it. And not only that, but almost 96% of brackets picking Mario World to win is no joke whatsoever. This was the second in our four part series of watching some 16 bit heavy hitters destroy inferior 'Just happy to be here' opponents, and it isn`t like I can say much here. The Simpsons never stood a chance, and this match is simply another example of outside mediums meaning squat in polls on our site.

But along those lines, don`t think I`m bashing The Simpsons at all. Aside from being a good animated series, the arcade game was one of the most fun I`ve ever played. It`s just that it never stood a chance to win this match, that`s all. After all, Mario World had the full force of the enigma known as LUE behind it. It was also the launch title for what some believe to be the greatest system ever made, the SNES. What surprises me is how many people maintained that Mario World was in trouble against Sonic 2 after this match. The numbers being somewhat similar only tell part of the story. Mario World scored more than Sonic 2 in the first round, and it also held a stronger opponent to less votes. The game was over for Sonic 2 right then and there, but we`re getting well ahead of ourselves. A winner is Super Mario World, and only a seven year old epileptic hermit with one functioning eye could have possibly thought otherwise.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Whack this topic to teh top.
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The Starcraft matches were more fun than the game is. ~ Neo04

I remember the last time I went to Orlando, Florida. While my parents went to do something (I don't remember what), I was able to go to the longue area of the resort which had an arcade (and no coins needed to play! UBER!). I, and three other players, pretty much played through the whole arcade game of The Simpsons, and it was fun!

Oh yeah..good times...:-)

Since everyone seems to do be doing it, I think I'll post what I thought was easier to predict. I'll have to do that when I get home, because I'm in a computer class and its' network's firewall blocks the main site, and not the boards..so I'll just post it when I get home.


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"Haha SMRPG wins because this is RPGFAQs." "If SMRPG wins then GameFAQs has no credibility." - Fanboys.

To tag, or not to tag, that is the question.

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Spam, it's what's for dinner. - Bigwizz54
9 out of 10 Americans believe that violence is not the answer. The last one shot the pollster.

I, and three other players, pretty much played through the whole arcade game of The Simpsons, and it was fun!

One of the best arcade games ever, that`s for sure. Let me get some more writeups posted here...
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Division 16 Round 1: (6)The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past vs (11)Gunstar Heroes

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - 86690 (91.15%)
Gunstar Heroes - 8418 (8.85%)
Total Votes - 95108
Vote Difference - 78272
Prediction Percentage - 97.75%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b13.jpg
Picture Rating - 7/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Link to the Past - 96
Entries for Gunstar Heroes - 2
Total Entries - 98

Another division, another display of Zelda dominance. This match featured the highest prediction percentage, the biggest blowout in terns of vote difference, and one of the single highest voting outputs in the entire contest. Gunstar Heroes may have been influential, but it doesn`t come close to being well-known enough to do serious damage in this contest. Nothing more than fodder for LTTP, despite CJayC`s claim that 'Any one of these games can win it all. It just depends on who comes out to vote.'

It was no question who would win this match. Zelda is one of the best series in gaming, plain and simple. And this match made a ton of people, including yours truly, wonder just how strong Zelda was in this contest. When you factor in the underdog vote, joke votes, anti-votes, and all of that other jazz, holding any game under 10% is not easy to do. Yet through two matches, the Zelda series was 2-0 and looking like it would dominate the entire contest. Those of us who didn`t think a single Zelda game would make the Final Four really started to wonder after this match. There were also a select group of Metroid fans (NeoElfboy, Xenobi) who maintained that this victory didn`t mean all that much, and that any performance against Gunstar Heroes, one of the weakest games in the contest, should be taken with a grain of salt. We all know how that turned out, but more on it later.

The other thing I found really stupid was LTTP`s seeding. CJayC mentioned that 99% of the bracket was done purely based on seeding and that he only tweaked the bracket just a little. The more I think about it, the more I think that LTTP being a 6 seed in this contest, behind Super Metroid, FF6, Mario World, and Sonic 2 I might add, was manipulation by CJayC in order to have LTTP and Super Metroid, arguably the two best Nintendo-based SNES games out there, against each other in the second round. It`s very difficult to think that the nomination philosopy of 'It will get in anyway, so I`m going to nominate an underdog' applies to LTTP moreso than any other game in the contest. It sure didn`t seem to bother the Final Fantasy series, Chrono Trigger, or Halo all that much. The examples aren`t many, but they are there. If you look at the bracket very closely, you can cite some instances where CJayC was trying to get the more interesting matches. Perfect Dark vs Goldeneye? Mario World vs Sonic 2? Super Metroid vs LTTP? Metroid Prime vs Wind Waker? Puh-leeze. I don`t fault CJayC however, as I might have done the same thing.

Anyway, this match was the third in our four part series of blowouts. Only one more to go before this topic starts getting interesting again. But damn, didn`t it look like Zelda was unbeatable after this match? And if not this match, then what about your thoughts after the second round? Good grief, some of those matches were flat-out shocking. But more on those later.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

The Simpsons arcade game is god. Playing it all the way through with three other people is like the best memory I have.
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"I'm gald I'm educated." - ZeroXcuses

Division 16 Round 1: (3)Super Metroid vs (14)Phantasy Star 4

Super Metroid - 70520 (83.29%)
Phantasy Star IV - 14144 (16.71%)
Total Votes - 84664
Vote Difference - 56376
Prediction Percentage - 91.08%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b14.jpg
Picture Rating - 3.35/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Super Metroid - 94
Entries for Phantasy Star IV - 1
Total Entries - 95

For a game that was billed by some people to take down Link to the Past, they were flat-out shot down in this match. For Super Metroid to stand any chance whatsoever, it needed to perform on par or equal to LTTP in its match against Phantasy Star IV. Allowing it almost 17% of the vote didn`t cut it, to be honest. But not to discredit Phantasy Star IV here. I know some people who are absolute masters of the RPG genre, and quite a few of them have mentioned the Phantasy Star series as being the best RPG series out there. And these people have played all of Final Fantasies, Lunar, Chrono Trigger, and other series as well. Yet they put PS4 above them all. Interesting, to say the least.

As for Super Metroid, I think that everyone should have seen its imminent second round fate coming after this match. Had LTTP gone up against Phantasy Star IV, I can assure you that it would have been close to the beatings that the Zeldas were laying on Adventure and Gunstar Heroes. PS4 is a great game, but it simply doesn`t have the necessary popularity on our site to win most matches. It`s a shame that Super Metroid didn`t perform to expectations as well, because that one website (the name slips me) was dead-on when it called Super Metroid the best game of all time. It deserves the title, and if I ever made such a list, it would easily make the top ten. Easily. But what other websites think don`t matter. On our site, wrong as it may be, it was clear that Super Metroid stood no chance whatsoever of making the sweet sixteen once this match was done and overwith.

In more positive news, we`re done with our four part series of commenting on useless blowouts. Sweet!
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Division 16 Round 1: (7)Earthbound vs (10)Doom

Earthbound - 37127 (42.96%)
Doom - 49291 (57.04%)
Total Votes - 86418
Vote Difference - 12164
Prediction Percentage - 61.92%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b15.jpg
Picture Rating - 5.05/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Earthbound - 55
Entries for Doom - 60
Total Entries - 115

\/ So, who remembers this? \/

Some people forget two very simple things:

1 - Earthbound is the very definition of a cult classic. The people who play the game absolutely love it, and they are more likely to nominate Earthbound over any other game. This is the sole reason for its high seed.

2 - Of all the PC games in the contest, I believe Doom has the highest seeding of them all. That`s quite an accomplishment, and I would honestly be shocked if Earthbound managed to get 45% of the vote.

/\ Not the exact words, as that was all from memory. But you get the idea. /\

Anyway, this match had quite the debate behind it. After all, Earthbound was a 7 seed, ahead of Super Mario RPG and Street Fighter 2! But like I said all through the days leading up to that match, Earthbound has one of the most dedicated fanbases of any game out there. Hence the seed. But everyone, everyone, has heard of Doom. First Person Shooters could exist without Doom, and they would all suck. Doom was one of gaming`s most revolutionary titles, and it was quite deserving of being the highest-seeded PC game in the contest (not counting FF7 and Halo, of course). So in the end, we have one of gaming`s biggest sleeper hits versus one of gaming`s most revolutionsry titles. Unfortunantly, name value normally prevails in these situations. The match played out exactly like expected. Earthbound took a very early lead because of the hardcore fans, but Doom eventually took over with the secodn update and eventually managed to steamroll Earthbound right out of the match.

The surprising thing, outside of Earthbound`s seeding, but all of the pre-match hype. Even the Prophet Challenge made it seem like this match would be right down the middle the whole way through, but it wasn`t even close in the end. This match was quite the first round bracket buster as well, as almost 40% of people called the match wrong.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Hey Ulti, I need to speak to you sometime, if and when you're able.

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TU NE CEDE MALIS SED CONTRA AUDENTIOR ITO.

Alright..now that I'm home..let's see..

First of all, I must say that I was a lazy bastard with my bracket. Most of the games I thought would win..well, my bracket didn't support it, which were probably picked because of higher seeding (you'll see what I mean)..and I didn't complete my bracket (only up to the Elite 8).

With that outta the way:

Division 8: Well, first sign that I was lazy..I said Phantasy Star would beat Contra in my bracket. If I knew that Phantasy Star was on SMS and that Contra was on NES, I would have picked Contra to win this because of the Nintendo drones. *Memo to self to study SC2K4 characters very carefully so silly mistakes like these don't happen again*.

Apart from that, I pretty much thought out Division 8 pretty well. This was the easiest division to pick, even if only one first-round pick was wrong.

Rank: Easiest.

Division 16: I think Division 16 was a bit more difficult, but I got all the first-round matches for it right, so go me. Picked SMRPG over SFII only because it had Mario, Square, and it was an RPG. That's it. I don't like relying on fanbases to win games, but it beat SFII, so yay me.

Doom I play online pretty much every chance I get. People have made new modes for it like CTF and other cool stuff, it's quite fun, and it's easier to actually join servers unlike the old days. I thought since Earthbound was Nintendo, that meant Instant Win. But since I play Doom and see it for the great game it is, I had to pick it.

Rank: Tied for Second Easiest.

And it won. :-)

Division 32/64: Said Perfect Dark would beat SOTN. Boooo.

I acted the fool when I picked Xenogears over Pokemon. Pokemon has a TCG, a TV show, pets, lots of stuff. It's swimming in cash and merchandise.

But Xeno came through..

Had FFT in my bracket to beat MGS..but I really didn't want that to happen, cause I thought by FFT beating a game like that, it would guarantee FF7 the win. MGS barely crawled to victory...doom for the contest.

Rank: Tied for Second Easiest.

Division 128: A bracketmaker's worst nightmare. Starcraft, an obviously underseeded 16th seed, gets to the Elite 8 and leaves many people with brackets in tears. There was no certain winner, which left lots of people nervously biting their nails.

And me? The only thing I got wrong on my bracket was Halo going to the Elite 8, and with everyone cursing at the Division 128, it surprises me to think I'd only miss three matches. And I wanna give a certain game a gullotine.

Rank: Tied for Second Easiest.

Yep..wasn't that pressured. Just put games in...yep..

Points: 69 (That's all the way up to what I thought would be in the Elite 8). I don't wanna embrass myself on the matches I got wrong apart from the ones I already said. :-(

So yeah...glad to post.




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"Haha SMRPG wins because this is RPGFAQs." "If SMRPG wins then GameFAQs has no credibility." - Fanboys.

Division 16 Round 1: (2)Final Fantasy 6 vs (15)Mortal Kombat

Final Fantasy 6 - 70292 (73.08%)
Mortal Kombat - 25894 (26.92%)
Total Votes - 96186
Vote Difference - 44398
Prediction Percentage - 81.14%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b16.jpg
Picture Rating - 5/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Final Fantasy 6 - 77
Entries for Mortal Kombat - 2
Total Entries - 79

I`d love to know how only 81.14% of people thought FF6 would own this match. Did a bunch of people think that Kefka`s performance in 2003 meant anything in terms of FF6`s overall popularity? Granted, Scorpion did better against Pac Man than Kefka, but the respective games are an entirely different animal. Mortal Kombat, while damned huge for its time, never stood a chance of winning this match. The only question that remained was whether or not the overall board opinion was wrong on LTTP being a shoo-in for the divisional finals. Going by the first round alone, FF6 stood no chance. But my goodness, we were pretty off on how powerful FF6 truly turned out to be on this site. Many people, including me, still consider it the best game in the series by far.

Under most circumstances, I`d say that a 74% victory wasn`t dominating. But Mortal Kombat is a big franchise, and having it being held to under 30% is quite the accomplishment. In other news, I bought the SNES version of FF6 for $26 plus $4 shipping off of Ebay today. $30 for FF6, yo =)
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

And these bracket rankings are nice, but why are we doing them in this topic? Shoo, all of you ~_^
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Yeah, I put Earthbound over Doom strictly off word-of-mouth, when I should have known better.

Nah, 128 was the killer simply because everything was really too NEW... there's a distinction between novelty popularity and true popularity...

Take a look at GTA's performance in the contest to see what I mean.


Now, the one thing that burns me up is that FFT always gets the shaft. Ulti, surely you've got something to say about that...
i mean, last year it was ramza against alucard, right? Not exactly an easy match...

And FFT vs DDR and then MGS? Sure. Let's go with the biggest arcade hit of our time (Daytona USA didn't make the bracket, unfortunately... I should have nominated that but didn't think of it. I believe I put Hydro Thunder or Crazy Taxi... >_>) and then arguably the greatest stealth game ever...

Sure. Next contest, let's get ramza or weigraf... or cid... in there and get him a cakewalk first two rounds, why not?

</rant>


Of course, if people started nominating "Cid", we'd have a ridiculous problem.

How would an all-Cid division strike you?

That would be interesting, to say the least.

EGM called FF6's cid a 'candy corn person' or something like that... (the yellow/red jacket)...

how would he stack up against Sid from the movie?

Bracket-buster division , depending on how it was set up...

Although FF7's cid would probably win...

Orlandu would probably perform decently...

>_>


</stops rambling... i don't want my posts to be longer than Ulti's>
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RPG Elite (777) Dragoon Choco-Mage
"I think somewhere Tolkien mentions that elves had ears." - Epic of Man

Personally, I consider 83% against Phantasy Star IV a whole lot more impressive than 91% against Gunstar Heroes. That's not to say I ever thought Super Metroid had a chance against LttP, but I did think its first round win was more impressive. This may be my Phantasy Star bias speaking, but PS IV is a true classic, while Gunstar Heroes was one of the two games I had never even heard of before the contest (the other being NiGHTS into dreams).

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"A fool and his money are soon elected."
- Will Rogers

I personally disagree: I thought LttP's match was more impressive, but just slightly so. At the time, I thought the division would go to the LttP/SM winner... but the true winner ended up being my bracket on that one. ;)

Ulti, I'm surprised you put down PS4 this much. Sure, Super Metroid would've needed to beat LttP for PS4 to rank at the level of PS1, and even without SFF it's inconceivable. However, PS4 being played more widely than PS1 would at least imply a better ranking... and even by fixing SM's ranking, it's still below PS1, big time.

And you actually wanted Super Metroid to do BETTER THAN THAT?!? Sure, we didn't know how both Phantasy Stars stacked up with each other until SMB3/CT was over, but even in retrospect, that's craziness.
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

This is definitely a place where the extrapolated rankings break down. Almost anyone who's played a Phantasy Star game will tell you that PS IV > PS II > PS. PS IV would probably win 75/25 or better head-to-head.

So yeah, Super Metroid's win was impressive. (And Contra's was unimpressive).

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"A fool and his money are soon elected."
- Will Rogers

Well, it's sorta pointless to compare jobbers sometimes. I mean, Gordon Freeman gets 40% against DD Armstrong, then 47% against the higher ranked Max Payne.

But Contra unimpressive? I say 30% on FF1 is pretty damn good. It also puts it just a few feet behind games such as SotN and Sonic 2.
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

One thing I agree that Ulti hit dead on was the massive overrating of games like RCR and Earthbound before the contest.
Nominations take much more time and thought than voting in a poll, and the results are likely to reflect that. Both RCR and Earthbound have dedicated fanbases committed to advancing those games.
However, the poll itself is much different. Clicking on a circle and "Submit vote" takes three seconds, and polls are common on almost every website. Thousands of users who come to GameFAQs just to find a quick code of hint will be very unlikely to spend time chatting on message boards, filling out brackets, or submitting nominations. However, those users WILL most likely spend their time filling out a poll. It's quick and easy, and people LOVE to get their voice heard.
When these casual voters come and see games such as RCR and Earthbound against PONG and DOOM, two of the biggest names in gaming, regardless of the actual quality of the games, they instantly vote for what they recognize. Dedicated fanbases can only do so much, as big names dominate. In Ness vs. Bowser last year, there was tons of hype about the Starmen.net fanbase and all the Earthbound support. Yet, when the match came around, it all fell flat on its face. Ness never stood a chance, and this was something I instantly recalled when filling out my bracket. Dedicated fans of such games can only take them so far, as big names ALWAYS come out in the end.
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SpC2k4 Score: 154 points (55/63 matches correct)
BRACKET STATUS: Completely annihilated

Division 32-64 Round 1: (1)Final Fantasy 7 vs (16)Suikoden II

Final Fantasy 7 - 91749 (85.63%)
Suikoden II - 15401 (14.37%)
Total Votes - 107150
Vote Difference - 76348
Prediction Percentage - 96.76%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b17.jpg
Picture Rating - 8/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Final Fantasy 7 - 94
Entries for Suikoden II - 1
Total Entries - 95

And with this match, the total joke that was Division 32-64 began. Going by the pure numbers, this division was the easiest to call by barely edging out Division 8 in overall prediction percentage. Suikoden II, while an amazing game, never stood a chance. This division was all about the imminent Final Fantasy 7 vs Ocarina of Time final, and no game could have possibly stood in the way of either of them en route to kicking the crap out of each other. This match was a simple warmup, and FF7 performed just like a potential champion should. It had a prediction percentage in the high 90s, an insane vote total for the poll in comparison to the average vote totals that we would get in the contest, and it managed complete domination in every facet. No point in saying any more, really. FF7 wins, and everyone knows why.

And in case you didn`t, gamefaqs because famous because of FF7. Kao Megura`s guide brought the initial popularity, and we just took off from there. The site also adopted an RPG identity, hence why other sites refer to us as RPG/Console fanboys. Like it or not, we are. At least the majority of us, anyways. Speaking of Kao Megura, FF7 would get a huge popularity boost right in the middle of this contest. Not that it needed it, of course. But the boost was not because of anything good; quite the opposite, actually.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

tagged

Division 32-64 Round 1: (8)Pokémon Gold/Silver/Crystal vs (9)Xenogears

Pokémon - 29381 (42.05%)
Xenogears - 40495 (57.95%)
Total Votes - 69876
Vote Difference - 11114
Prediction Percentage - 48.2%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b18.jpg
Picture Rating - 6.4/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Pokémon - 38
Entries for Xenogears - 59
Total Entries - 97

Please note that I do not hate Pokémon. I used to like it, and I still think it`s a good franchise. My issues come with Nintendo selling the game out beyond any possible realm of human comprehension. The game itself is fine, as it is a very detailed RPG. But the current franchise is nothing more than a cheap attempt for Nintendo to make a buck, and I`ve never been much of a fan for that sort of thing. That being said, I`m not going to sit here and say that Pokémon lost simply because it is one of the most hated games on the site. It is. But there are other reasons besides that.

The most obvious of which is the game it was up against. Squaresoft RPGs, no matter how obscure, are no joke on this site. Square owns this place, and taking down one of their games in a poll is no small task. For Pokémon, it`s a near-impossible task. There`s also the issue of the Red/Blue versions not being in the contest. Gold/Silver/Crystal were all cash cow games. Red and Blue were where it was at, and despite any hate the series has by this point, I maintain that it was one of the most fun series out there. Who doesn`t remember going at it with your friends during lunch in high school? I do, and I have no regrets whatsoever about it. But sadly, Red/Blue weren`t in the contest. If they were, we may have seen something different.

So yes, while the big factor in Pokémon`s loss was the 'anything but Pokémon' vote, the series isn`t something to laugh at, and there were other factors. The fact that over half of the bracketmakers picked Pokémon to win should show that much. But tip your hat to Xenogears in this one. Despite every claim in the book against it, the game has one of the greatest soundtracks and storylines to ever grace a video game. The graphics and the battles weren`t anything earthshattering, but Xenogears still possessed two of the key qualities needed for a solid RPG. Oh, and don`t forget a kickass cast of characters, a main character who follows the traditional storyline of being a tortured soul to a T, and every Squaresoft plot twist that you could ever think of. Just be ready to get into a ton of random battles so that your gears are always fitted with the latest, or you`ll get creamed. Also, you might want to brush up your psychology a bit before playing. Nothing beats being able to understand a storyline involving the multiple egos within the human psyche and the subliminal desire to be more powerful than God himself.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I almost forgot! This was the poll that had to be restarted. CjayC broke out some very sexy new code for the polls and bracket before this match. But sadly, it was only allowing people registered with a gamefaqs account to vote. But not to be outdone by his own misfortune, CJayC plastered a giant FFXI ad on the entire front page during the restarted poll. This caused all sorts of hell for some browsers, and the main page was 11 pages longer on some of them. This could be a good reason why the poll didn`t even manage 70,000 votes, wouldn`t you say?

In short, this analysis was brought to you by FFXI.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Division 32-64 Round 1: (5)Final Fantasy Tactics vs (12)Dance Dance Revolution

Final Fantasy Tactics - 60361 (76.03%)
Dance Dance Revolution - 19029 (23.97%)
Total Votes - 79390
Vote Difference - 41332
Prediction Percentage - 79.9%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b19.jpg
Picture Rating - 4.88/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Final Fantasy Tactics - 77
Entries for Dance Dance Revolution - 4
Total Entries - 81

Four straight polls featuring four straight victories by Square RPGs came to an end in this poll, as Final Fantasy Tactics managed a very 'meh' 76-24 victory over Dance Dance Revolution. At least we thought it was a ho-hum win at first. After all, DDR is nothing more than an arcade dancing game, right? Well, not exactly. Dance Dance Revolution, for all intents and purposes, is one of the single biggest arcade crazes in the world right now. Believe it or not, DDR has one hell of a dedicated fanbase, and though it wound up being one of the weakest games in the division, its 24% on Final Fantasy Tactics was no joke. I would also like to note that ChichiriMuyo was preaching this from day one, and thought it took two rounds for him to be proven right, he was. The people who picked Metal Gear Solid to take down Final Fantasy Tactics all thought FFT was done for once it gave up 24% to DDR, but were we all in for one of the biggest rides ever seen in this contest or what?

Lost in all of this is the fact that Final Fantasy Tactics is a lot closer to the numbered series than we thought (*mumbles something about having known this for years*), though it didn`t exactly show in this match. The how and why some first round matches went down were predetermined in some cases, such as this poll. simply put, some matches were never going to be more than blowouts, and they served only to make comparisons for later contests.

Perfect example? Final Fantasy Tactics vs Metal Gear Solid. More on that in the next post and the actual analysis for that match.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Im sorry but Nintendo doesnt MAKE pokemon, it just owns all video game rights to it. AND if you want to really know who tries to make a quick buck around here...... look at atari

Yay, another person who doesn't know how to sleep ^_^
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~~~The Cabal is here, and everywhere.~~~

Division 32-64 Round 1: (4)Metal Gear Solid vs (13)Resident Evil

Metal Gear Solid - 52745 (70.62%)
Resident Evil - 21943 (29.38%)
Total Votes - 74688
Vote Difference - 30802
Prediction Percentage - 80.99%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b20.jpg
Picture Rating - 7.5/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Metal Gear Solid - 77
Entries for Resident Evil - 3
Total Entries - 80

A couple of things I just remembered about that last match, now that I`ve looked at this poll again. Doesn`t DDR being seeded above Resident Evil look a little odd to you? And for the record, I thought DDR`s picture kicked ass. So there =p

Anyway, take a quick look at how truly even Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy Tactics were after their two respective matches. They had virtually the same prediction percentage in the first round. And while Final Fantasy Tactics saw both its vote total and the vote total of its respective poll score higher than that of Metal Gear Solid`s poll, it was also going up against a considerably weaker opponent than Metal Gear Solid. In its day, Resident Evil was one of gaming`s hottest items. But after Capcom literally beat the series into the ground time and time again, the series has turned into somewhat of a mockery every time a new game is released. Personally, I`m still waiting for Resident Evil 33 and a Third. And it won`t take long either, just you watch.

And because Resident Evil as a series has become what it currently is, the original game in the series was a weak item coming into this contest. Its reward for Capcom being complete morons was a 13 seed in this contest, behind titles such as Dance Dance Revolution and NiGHTS into dreams... mind you, and a one way ticket out of the contest in the first round. It`s sad what has happened to Resident Evil, but that`s life. And correct me if I`m wrong, but wasn`t Resident Evil Outbreak released just days before this poll? Sure didn`t help much.

As for Metal Gear Solid, it has proven in the past that it is the most popular series on this site outside of Nintendo and Square (if you`re counting Mega Man as Nintendo, that is), and it showed no signs of proving otherwise after this match. It quietly dispatched Resident Evil Cyan-style, and it was on to a second round showdown with one of the best strategy RPGs out there, Final Fantasy Tactics. And despite how close the two games looked on paper, few could see what would lie ahead between those two.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Speaking of sleep, I need a little. Later, guys.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

But after Capcom literally beat the series into the ground time and time again
Bah, capcom would NEVER do that. I mean look at street fighter and megaman-
oh wait.
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Nominating Magus, Zero and Shadow for the Summer Contest 2004. Mass Fan Favourites = INSTANT WIN

Who doesn`t remember going at it with your friends during lunch in high school?

Uh, not me. That was in Middle School... 8th grade to be exact. I quit Pokemon completely after Red/Blue...

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That was interesting... but dropping a battleship on me is cheating, take it back! -Id
Resistance is futile... it only makes things more painful. -Citan Uzuki

Speaking of Kao Megura, FF7 would get a huge popularity boost right in the middle of this contest. Not that it needed it, of course. But the boost was not because of anything good; quite the opposite, actually.

Please don't tell me you actually buy into that bull. What next, the Zelda 10 trailer?
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

I don`t know if it was bull (FF7 would have won this contest no matter what), but FF7 was no where to be seen on the Top 10 list for quite awhile before that happened. Whether that translated into more votes or not, who knows *shrug*

Maybe FF7 wasn`t more popular, but it`s a fact that more people were looking at FF7-ralted items on the site after that happened. Speaking of the Zelda 10 trailor, that game looks so damned sweet. With that game alone, plus Square being back with Nintendo, Nintendo could easily dominate the market again. All they really need is some good online play for no one else to stand much of a chance. Problem is that EA is throwing their support behind Sony and Xbox Live right now.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

*related. Damn typos. The one thing I honestly believe is that if FF7 had any chance whatsoever of not winning this contest before Kao`s death, all hopes of taking it down afterwards were ripped to shreds. The last thing FF7`s opponents needed was a popularity boost, small or not.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

We'll see what Revolution brings. Nintendo wants to change the way people game, I'm worried that it might be too much, or too different, and they'll be a trendsetter as opposed to a success.

Maybe not, Nintendo has done a decent job of getting their product out at a reasonable price. Then again, they've put things like Power Glove and Virtual Boy into the market.
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mmm.... you sound a bit of fanboy... oh well...
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Your message was found to be violating the following section of the TOS

EA with X-box is a big gain for it, as well if Fable is as sexily good as it promises to be, that may be one of the biggest hits ever. That game is a console seller IMO.
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Ulti... You're my Honeybunch, Sugarplum Pumpy-umpy umpkin, You're my Sweetie Pie You're my Cuppycake, Gumdrop Snoogums-Boogums, You're the Apple of my Eye

Fanboy of...? What, Nintendo? Nah. I just used to like Pokémon a lot.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Well... Adventure showed up in the top 20 the day of the match. And we all know how many votes THAT translated into.

Seriously, I think the news being on the front page just caused people to go and see what the fuss was all about, not create an actual surge of interest. I doubt it made FF7 more liked - I'd bet most of the people who bothered either played FF7 and were going to vote for it anyway, or never played it and wanted to see the FAQ anyway. I know I did.
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

MGS most popular outside of Square/Nintendo?

Hmm..

*puts on thinking cap*

Well, GTA is pretty liked ;o
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Ulti... You're my Honeybunch, Sugarplum Pumpy-umpy umpkin, You're my Sweetie Pie You're my Cuppycake, Gumdrop Snoogums-Boogums, You're the Apple of my Eye

Is it just me, or is Xbox hate starting to go away a little? I mean, you have Halo, Ninja Gaiden, the upcoming Halo 2, KOTOR, and now EA Sports throwing their support behind Xbox Live. Things are finally looking up for those boys.

Now if they only did something about that God-awful controller...
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Ulti, what are you talking bout?

I don't know exactly what its called, but I got one of their newer controllers, my god that thing kicks all kinds of ass, my favorite controller of any gaming system ever.
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Ulti... You're my Honeybunch, Sugarplum Pumpy-umpy umpkin, You're my Sweetie Pie You're my Cuppycake, Gumdrop Snoogums-Boogums, You're the Apple of my Eye

This is true. GTA performed twice as well against SSBM than MGS2, in fact. I keep getting character and game popularity mixed up in odd ways.

Sleepy time, yo. Good night.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

MGS most popular outside of Square/Nintendo?

According to the rankings, Starcraft is... then again, its magical performance did NOT come from the GameFAQs crowd, so I think we can scratch that. Halo? Nah... Starcraft's variable strength, remember? Other than these, the three strongest are:

1. GTA:VC
2. MGS2
3. Half-Life
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

slowflake, I have to disagree.

I think Casltevnia: SotN is more popular than half life.
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Ulti... You're my Honeybunch, Sugarplum Pumpy-umpy umpkin, You're my Sweetie Pie You're my Cuppycake, Gumdrop Snoogums-Boogums, You're the Apple of my Eye

You know, I honestly think that Halo can and would beat MGS2 and Half-Life, and could very well take down Vice City as well. Despite the Xbox hate, Halo is quite the beloved game here in the US, and could do well in a lot of polls against a lot of games.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

After a 60-40 loss to GOLDENEYE? Um, no. According to the rankings, Half-Life would get 65% on SotN. Not any margin of error, OR Starcraft screwing the math up (though I think the problem lies mostly with Halo, Soul Calibur and KH on that one), could possibly compensate for that... could it?
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

but 32/64 is much stronger than 128..
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Ulti... You're my Honeybunch, Sugarplum Pumpy-umpy umpkin, You're my Sweetie Pie You're my Cuppycake, Gumdrop Snoogums-Boogums, You're the Apple of my Eye

Well, it may be, as far as Half-Life and MGS2 are concerned. But allow me to express serious doubts about Vice.
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

Nope. Only reason 32/64 looks any strong is because of FF7 and OoT. Other than that, SSBM could take out ANY game in that division, except maybe, MAYBE, SM64. And since the rankings are so extremely tight in 128 (Half-Life, #11, would get 39% on SSBM, #1), it almost wins by default, if FF7 and OoT are put aside for a minute.
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

Why would 32/64 be stronger than 128? 32-64 would likely be the weakest division, except for OoT and FFVII, while 128 is the strongest.

argh, lost a post.

Metroid is severaly over rated in this contest, simply put, they all under performed. I don't see how Half-Life is stronger than Golden Eye. You, IMO, are severely over rating the popularity of Prime. What you are saying, is that OoT couldn't have gotten 70% against Half-Life, DO YOU HEAR YOURSELF? That is an INSANE statement IMO. OoT, obviously the second strongest game in this contest, could get around 70% against half-life.

I forgot SOTN got beaten that badly though, so nevermind.

32/64 is no way the weakest, weakest is OBVIOUSLY the 128, or maybe even the 8 bit actually, leaving out SMB3.
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Ulti... You're my Honeybunch, Sugarplum Pumpy-umpy umpkin, You're my Sweetie Pie You're my Cuppycake, Gumdrop Snoogums-Boogums, You're the Apple of my Eye

also, leaving out games while determining a divisions strength is lame. Seriously, EVERY SINGLE GAME matters in a division's strength really, you dont take out the strongest games and the weakest games...
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Ulti... You're my Honeybunch, Sugarplum Pumpy-umpy umpkin, You're my Sweetie Pie You're my Cuppycake, Gumdrop Snoogums-Boogums, You're the Apple of my Eye

The rankings give Half-Life 32% against OoT and 29% against FF7. Not too far-fetched, if I may say so... then again, nothing did better in 32/64 - though to be fair, SM64 SHOULD have.
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

Well, you have a point on this one. But the fact still remains that when the #11 in a division could beat the #4 in another one, even when the champion comes from the latter, there IS a problem.
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

CJayC added later that he didn't tweak them after all and let it go to nominations only.
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The Reaper is always a step behind you ncr...
Go Flames Go! Current Status: 3-4 vs Tampa Bay Lightning. Current mood: Plotting to murder Kerry Fraser.

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

Metroid is severaly over rated in this contest, simply put, they all under performed. I don't see how Half-Life is stronger than Golden Eye. You, IMO, are severely over rating the popularity of Prime. What you are saying, is that OoT couldn't have gotten 70% against Half-Life, DO YOU HEAR YOURSELF? That is an INSANE statement IMO. OoT, obviously the second strongest game in this contest, could get around 70% against half-life.

Half-Life is most definitely stronger than Goldeneye. Half-Life is FAR stronger than Gordon Freeman is.

32/64 is no way the weakest, weakest is OBVIOUSLY the 128, or maybe even the 8 bit actually, leaving out SMB3.

Wow, that couldn`t be more wrong. The strongest overall division in this contest was Division 128. What did Division 8 have? Zelda 1 and Mario 3. Division 16? Chrono Trigger, LTTP, FF6, and to a lesser degree, Super Metroid and Super Mario World. Division 32-64? Ocarina of Time and FF7. That`s it. But Division 128 had a slew of games that could have taken a crap on most of the games from any other division in this contest. The mistake that people keep making is that Division 128 was weak because the games were so evenly matched and that the polls were so tough to call between them. The reality is that the games are all damned good recent smash hits that split fanbases all over the place, and Starcraft threw a monkey wrench into the entire system to make it even more fun.

And there is no overestimating the popularity of Metroid, ever. More people do speed runs for Metroid games than for any other title. You also need to look at how badly the Metroid series was SSFd in this contest. The games, three SFF losses to big-name Nintendo titles featuring Mario and Link. There is no shame in that. To that extent, Half-Life is far stronger than a lot of you are willing to think. Outside of our lovely console-oriented site, Half-Life is absolutely huge. GameSpy`s contest was a total joke, but Half-Life didn`t win it for no reason. It dominated nearly every match it was in. And on our site, Half-Life could beat Goldeneye, and I wouldn`t be surprised in the least if it managed to shock other games as well. Symphony of the Night, Perfect Dark, Pokémon, Xenogears, most of the games in Division 8, some of the games in Division 16, and a few games in Division 32-64 would all lose.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

did you win the contest yet ulti?

Well said, Ulti. When your second round matches are against Mario 3, Link to the Past, and (to a lesser extent) Wind Waker, you're already facing trouble from the start. Samus didn't do so well in the Summer Contests for nothing.
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Proud supporter of Geno, Jigglypuff, Kefka, Knuckles, Meta Knight, Mewtwo, Samus, Ultros, Viewtiful Joe, and Zero for SC2k4!

Hey, Ulti, let's get something straight; there are four great games in the 32/68 division. FFT and MGS did very well given their competition; unfortunately, their competition was each other. Few games would get nearly 30% against FF7.

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TU NE CEDE MALIS SED CONTRA AUDENTIOR ITO.

Hey, Ulti, let's get something straight; there are four great games in the 32/68 division. FFT and MGS did very well given their competition; unfortunately, their competition was each other. Few games would get nearly 30% against FF7.


Yeah, those two are fairly strong, right behind Half-Life in the rankings, but Super Mario 64 is probably stronger. Either way, they would probably give Half-Life a run for its money, coming within a couple percent of winning.

I tend to look at it like this

128 had a lot of decent contenders, but none of them were very strong in the end. You could say that they had the most balance, but to be the strongest division you need a powerful game up top, something they didn't have, and a few games to follow. I'd make the case for 16 bit to be strongest, it having 3 games greater in popularity or about equal to the winner of the 128 division. Does 128 have the most balance? Well obviously. But the balance is at as lower level IMO then the other divsions, actually 8 bit you probably have a point, but still, 128 isn't the strongest.

Also, I don't really care about how well half life is lvoed off this site, thats all nice, sure its just a hit, I also never said it = gordon, for the record. However, this is a contest analysis, so why does it matter how it is on other sites?


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Ulti... You're my Honeybunch, Sugarplum Pumpy-umpy umpkin, You're my Sweetie Pie You're my Cuppycake, Gumdrop Snoogums-Boogums, You're the Apple of my Eye

I'd say that at least half the 128 bit division being in the top 20 games is a point in its favor for it being the strongest.

Unless we are basing strengths of divisions off of single games, the 128 division was by far the strongest.

SSBM is the weakest of the final four, but the strength in all of the other divisions vanishes after the first few games.

Zelda and FF are both a distance away from SMB3, CT/LttP/FF6 are heads and tails above anything in their division(only SMW comes close here), and FF7/OoT have nothing in their division that even comes close.

Fire emblem, the weakest game in the 128 division, is stronger than 19 other games throughout the contest.

If you were told you had to pick a random game in any division and put it up against a random game from any other division, the division you would want to put your money on would overwhelmingly be the 128 division. 11 of its games are in the top 20 for god's sake.

If depth is considered for even a moment, 128 comes out the victor here.
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Sp2k4C-120 pts.
Vincent, Ultros, Auron, Frog, Ghaleon, Nanaki, Kerrigan for S2k4C!

where does it say what games got what places?
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"Its better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt"
Stats-173/192-T110

http://www.sc2k4.com/excel/spc2k4_extrapolated.htm
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SpC2K4: Picks 59/63 ... Points 169/192
Pepe Camello's Final Rank: 232

http://www.sc2k4.com/excel/spc2k4_extrapolated_sff.htm

This list takes SFF into account, and I think it is more accurate.
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Steel Falcon: The First EVER 4 year old teenager.

128 had a lot of decent contenders, but none of them were very strong in the end. You could say that they had the most balance, but to be the strongest division you need a powerful game up top, something they didn't have

One, that is completely false. SSBM only took down the three biggest PS2 titles and Starcraft all in a row. And the strongest division doesn`t need to have the most powerful entry into the Final Four. I mean, look at last year`s final four. Are you telling me that Mega Man`s division was strong just because Mega Man made the Final Four? Being a king among insects doesn`t make the insects royalty. And two, I thought you said stat topics were nothing more than smart people arguing over stupid things?

Sins: The rankings are based off of creativename`s recursive rankings. He even factored in SFF and had it become a non-factor in the rankings, which was pure genius on his part. And look how the top of the list is littered with games from D-128.

Ace: Yeah, sorry about that. But I was only referring to the elite games in D32-64, and there are only two of them. MGS and FFT are good and all, but neither of them stood any chance whatsoever getting out of that division.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

I'd make the case for 16 bit to be strongest, it having 3 games greater in popularity or about equal to the winner of the 128 division.

All three of those games in the 16 bit division are slightly stronger than SSBM. They would win in a match, but the margin would only around 55-45 at worst. Problem is, after SSBM come 4 other games (Starcraft, WW, FX, and Halo) who would also lose by a very small margin. And then everything up to Metroid Prime, the 9th strongest game in the 128 division, would pull at least 40 percent.

Look at the 4th strongest game in the 16 bit division, SMW. 8 games in the 128 division would beat it. The 5th strongest 16 bit game, SMRPG, is weaker than 12 games in the 128 division. In fact, any of those 12 games would beat anything below 5th strongest in any of the other divisions.

You see where I'm going?

Taking a random game from 128 against a random game from the 16 bit division, the 128 division will win the vast majority of the time. This, combined with the fact that 8 games in the 128 division are fairly close to the top 3 from the 16 bit, is more than enough for me to call the 128 division as the strongest - it doesnt have any of the superstars of the tournament, but as a division it is vastly more solid than any of the others.

Heck, I don't even know if I'd give the 16 bit division 2nd strongest overall. It has a little more depth than the 32/64 division, but i don't know if it is enough to overpower the fact the strength of OoT and FF7 combined with the fact that the bottom of the 16 bit division is horrible.

The only thing that is clear to me is that the 8 bit division runs away with the title of weakest division. It doesnt even come close.
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Sp2k4C-120 pts.
Vincent, Ultros, Auron, Frog, Ghaleon, Nanaki, Kerrigan for S2k4C!

Ultimaterializer>Mass Carriers
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There is no Emoticon for what I am Feeling!-Comic Book Guy

Good-old Copy-paste action. The first number is the ranking, the second number is the division they were from, and the third number is what seed they were within their division. The final percentage is what the game would have scored on Final Fantasy 7.

Surprise! The top 20 is dominated by Division 128, making it the best division overall.

1 32-64 1 Final Fantasy VII 50.00%
2 32-64 2 The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 46.18%
3 16 1 Chrono Trigger 41.76%
4 16 6 The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past 41.61%
5 8 1 Super Mario Bros. 3 39.90%
6 16 2 Final Fantasy III (VI) 39.40%
7 128 2 Super Smash Bros. Melee 37.57%
8 128 16 Starcraft 37.36%
9 128 5 The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker 37.29%
10 128 1 Halo: Combat Evolved 37.24%
11 8 3 The Legend of Zelda 37.08%
12 128 3 Final Fantasy X 36.86%
13 32-64 7 Super Mario 64 35.08%
14 128 7 Grand Theft Auto: Vice City 34.91%
15 128 9 Kingdom Hearts 34.70%
16 16 3 Super Metroid 34.61%
17 128 8 Soul Calibur 34.28%
18 16 4 Super Mario World 34.24%
19 128 4 Metroid Prime 33.40%
20 128 15 Metal Gear Solid 2 32.52%
21 8 4 Final Fantasy 32.24%
22 128 13 Half-Life 29.28%
23 32-64 4 Metal Gear Solid 28.70%
24 32-64 5 Final Fantasy Tactics 28.68%
25 8 8 Metroid 28.04%
26 128 10 Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 27.71%
27 16 8 Super Mario RPG 27.51%
28 32-64 3 Goldeneye 24.89%
29 128 6 Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 24.67%
30 16 9 Street Fighter II 24.08%
31 16 10 Doom 21.49%
32 16 15 Mortal Kombat 21.21%
33 32-64 11 Castlevania: Symphony of the Night 20.27%
34 16 5 Sonic the Hedgehog 2 20.15%
35 32-64 9 Xenogears 19.97%
36 8 12 Contra 19.31%
37 32-64 6 Perfect Dark 18.98%
38 128 12 Skies of Arcadia 18.86%
39 8 2 Tetris 18.86%
40 128 14 Shenmue 18.82%
41 16 7 Earthbound 18.47%
42 8 9 Pac-Man 17.66%
43 16 16 Secret of Mana 17.21%
44 32-64 13 Resident Evil 16.86%
45 32-64 8 Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal 16.80%
46 128 11 Fire Emblem 16.59%
47 8 6 Donkey Kong 15.38%
48 8 11 Duck Hunt 15.36%
49 8 5 Phantasy Star 15.06%
50 32-64 16 Suikoden II 14.37%
51 8 16 Metal Gear 14.13%
52 32-64 12 Dance Dance Revolution 13.75%
53 16 13 The Simpsons 12.69%
54 32-64 15 Fallout 2 12.64%
55 16 14 Phantasy Star IV 11.57%
56 32-64 10 NiGHTS into dreams... 10.64%
57 8 7 Pong 10.01%
58 32-64 14 Panzer Dragoon Saga 9.55%
59 8 15 Galaga 8.20%
60 8 13 Pitfall 7.98%
61 16 12 Shining Force 7.78%
62 16 11 Gunstar Heroes 7.37%
63 8 10 River City Ransom 6.40%
64 8 14 Adventure 3.56%
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Fire emblem, the weakest game in the 128 division, is stronger than 19 other games throughout the contest.

This kind of claim seems pretty ridiculous to me. Do you really think that Fire Emblem would beat all 19 of those games? The extrapolated rankings are great, but sometimes you need to apply common sense. When the extrapolated rankings put MGS 2 above MGS, I think that tells us that the scores for the 128 division are inflated across the board.

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"A fool and his money are soon elected."
- Will Rogers

The SFF rankings bug me a little bit...

For all we know, there could've been SFF in other matches, like CT vs. SoM or FFX vs. FFTA. Just because the percentages weren't surprising doesn't mean there wasn't SFF. :P

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UltimaterializerX owns me in every aspect of life...I mean, of GameFAQs Spring Contests, that is.

The extrapolated rankings are great, but sometimes you need to apply common sense. When the extrapolated rankings put MGS 2 above MGS, I think that tells us that the scores for the 128 division are inflated across the board.

Common sense also dictates that Crono is a forgotten hero, that Link should have won the second Character contest, and that a 16 Seed wouldn't reach the Elite 8. Personally, I think common sense is overrated in these contests :p

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When I think of Suikoden, I think of fifty (censored) guys standing in a burned-down village and groping each other. -http://videogamerecaps.com/

Division 32-64 Round 1: (6)Perfect Dark vs (11)Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

Perfect Dark - 35930 (46.82%)
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - 40813 (53.18%)
Total Votes - 76743
Vote Difference - 4883
Prediction Percentage - 53.25%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b21.jpg
Picture Rating - 5.58/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Perfect Dark - 31
Entries for Castlevania - 65
Total Entries - 96

This match was one of the most odd matches in the contest. For starters, this was the personification of overhype. Slowflake coined the phrase 'BangFang Triangle' during the various pre-match debates invoving the bracket.

"If Goldeneye can obviously take down Perfect Dark, then why can`t it take down Castlevania?"

"If Perfect Dark can beat Castlevania, what stops it from taking down Goldeneye? After all, it`s the better game."

"But wait! If Castlevania beats Perfect Dark, what stops it from beating Goldeneye? They just the same game, you know."

"Touché! Perfect Dark is simply a rehash of Goldeneye. Goldeneye would own either game."

"IDIOTS! Catlevania is strong enough to beat Perfect Dark, but Goldeneye is completely out of its league."

And so on and so on and so on. As it would turn out, those of us who theorized that Perfect Dark and Goldeneye are two completely animals in a poll were right. Alucard`s past performances were no joke, as his popularity stems from his game. Perfect Dark, while one of the great N64 games out there, was victim of being released during the dying days of the N64. The fact that it sold so much despite this drawback should tell everyone how great a game Perfect Dark truly is. It`s one of my favorites, and it really sucked that I went against it on my bracket in this match. But hey, you can`t deny Alucard`s past performances being a huge warning sign for how strong Symphony of the Night is, and apparently, over half of the bracketmakers saw this as well.

The poll itself was close for the few few seconds, but Symphony of the Night soon began torching Perfect Dark with the early morning vote and on through the morning itself. After building a substantial lead, Perfect Dark managed to fight back and come back like a bullet in the percentages. Perfect Dark managed to split the vote evenly with Symphony of the Night for quite a long time in this poll. But then, one of the more odd events to ever hit a poll happened right around noon. The poll stopped updating for literally hours. Votes were still counted, but the poll literally froze until the evening.

And when the poll finally updated, we were all pleasantly surprised to see that Perfect Dark literally split the vote throughout the entire afternoon. It didn`t make a huge comeback or anything, but the match went from a total blowout to a respectable loss for Perfect Dark. Symphony of the Night made a small push with the evening vote to win by nearly 5000, but the sumliminal damage was done. If Symphony of the Night had to scratch and claw its way to a win against Perfect Dark, then there was no way in hell that it was taking down Goldeneye, this making this one of the most overhyped 3 packs ever.

Then again, it was all a part of Alucard`s Plan to let Perfect Dark hang around a little bit =)
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Have at ye, 128 bit division theory! ::CLANG::

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TU NE CEDE MALIS SED CONTRA AUDENTIOR ITO.

Do you really think that Fire Emblem would beat all 19 of those games?

Have you looked at the 19 games that it is above? Yes, i believe it would beat all of them. The other divisions have far too many pathetic entries.

Only 3 of division 128's games are in the bottom 32 games. Think of what that means for a second.
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Sp2k4C-120 pts.
Vincent, Ultros, Auron, Frog, Ghaleon, Nanaki, Kerrigan for S2k4C!

But my goodness, we were pretty off on how powerful FF6 truly turned out to be on this site. Many people, including me, still consider it the best game in the series by far.


I didn't expect that from a guy who likes FFT so much he would torture himself with all-calculators...


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RPG Elite (777) Dragoon Choco-Mage
"I think somewhere Tolkien mentions that elves had ears." - Epic of Man

Starcraft screwed up the rankings in Division 128. I said long ago that the rankings would be ****ed and it looks like I was right. It will be a cold day in Hades before Halo beats Super Mario 64 on this site, or Metal Gear Solid 2 beats MGS.
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Married to UltimaterializerX on 5/21/04
Ulti pwned me so completely in the Sp2k4 contest that I won't be able to sit for a week.

Oh my God, Smitelf agrees with me on an issue.

I could shed tears of joy right now, folks.

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TU NE CEDE MALIS SED CONTRA AUDENTIOR ITO.

Although this was a couple pages back, you were spot on with the Metroid series UltimaterializerX. Although I've been a contributer here for over a year, this was the first contest I really got into and had never used the boards prior to it. In other words, I knew nothing of the trends on this site. I chose Super Metroid over LTTP and Metroid Prime over WW without a second thought, and was truly shocked to see them suffer such embarrassing losses second round. (You can decide whether I mean embarrassing for Metroid or for Game FAQs users, I won't comment...) Anyways, refer to pretty much any large scale, mainstream reviewing service that has done a "greatest games of all time" feature, be it magazine or website, and you'll almost always find Super Metroid in the top ten. The one big exception is Game Informer's top 100; Super Metroid only got 29th, but the editors went out of their way to comment that this was only because they let the readers in on forming the list. Although the common fan seems to think that Zelda is and always has been superior to Metroid, the professional reviewing scene obviously doesn't. (and neither do I) Out of all the Nintendo franchises, Metroid is perhaps the most brilliant and it's sad to see it get shortchanged like this.
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"None of us are as dumb as all of us together."

uhh

are you saying Mega Man's division isn't strong? o.O. Also, mega man got his ass kicked by sephiroth, so I would deem seph's division stronger. And Seph's division is OBVIOUSLY the strongest from last year, maybe link's too. they were pretty balanced IMO last year, Except cloud's was light.

I actually, as I usually do, disagree with those rankings.

Yes, I do think 90% of the time it is smart people arguing over dumb things, which is why I RARELY post in the topics. You are all smart, given. But some of this stuff IMO is just stupid.

I guess I'll never agree with these damned rankings.


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Ulti... You're my Honeybunch, Sugarplum Pumpy-umpy umpkin, You're my Sweetie Pie You're my Cuppycake, Gumdrop Snoogums-Boogums, You're the Apple of my Eye

Those rankings are a bit off, you cant tell me that Sonic 2 would lose to some of the games ahead of it.
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"Its better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt"
Stats-173/192-T110

are you saying Mega Man's division isn't strong? o.O

Mega Man`s division was horrendous last year:

(1)Solid Snake
(16)Raiden
(8)Knuckles
(9)Yuna
(5)Ryu
(12)Duke Nukem
(4)Dante
(13)Ryo Hazuki
(6)Donkey Kong
(11)Vyse
(3)Tommy Vercetti
(14)Kite
(7)Zelda
(10)Lara Croft
(2)Mega Man
(15)Mr. Resetti

Only Solid Snake and Mega Man are characters to note from that division, and only Mega Man has the potential to ever be able to cause real damage in these contests.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Division 32-64 Round 1: (3)Goldeneye vs (14)Panzer Dragoon Saga

Goldeneye - 61079 (80.81%)
Panzer Dragoon Saga - 14504 (19.19%)
Total Votes - 75583
Vote Difference - 46575
Prediction Percentage - 92.61%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b22.jpg
Picture Rating - 4.75/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Goldeneye - 77
Entries for Panzer Dragoon Saga - 1
Total Entries - 78

I know I said that Castlevania`s doom was spelled out for it once it struggled with Perfect Dark, but Goldeneye still had to prove that it would win the match. It did so by easily dispatching the Sega Dreamcast title in scoring over 80% of the vote. Most doubt about whether or not Goldeneye would make it to the Sweet 16 were doused after this match, with merely a few SOTN hopefuls maintaining that it could still win.

But like some of us were saying all along, Goldeneye is a different animal from Perfect Dark. It was the highest-selling game for the N64 until Ocarina of Time was released, and it was fresh. Perfect Dark was simply a sexier (literally) Goldeneye, and didn`t have the same suavé to it. But more on all of that later. For this match, it was a simple blowout that proved Goldeneye`s superiority in the so-called BangFang Triangle, and nothing more.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

oh, well, mention Zelda anyway in that Division, since she's cool, and well, Zelda. But she did get I think it was almost 40% on MegaMan, that's not too shabby for her.
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Revenge is a dish best served cold.-Old Klingon Proverb
Congrats to UltimaterializerX, winner of the Guru Challenge.

Metal Gear Solid 2 beats MGS.

I could actually see MGS2 beating it on this site. MGS2 is more recent, which could give it an advantage, unlikely as it seems.
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Sp2k4C-120 pts.
Vincent, Ultros, Auron, Frog, Ghaleon, Nanaki, Kerrigan for S2k4C!

Starcraft screwed up the rankings in Division 128. I said long ago that the rankings would be ****ed and it looks like I was right. It will be a cold day in Hades before Halo beats Super Mario 64 on this site, or Metal Gear Solid 2 beats MGS.

MGS2 being ahead of MGS has nothing to with Starcraft. Think about it:

FFVII beat MGS directly.
FFVII beat SSBM directly.
SSBM beat MGS2.

Nowhere does it involve Starcraft.


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UltimaterializerX owns me in every aspect of life...I mean, of GameFAQs Spring Contests, that is.

by easily dispatching the Sega Dreamcast title

Panzer Dragoon Saga was for the Sega Saturn ^_~.

As usual, Ulti, I enjoy these analyses immensely. Keep up the good work!
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Nominate Id from Xenogears and Kain from FFIV for SC2K4
Happy The Magus RPG party will be revived by Camwi!

are you saying Mega Man's division isn't strong?

Mega Man`s division was ridiculously weak. Solid Snake was the only other contender to ever comment on in that division and even then Mega Man was in no immediate danger of losing that match. There wasn`t anything strong about it.
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Nintendo® - We Make Games Worth Playing
Ultimaterializer > Nintendo

Slowflake coined the phrase 'BangFang Triangle' during the various pre-match debates invoving the bracket.

For the record, that wasn't me. I just thought the name was so great I just used it whenever I wanted to designate these three games.
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

I think the extrapolated rankings look pretty good, despite my personal bias toward Metroid games and the inflation of certain D-128 games due to Starcraft. Even Fire Emblem being where it's at makes sense to me. Yet, the one thing that I can't understand is the positioning of MGS2 and MGS. As was said earlier, Starcraft had no relationship to MGS2, thus failing to inflate its ranking in that way. But if the two met head-to-head, there's no way I could picture a scenario in which MGS2 won. MGS is simply considered by almost all game fans to be the superior game, and I can't imagine an actual poll turning out any differently. Anyone care to share their thoughts about this strange glitch in the system?
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Proud supporter of Geno, Jigglypuff, Kefka, Knuckles, Meta Knight, Mewtwo, Samus, Ultros, Viewtiful Joe, and Zero for SC2k4!

Scipio Africanus came up with a "SSBM was Nintendo's last hope so it got move votes than it normally would have against FFVII" theory, which makes sense and would inflate MGS2's standings (as well as every other game in the division).

Take that as you will, and direct criticism/accolades toward him, as I can take no credit for that.
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Final SpC2k3 Score: 163 (It's all Starcraft's fault)
Nominate Frog for SC2k4!

MGS is simply considered by almost all game fans to be the superior game

Um, as far as WW/Prime is concerned, Prime is simply considered by almost all game fans to be the superior game.

That's the kind of logic many people on this board used, and it wrecked them.
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

Scipio Africanus came up with a "SSBM was Nintendo's last hope so it got move votes than it normally would have against FFVII" theory, which makes sense and would inflate MGS2's standings (as well as every other game in the division).

Normally, I don't believe in such things. I mean, Link was Ninty's last hope last year, and he proves to be an extremely reliable reference as far as 2002/2003 conversions go.

But this sounds eerily like my theory on the 2002 Link/Sephiroth match. You know what? Let's wait until SSBM loses next year to draw conclusions.
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

Mega Man is a threat no matter what division he is in...

Especially this year, everyone is talking about voting for him and such even more, it seems like he could rally the troops...

On a side note, Ulti, you should join my tag tourny! Big names like MMX are still open to be partners...

PS Great job with the stats all along and the win!
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Sign up for my User Tag Tourny II, and vote in User OOT, & Capcom/Konami OOT
Plot? What plot? I'm Canadian, that makes me brutally simple. - HydraCores

That's the kind of logic many people on this board used, and it wrecked them.
Heh, I would be one of those people who followed that logic...whoops.
Seriously, though, when comparing MP and WW, you're comparing two completely different genres of games, and people's opinions of those genres and series tend to skew the results, regardless of the actual quality of the games.
When comparing MGS and MGS2, though, you're not just comparing the same genre, but the exact same series. The results will tend to lean toward which game is generally considered to be better. Hence, an MGS victory.
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Proud supporter of Geno, Jigglypuff, Kefka, Knuckles, Meta Knight, Mewtwo, Samus, Ultros, Viewtiful Joe, and Zero for SC2k4!

ah hah.
so this is where all the discussion went.

...i don't have time for any serious output right now, so consider this a tag.
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signature (n.): a random bit of gibberish that no one ever reads.

Starcraft screwed up the rankings in Division 128. I said long ago that the rankings would be ****ed and it looks like I was right. It will be a cold day in Hades before Halo beats Super Mario 64 on this site, or Metal Gear Solid 2 beats MGS.

Yeah, Starcraft would have screwed some things up, with its ridiculous cheating. I don't think the rankings even account for the votes that CJayC caught, not to mention all the rest. Regardless of that, Halo beating SM64 would definitely be possible. It's a very strong game.

As for MGS and MGS2, MGS could suffer from the Yoshi syndrome. Yoshi dominates against other Mario characters, but does quite poorly against everyone else. MGS2 being played by more people would easily explain this.

Ulti! Don't know if you think it will be worth it to do the extra typing, but I have some more stats that I think would make a very nice addition to your analysis of the rest of the matches. The following is a list of the actual winner of each matchup and its final percent, followed by what % that game was predicted to achieve by the average from all entries in the Oracle Challenge. Lastly is how far above or below the actual number we were, on average.

The Complete Oracle Avg Predictions
(which games most over/underachived)

1 Mario 3 82.30% 80.59% 1.71%
2 Metroid 68.51% 61.75% 6.76%
3 Contra 61.02% 52.70% 8.32%
4 Final Fantasy 87.64% 81.80% 5.84%
5 Donkey Kong 50.07% 52.99% -2.92%
6 Zelda 1 95.20% 89.08% 6.12%
7 Pong 68.01% 61.98% 6.03%
8 Tetris 78.25% 79.57% -1.32%
9 Chrono Trigger 79.39% 81.94% -2.55%
10 Mario RPG 56.24% 53.10% 3.14%
11 Sonic 2 80.71% 74.05% 6.66%
12 Mario World 81.48% 77.91% 3.57%
13 Link to the Past 91.11% 86.16% 4.95%
14 Super Metroid 83.24% 77.74% 5.50%
15 Doom 57.04% 51.12% 5.92%
16 FF3/6 73.08% 77.51% -4.43%
17 FF7 85.63% 87.78% -2.15%
18 Xenogears 57.95% 49.54% 8.41%
19 FFT 76.03% 74.43% 1.60%
20 MGS 70.62% 69.74% 0.88%
21 Castlevania 53.18% 54.82% -1.64%
22 Goldeneye 80.81% 81.65% -0.84%
23 Mario 64 84.83% 84.07% 0.76%
24 Ocarina 86.31% 89.94% -3.63%
25 Starcraft 50.17% 44.38% 5.79%
26 Kingdom Hearts 50.60% 64.65% -14.05%
27 Wind Waker 74.71% 79.50% -4.79%
28 Prime 56.16% 73.24% -17.08%
29 FFTA 66.36% 63.74% 2.62%
30 FFX 74.48% 83.06% -8.58%
31 Vice City 60.32% 63.01% -2.69%
32 Melee 56.72% 64.68% -7.96%
33 Mario 3 78.04% 67.96% 10.08%
34 Final Fantasy 70.05% 73.70% -3.65%
35 Zelda 1 87.04% 78.64% 8.40%
36 Tetris 73.47% 66.29% 7.18%
37 Chrono Trigger 67.06% 66.54% 0.52%
38 Mario World 70.57% 56.51% 14.06%
39 Link to the Past 74.00% 59.83% 14.17%
40 FF3/6 72.72% 72.33% 0.39%
41 FF7 80.03% 77.69% 2.34%
42 MGS 50.02% 56.79% -6.77%
43 Goldeneye 59.28% 54.54% 4.74%
44 Ocarina 76.26% 67.59% 8.67%
45 Starcraft 53.57% 47.83% 5.74%
46 Wind Waker 55.22% 58.93% -3.71%
47 FFX 66.54% 73.42% -6.88%
48 Melee 53.54% 54.95% -1.41%
49 Mario 3 59.60% 61.21% -1.61%
50 Zelda 1 74.57% 70.88% 3.69%
51 Chrono Trigger 59.01% 55.14% 3.87%
52 Link to the Past 52.66% 55.73% -3.07%
53 FF7 71.30% 66.77% 4.53%
54 Ocarina 73.05% 70.80% 2.25%
55 Starcraft 50.10% 44.57% 5.53%
56 Melee 50.94% 48.03% 2.91%
57 Mario 3 56.78% 51.98% 4.80%
58 Chrono Trigger 50.18% 51.46% -1.28%
59 FF7 53.82% 51.05% 2.77%
60 Starcraft 50.27% 50.57% -0.30%
61 Chrono Trigger 52.23% 50.90% 1.33%
62 FF7 62.43% 58.32% 4.11%
63 FF7 58.24% 57.58% 0.66%

I bolded the top 5 biggest surprises, based on what we "experts" were expecting to see.

Oh, and great topic so far, BTW. You can be sure this one is being added to the Archive as soon as its over.

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the-elite.net congratulates Ulti, winner of the Guru Bracket Challenge! (185 pts)
Contest Archives: geocities.com/cyber1166/gamefaqs

I don`t get how you came up with those stats, but they`re pretty damned sweet. And no offense to MWIS, but that theory is complete BS. 'Last stand' votes mean about as much as anti votes and the board vote. They matter for the first few minutes of the poll, then the overwhelming mass of '**** you, I`m just picking my favorite game and moving on with my life' votes shows us the true strength of the games. There are notable exceptions to this, but SSBM isn`t one of them. I`ve been saying since day one that SSBM was a stronger game than everyone made it out to be, and what do you know, it won its division and did decently well against FF7.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Division 32-64 Round 1: (7)Super Mario 64 vs (10)NiGHTS into dreams...

Super Mario 64 - 69209 (84.83%)
NiGHTS into dreams... - 12375 (15.17%)
Total Votes - 81584
Vote Difference - 56834
Prediction Percentage - 94.65%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b23.jpg
Picture Rating - 6.22/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Super Mario 64 - 75
Entries for NiGHTS into dreams... - 0
Total Entries - 75

Would you believe that NiGHTS has the highest overall review score of any game in this contest? Props to Slowflake for that information, and props to both him and steve illumina for doing previews for each match. It isn`t easy signing on to do a writeup every day, believe me.

But back to NiGHTS. Of all the games in this contest, a lowly little Sega Saturn title destined for nothing other than being overseeded and getting its ass kicked in the first round, has the highest review score of any game in this contest. Apparently, we have quite a gem on our hands. The problem is that most people haven`t heard of it, and it got the beating that it was expected to get against the revolutionary Mario 64.

As for Mario 64, talk about a game given the shaft in this contest. It was horribly underseeded at 7, and its reward is a one way ticket out of this contest in the second round thanks to being inevitably paired up with Ocarina of Time. Sucks too, because I wasn`t kidding when I mentioned how revolutionary Mario 64 was. It deserved a better fate, but again, 63 games left this contest unhappy.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Division 32-64 Round 1: (2)The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time vs (15)Fallout 2

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - 82903 (86.31%)
Fallout 2 - 13150 (13.69%)
Total Votes - 96053
Vote Difference - 69753
Prediction Percentage - 96.32%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b24.jpg
Picture Rating - 5.5/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Ocarina of Time - 81
Entries for Fallout 2 - 5
Total Entries - 86

Another match featuring a Zelda title, another huge blowout that made it look like Zelda was going to own this contest. And I don`t blame people for thinking this, but look deeper into the stats. It especially helps when one notices that the site looked perfectly normal for this matchup, with only one poll on the front page. The same held true for FF7`s match against Suikoden II, so the comparisons were easy.

Remember the comparison I made between Sonic 2 and Super Mario World? The same exact thing works here as well. FF7 faced a tougher opponent than Ocarina of Time, yet it managed a higher prediction percentage, more votes, and saw the vote total in its poll go much higher than the total in Ocarina of Time`s poll. The only difference is that Suikoden II managed to score 2000 more votes than Fallout 2. Big deal. Suikoden II is a stronger game for a reason. The horribly overhyped FF7/OOT matchup was decided once this poll was over, though watching people continue to make cases for Ocarina of Time with the proof right in front of them was pretty funny to watch.

Not to disrespect either of these two games or anything. Ocarina of Time sold 10 million copies for a reason, and Fallout 2 is quite the amazing PC RPG. But in terms of pure extrapolated strength, Final Fantasy 7 won this contest 24 polls into it.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Tag.

Oh crap, I just realized which match was up next.

*takes a break*
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Wow.

It's like a koala crapped a rainbow in my brain.

Intense stuff.
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"Darkness is the heart's true essence!" - Ansem, Kingdom Hearts

tag
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Mass Zigs = Instant great justice!!!
Currently playing: Fire Emblem, Twinbee, Majora's Mask

*prepares mass orgasms for next analysis*

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When I think of Suikoden, I think of fifty (censored) guys standing in a burned-down village and groping each other. -http://videogamerecaps.com/

*prepares mass orgasms for next analysis*

mass orgasms = instant win.

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"A fool and his money are soon elected."
- Will Rogers

Aw... not going to include the Oracle info in the rest of the writeups? That's a shame, I think it'd give everyone a much better feel of who the favorite was and by how much. The Prophet stats do that as well, but not to the same extent.

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the-elite.net congratulates Ulti, winner of the Guru Bracket Challenge! (185 pts)
Contest Archives: geocities.com/cyber1166/gamefaqs

*still waiting for Halo vs SC..*
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ALL YOUR VOTE ARE BELONG TO CATS
Final Spring Placement: 175 Points, Tied for 72nd place

yes

Aw... not going to include the Oracle info in the rest of the writeups?

No, simply because I`m big on one format the whole way through. I was never one for adding things in the middle. But come the summer, give me that list the day after the contest ends =)
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

great analysis ulti and congrats on your well deserved win. Now lets get that Halo vs Starcraft analysis up :)
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My Collection: users.ign.com/collection/Dark115.
Now Playing: Chrono Cross, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

did ulti or kiren win? or is it still undecided?

Slowflake coined the phrase 'BangFang Triangle'


...err...

*waves*


And good job so far.


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Shake here : The Goblin.

The horribly overhyped FF7/OOT matchup was decided once this poll was over, though watching people continue to make cases for Ocarina of Time with the proof right in front of them was pretty funny to watch.

Ullti, for crying out loud you may know the results now but don`t act like that match was over once we saw the first round performances. There was no way in hell that we could who was going to win the division based off of this match and to think so just blows my mind. I could understand this more if you said the MGS vs. GoldenEye match but round 1? Sheesh.
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Nintendo® - We Make Games Worth Playing
Ultimaterializer > Nintendo

don`t act like that match was over once we saw the first round performances.

But it was, for reasons that I clearly stated already. It`s all right there in the stats. FF7 had a higher prediction percentage and more votes against a stronger opponent. The Zelda fans can argue with that all they want to, but those types of numbers aren`t exactly refutable. And it isn`t like I wasn`t sitting here preaching that OOT stood no chance after the first round matches were over, either. I was sitting around saying it was done for weeks, and oddly enough, it lost within the first hour of the poll. What was clearly going to happen was all right there in black and white after the first round, and it was crystal clear after the third. I understand that statement being made had I just recently started believing such things, but I`ve been saying this ever since the Fallout 2 poll was done and overwith.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Oh, and read the first post please. This topic is my opinion, and nothing more. You can believe whatever you wish, but it was my opinion that OOT was sealed and done for after the first round.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

But we didn't know the prediction percentages at the time, and the vote totals aren't exactly reliable. Sure, we're all aware of FF7's and Cloud's vote-drawing powers, but after we've seen the top three total vote counts being Cloud vs. Pikachu, Cloud vs. Alucard, and Cloud vs. Fox... guess what happened on Cloud's next match?

Besides, I never really thought one opponent was stronger than the other, though I'd have actually given an edge to Fallout at some point in time.

So, that was Shake who coined the "BangFang Triangle". Well, at least I coined other stuff.
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

So, that was Shake who coined the "BangFang Triangle".

Whoopsie. Sorry Shake >_<
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Assuming that Fallout 2 was weaker than Suikoden II, at that stage in the game, seemed pretty chancy at best. We had no idea how these games compared, and as the contest showed us, some of our preconceived ideas of games strengths were horribly off. Trying to compare which jobber is stronger tells us very little about the contest will actually turn out. At best, i think the end of the first round of 32/64 told us nothing more than the fact that FF7 could be taken as a favorite against OoT - by no means was it a lock.

Hell, even in the extrapolated standings the two games arent exactly all that far apart.
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Sp2k4C-120 pts.
Vincent, Ultros, Auron, Frog, Ghaleon, Nanaki, Kerrigan for S2k4C!

It`s all right there in the stats.

During that time there was no way to clearly tell how much stronger Suikoden II was than Fallout 2 nor was there any pure proof to say Suikoden II was even stronger than Fallout 2. Ocarina of Time got a higher percentage against Fallout 2 than Final Fantasy VII against, at that time, an unknown in strength opponent. You of all people should know you did not expect FFVII to win in that match.

FF7 had a higher prediction percentage and more votes against a stronger opponent.

At end of the 32/64 division how could you possibly tell how much stronger either of these were than the other?

The Zelda fans can argue with that all they want to, but those types of numbers aren`t exactly refutable.

I`m not arguing that OoT did better or anything of that nature, I`m simply saying that there was not a way to possibly say FFVII was going to win that match, guaranteed, by the end of the first round. You even kept saying that you had wished you had put more Zelda games in the final four and didn`t like the board for changing your mind.

And it isn`t like I wasn`t sitting here preaching that OOT stood no chance after the first round matches were over, either. I was sitting around saying it was done for weeks, and oddly enough, it lost within the first hour of the poll.

I do believe you kept talking about how you wished you had kept almost every Zelda in the final four because they were unstoppable. Remember that little bit? I`m sure people in the stats topic do. ;)

What was clearly going to happen was all right there in black and white after the first round,

I would like to hear someone who said it was a done deal going by first round performances. This may be your opinion now, but back then I still am in awe that you believe it was set after we saw that match.

and it was crystal clear after the third.

That is far more understandable.

I understand that statement being made had I just recently started believing such things, but I`ve been saying this ever since the Fallout 2 poll was done and overwith.

Umm...

Oh, and read the first post please. This topic is my opinion, and nothing more. You can believe whatever you wish, but it was my opinion that OOT was sealed and done for after the first round.

All I`m telling you is that not only you but many others talked about the all-Zelda final four and how they were all going to win. Yet after round 1 it was sealed? It just kills me to hear you say that this was a done deal after round 1 now, but back then I hadn`t heard you say anything like that.

But yeah it is your opinion. I just found the statement a little shocking to hear.
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Nintendo® - We Make Games Worth Playing
Ultimaterializer > Nintendo

guess what happened on Cloud's next match?

PlanetGamecube and a 500 vote jump (with photo proof from a Graal screenshot) that was never dealt with by CJayC.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Even there, the insane numbers Cloud put up never indicated Mario would even come close, let alone win, PGC or not.
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

And while it is your opinion on the matter you still made it seem like people who were backing Ocarina of Time were being delusional for thinking OoT could win.
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Nintendo® - We Make Games Worth Playing
Ultimaterializer > Nintendo

You even kept saying that you had wished you had put more Zelda games in the final four and didn`t like the board for changing your mind.

I said nothing about OOT, and those posts were in reference to LTTP and Zelda 1. But anyway, we`re taking up space with this nonsense. The stats topic is there for a reason.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

I said nothing about OOT,

Hmm... I thought I remember you saying that about Ocarina of Time as well. *shrug*
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Nintendo® - We Make Games Worth Playing
Ultimaterializer > Nintendo

lol at mass orgasms= instant win ^_^ (How many times did I do that on that night.... I was so out of it...)
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Married to SemiFinal vs Belarus since June 1st, 2004.

er, alanna...
sounds like you had multiple 'instant wins' that night...

>_>
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RPG Elite (777) Dragoon Choco-Mage
"I think somewhere Tolkien mentions that elves had ears." - Epic of Man

Hah Hah, SC vs. Halo is next!

Ulti, you couldn't tell FFVII would win for sure, and you know it. It's easy to speak now that the contest is over. Good try tough.

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Nintendo & Dream Theater
Forever

guys.. Maybe, to him, the stats looked convincing and he thought that it was clear.

It's his opinion, not yours. You can tell him that you viewed the stats otherwise, great. But he viewed them the way he did, and made a conclusion the way he did. You can do and think whatever you want, but it doesn't change what he thought.

Waiting...
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Now a proud Rider of Lohan.

I am now boycotting this topic!

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TU NE CEDE MALIS SED CONTRA AUDENTIOR ITO.

*waits and tags*
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In the game of life I can be your most powerful ally... Or your worst enemy.

The two people who are presuming my opinion to be wrong are Nintendo fans. Shocking. Anyway, I`ll get the next one up in a few minutes. Just let me count up Pink Floyd vs RHCP first.

And yes, I did believe OOT was going to lose. You can assume little assumptions all you want to, but I could honestly care less about them.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

when i read this argument i could have sworn ulti wouldn't shut up about zelda ruling over this contest.
but i was bored enough to check the old topics for a bit...and it turned out he was right.
it was just zelda 1 and lttp.

congratulations, ultimaterializerx, as you have schooled me without even knowing it.
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signature (n.): a random bit of gibberish that no one ever reads.

Division 128 Round 1: (1)Halo: Combat Evolved vs (16)Starcraft

Halo: Combat Evolved - 56258 (49.83%)
Starcraft - 56631 (50.17%)
Total Votes - 112889 (!!!)
Vote Difference - 373
Prediction Percentage - 24.09%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b25.jpg
Picture Rating - 7.25/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Halo: Combat Evolved - 68
Entries for Starcraft - 41
Total Entries - 109

This was, by far, the most important and most hotly debated first round match we`ve ever had in one of these contests. In most dimensions, 16 seeds simply don`t take down 1 seeds. In fact, they never come close. But not in this contest. The following is my own personal take on why this match would be pure hell from start to finish. WARNING: This rant is extremely biased, and you might not want to read it at all if you`re a big Halo fan.

Now, for the orgasmic Halo/Starcraft analysis. If people didn`t know how this match would go before reading this thing, they were even more confused afterwards. DpObliVion himself said of the writeup:

Damn you, Ulti. It's when people like you posts analyses like that (and yours was by far the best one) that make me lose every last bit of confidence in Halo winning this match.

I wouldn't be surprised in the least bit if StarCraft won. Unfortunately though, I'd be putting that match right next to Phantasy Star vs. Contra under my "Why the **** didn't I listen to everyone?" section of my lost points.

Not to be outdone, smitelf had her own take on the work:

I would like to take this moment to politely and sincerely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis.

Ulti...there is absolutely nothing I can argue with in that analysis. Nothing left out, nothing not said with enough emphasis...it's just perfect. Absolutely ****ing perfect. That is the best post I have ever read anywhere, ever. I don't know words that can describe the beauty of what you wrote. It was as touching as a post on video games could ever aspire to be.

Okay, now that the touchy-feely crap is over with, damn you! I was looking forward to ripping your analysis apart, but noooo, you have to write as if you tore the thoughts out of my mind -- no, my very soul -- and then go about making them articulate! I curse your perfection!

So sit back and relax. My reposting of that analysis is only the beginning of what may be the longest and most in-depth analysis of the entire topic.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Finally, a match worthy of being read into. Too many first round joke polls. CjayC has openly stated that Halo is a #1 seed because it got more nominations than any other game. Fair enough, but this means nothing whatsoever. How many of those nominations were from actual fans? Many people just didn`t feel like leaving the Xbox part of the form blank, so they put Halo in due to not being able to think of anything else. This allowed Halo to get a ton of nominations from people who hate the Xbox. Starcraft, however, completely earned its spot in this contest. The PC has been around producing games for almost years, yet thanks to CjayC`s horrendous nomination system, we could only nominate one game per system, two for the PC if you were smart enough to realize there was both a Windows and a Mac PC form. That being said, Starcraft is in this contest after splitting an absolute **** load of PC nominations with a load of other games. If anything, this match proves how bad the nomination method was. Here we have Halo being nominated because people could think of nothing better, while Starcraft had to claw its way into the contest by beating out 25 years of PC games.

Now, for the actual poll. If anyone remembers 2003, you all know about Master Chief and how badly he performed. In the first round, he only managed to beat Felix by around 6000 votes, and was completely whipped by Aeris in round 2. Some people say that MC was respectable against Aeris, but I disagree. He was picked by over 2000 people to win the entire contest, and lost in the second round. Furthermore, any doubt about whether or not he would lose in the second round were blown to bits after his pathetic first round performance. I mean, honestly, does everyone think that all the people who voted for Felix were actually fans of Felix and Golden Sun? Let`s get real here. There is an absolute loathing of the Xbox on gamefaqs, and the 2003 character contest was black and white proof of it. The Xbox and Halo has a lot of fans, yes, but they are horribly outnumbered by the people who would rather play with dog waste than an Xbox.

Then there`s Starcraft. Being in this contest is an accomplishment in and of itself, but to put this in perspective, look at this more closely. Console games on gamefaqs have a few heavy hitters to choose from. Coming into this contest, it was a guarantee that we`d see games from the Zelda series, the Mario series, the FF series, and the heavy hitters from each console. Hell, we even got the heavy hitters from consoles that are now used as emergency flotation devices and self mutilation. I mean, honestly, some of these systems are that old. But for the PC, no game was a guarantee. Look at the seeds of the PC games in this contest. And if any of you mention that Final Fantasy 7 is a 1 seed that was on the PC, you`re getting kicked square in the crotch. Look at the PC games that were only on the PC. Doom, Half-Life, Fallout 2, and Starcraft are all seeded low. This is no accident, as they all stole nominations from one other while console games were nominated in with little resistance from themselves. Starcraft even had nominations stolen from Halo, Final Fantasy 7, and every other BLIZZARD game in existence. And what does it get for its efforts from having to duke it out with Diablo 2 and Warcraft 3 before the contest even started? A 16 seed and a date with the most overseeded game in the entire contest.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

But the match is far from being decided yet. The 1 vs 16 stereotype means nothing in this match. Link proved last year that most people could not possibly give two ****s about their bracket given the right match. All over gamefaqs, there were topics asking people to vote for Link, and in ALL of them, you could find at least three people saying they had Link in their bracket, but could care less that he was going to lose. That`s just how this contest is. Yes, there are a ton of people who have Halo in their bracket simply because it has the big 1 next to its name, but I can promise most of you people that most of those people don`t like Halo and would rather drink nuclear waste than buy an Xbox. It`s evident in every poll featuring the Xbox and/or Halo. People simply don`t like the Xbox. And for even more proof, does anyone remember the state of the site during the GameRiot polls that sponsored the Xbox? There were topics and petitions to bring them down all over the place, and our own Spring Contest which was strategically placed below the GameRiot poll in an effort for it not to draw attention away from GameRiot`s beloved Xbox still pwned the GameRiot poll right in the face, and refused to help clean up afterwards. Those polls were a disgrace, plain and simple, and gamefaqers all over the place let it be known.

So magically, everyone that has hated the Xbox all these years is going to magically turn around and vote for Halo just because they have it in their brackets? Are you people on the very drugs that our TOS has now banned us from discussing on our site again? There are legions of people out there who could not possibly give two rat`s ****s about losing this match if it meant taking down Halo and letting all hell break loose all across gamefaqs. I for one cannot wait for this match, as it has the makings of being the biggest event to hit our site since Mario/Crono 2. This match can seriously cause that much damage all across the boards. This thing could get to the point where people use glitches to spam Barney`s Hide and Seek in an effort to gain votes for either side. This match could easily be the biggest and baddest match in the history of these contests on our site. The whole thing comes down to the flawed nomination system overseeding Halo and underseeding Starcraft. It also comes down to how much pride each side has in their favorite. Are the Halo fans and bracket voters ready to support their opinions to the death, and do PC gamers have the grapefruits to finally make the single biggest stand ever seen on the site? Honestly, the PC gamer should feel like they`ve been slapped by one of the single greatest games on ANY MEDIUM OF ALL TIME being a mere 16 seed in this contest, and if they have any pride whatsoever, they`ll at least make sure Starcraft puts up one hell of a fight in this match. Halo beating Starcraft with ease would be the biggest disappointment in this contest. Halo winning a tight match is one thing, but a 65-35 beatdown would be far worse than any Mario victory over Crono and any Samus voter that waited until the final two hours to vote against Sonic.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Go to any social board on the site. Compare the number of “OMG LET`S GO PLAY HALO ON XBOX LIVE!!” topics to the number of topics where people are calling for their friends to come out for an asswhipping in Starcraft. There is no contest, Starcraft wins. Starcraft has sold millions upon millions of copies across the world, while Halo seems to be more of a cult following among gamers who have nothing better to do on Friday nights than to watch Red vs Blue on Master Chief in Puma yaoi and declare Friday nights the Halo night. And furthermore, compare the two biggest factors among the players of both games. Starcraft is still played by hundreds of thousands of people worldwide on battle.net for free, while Xbox Live has attracted a few thousand people, tops, who were willing to sell themselves out to the lap dog of the revolution in Bill Gates and spend all that money to play a few Xbox games online. Oh by the way, my PS2 port cost me $40, and it gave me no increase in my internet bill whatsoever.

Oh, how could I POSSIBLY forget about the Koreans?? Starcraft saved a country. Seriously, it saved a country. South Korea had practically no economy whatsoever, then along came Starcraft. After some advertizing on everything from soap to potato chips, Starcraft became the national sport of Korea, and the country has three TV channels dedicated to Starcraft 24/7. Have any of you people ever played against or with a Korean in Starcraft? You`re either going to get your ass whipped or have the greatest ally there is. And the population of South Korea has to at least be a few million or so. Think what kind of damage they could cause if this contest was actually advertized over there. If a mere 1% voted in our poll, Halo would stand no chance. What group does Halo constitute being the national sport of? Like I said, people who deem Friday nights the Halo night. Again, no contest.

So in the end, we have a poll that is completely up in the air. Seedings don`t mean jack in this match. The people that vote will simply vote for their favorite and move on. Starcraft has the favor of Xbox hate votes, any and all BLIZZARD fans of the site, the PC gamer, the underdog vote, and the people who simply want to see all hell break loose on gamefaqs. Halo has the vote of the 23 people who like Halo. Should be close.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

goosebumps...I think I'll go play Starcraft now.
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"None of us are as dumb as all of us together."

I can't wait for StarCraft Vs. Super Smash Brothers Melee, best match ever in my opinion!

No, StarCraft vs. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker was the best.
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Now a proud Rider of Lohan.

No, StarCraft vs. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker was the best.

To each his own, I suppose.

Whew, that was fun. But it wasn`t the most popular of opinions from the people who felt that Halo would completely own this matchup.

From Moltar`s topic:

Back on topic..uh..yeah...nice..lengthy..review, Ulti. Wow..but,Halo will beat StarCraft. I don't care if it's 50.01%-49.99%, 60%, 65%, 66%...Halo's not gonna lose in the very first round. Why? Cause if it really got a No.1 seed, it's not that sucky.

A No.1 seed is pretty good for people feeling bad...wait, you just presumed that! -_____- Anyways, like I was saying, a No.1 seed is pretty good for people feeling bad for a game system and just thinking "uh..what is there to nominate for Xbox..uh..Halo? Oh..I'll just nominate it to show pity for the Xbox...:-)"

That's a lotta XBox fans. That's a lotta anti-Xbox fans..no wait, you presumed that too?! I hate when people presume other people's opinions! Dude, what the [ ] makes you think that first, people hate the XBox, but would then nominate a game for it? You're..you're...acting like smitelf! *gasps in horror* Yeah, please answer. [Tai]

And surprise surprise, his entire post wound up being 100% wrong. People do hate the Xbox and nominated Halo for no reason. Fast forwarding for a minute, there is no way in the world that Halo comes as close as it does if the seedings are reversed.

But enough of all of that. My analysis and subsequent debates were one of many isolated debates and topic surrounding this match. When the nracket was first released, this was the one first round match that everyone set their eyes on as having the potential to be the best the first round, and maybe even the contest, has ever seen. The debates were all over the place, and it wasn`t isolated to our board either. A little for everyone who deeply follows this contest: go spy on the boards involving the games or characters in a hot poll. You`ll see some of the funnier topics and posts around.

So after all of the pre-match hype, the stage was set. And neither game could make an excuse for losing either, as the site was to enjoy one final day of being normal. It was all or nothing for the next 24 hou, err...... what`s this? The poll started at 2:30 AM! Either CJayC was sick of Ocarina of Time killing Fallout 2, or he knew of the pre-match hype and wanted to give us all an extra half hour of enjoyment. The odd thing is that there was no mention of when the poll would close. It could have been 2:30 AM the next day, or it could have been later. All I know is that I personally was happy beyond belief. I was looking forward to this match more than any other, so an extra half hour was fine by me. Coincidentally, I wound up getting a stomahc virus the day before this match, meaning I got to call out of work and watch the entire thing unfold =)
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

tag

And the population of South Korea has to at least be a few million or so.

South Korea has almost 50 million people, and Starcraft has only sold ~6 million copies worldwide. Even if every one of those copies was sold in South Korea, that would only be ~$300 million, at most. Not nearly enough money to save a nation. In 1998, the year of Starcraft's release, South Korea had its first negative economic growth, down to a dismal $690 Billion, $44 Billion less than the previous year. Now, tell me, how could Starcraft possibly have saved South Korea's economy?

um...with mass carriers?

sorry - please carry on.
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UltimaterializerX, the most godly of prognosticators, has won the most rare of prizes - being in my first sig.

Now, tell me, how could Starcraft possibly have saved South Korea's economy?

Advertising. Starcraft sales alone aren`t what saved South Korea. Look at all of things that Starcraft helped sell, the money involved with the tournaments, the TV channels, and all of the other good stuff.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

With our early start to the poll, the only thing we do do was sit around, vote, and wait to see what happened. After the two games were merely 7 votes apart through the first update, everyone was utterly shocked (and quite pleased) at what wound up happening next. Starcraft not only began taking command of the match, but it was building its lead at an insane pace. The following is a copy of the update chart through the updates where Starcraft was building its lead:

23:30 | Halo | 00083 | +0083 | 47.98% | Starcraft | 00090 | +0090 | 52.02% | Lead of 0007 | (Up 7)
23:45 | Halo | 00480 | +0397 | 45.41% | Starcraft | 00577 | +0487 | 54.59% | Lead of 0097 | (Up 90)
00:00 | Halo | 00972 | +0492 | 45.27% | Starcraft | 01175 | +0598 | 54.73% | Lead of 0203 | (Up 106)
00:15 | Halo | 01444 | +0472 | 45.75% | Starcraft | 01712 | +0537 | 54.25% | Lead of 0268 | (Up 65)
00:30 | Halo | 01830 | +0386 | 45.38% | Starcraft | 02203 | +0491 | 54.62% | Lead of 0373 | (Up 105)
00:45 | Halo | 02164 | +0334 | 45.09% | Starcraft | 02635 | +0432 | 54.91% | Lead of 0471 | (Up 98)
01:00 | Halo | 02420 | +0256 | 44.72% | Starcraft | 02991 | +0356 | 55.28% | Lead of 0571 | (Up 100)
01:15 | Halo | 02672 | +0252 | 44.64% | Starcraft | 03313 | +0322 | 55.36% | Lead of 0641 | (Up 70)
01:30 | Halo | 02882 | +0210 | 44.45% | Starcraft | 03602 | +0289 | 55.55% | Lead of 0720 | (Up 79)
01:45 | Halo | 03105 | +0223 | 44.60% | Starcraft | 03857 | +0255 | 55.40% | Lead of 0752 | (Up 32)
02:00 | Halo | 03294 | +0189 | 44.44% | Starcraft | 04118 | +0261 | 55.56% | Lead of 0824 | (Up 72)
02:15 | Halo | 03470 | +0176 | 44.44% | Starcraft | 04338 | +0220 | 55.56% | Lead of 0868 | (Up 44)
02:30 | Halo | 03664 | +0194 | 44.61% | Starcraft | 04550 | +0212 | 55.39% | Lead of 0886 | (Up 18)
02:45 | Halo | 03860 | +0196 | 44.65% | Starcraft | 04785 | +0235 | 55.35% | Lead of 0925 | (Up 39)
03:00 | Halo | 04027 | +0167 | 44.62% | Starcraft | 04998 | +0213 | 55.38% | Lead of 0971 | (Up 46)
03:15 | Halo | 04195 | +0168 | 44.46% | Starcraft | 05240 | +0242 | 55.54% | Lead of 1045 | (Up 74)

As you can see, Starcraft was laying quite the beating on Halo through the first four hours of the poll. Remember, Starcraft was a 16 seed in this contest. 16 seeds don`t push 1 seeds down to 44.44% of the vote; it`s unthinkable. But Starcraft was no joke in this poll. Not only did it build a lead of 1045 through the first 3:45, but Starcraft fever took over the site. Starcraft quotes were all over the place, Starcraft topics were all over the place, and if you were watching Bnet closely, a ton of people began playing Starcraft to sort of celebrate their win.

But in the timeless words of a man named Lee Corso, "NOT SO FAST, my friend!". While the entire site was busy with the fever of Starcraft vs Halo, the site stopped paying attention to the poll. Halo won an update at the 4 hour hark. It then won another, and another. The gains weren`t anything huge, but they were still gains. And much to the chagrin of Starcraft fans site-wide, Halo started picking up a little bit of steam. The 1 seed, it seemed, would not go down without giving Starcraft the fight of its life.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

I don't know if it saved the economy, but Starcraft IS a sport in Korea. I wouldn't be suprised if the Koreans wants it accepted as a sport in the Olympics.
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This line will not change until the Bulls win an NBA Championship. Started 6/08/04

The two games started going at as if it were one of the greatest one on one battles ever to be seen. Shades of Hector vs Achilles, Bret Hart vs Shawn Michaels, Gore vs Bush, David vs Goliath, and any other legendary battle that you could possibly think of were littered all of this match. Halo began to gain the upper hand after the fourth hour of the poll, and it even gained a little bit of steam. But it was far from easy. While Starcraft was busy gaining nearly 100 votes per update early in the poll, Halo had to scratch and claw its way for every vote it received. The result was Halo making a slow, meticulous effort at cutting down Starcraft`s lead. It has the ocasional string of decent gains, but nothing that led anyone to believe Halo had the match won yet. But this didn`t stop the entire site from going into a frenzy. I spoke to a couple of moderators after this match was done and over, and it`s no exaggeration when I tell you that there were literally thousands of moderated messages stemming fro this match alone. All throughout the day, the games and their fanbases were going at it with one another worse than the games in the poll themselves. It was quite the event to watch, and it would only get progressively worse between the fanbases as the day would wear on.

As for the actual stats of the poll, here is a copy of every update between Starcraft getting a lead of 1045 and the final update before Halo finally managed to see itself in the lead:

03:30 | Halo | 04491 | +0296 | 44.91% | Starcraft | 05510 | +0270 | 55.09% | Lead of 1019 | (Down 26)
03:45 | Halo | 04829 | +0338 | 45.31% | Starcraft | 05829 | +0319 | 54.69% | Lead of 1000 | (Down 19)
04:00 | Halo | 05196 | +0367 | 45.76% | Starcraft | 06160 | +0331 | 54.24% | Lead of 0964 | (Down 36)
04:15 | Halo | 05617 | +0421 | 46.25% | Starcraft | 06529 | +0369 | 53.75% | Lead of 0912 | (Down 52)
04:30 | Halo | 06072 | +0455 | 46.65% | Starcraft | 06944 | +0415 | 53.35% | Lead of 0872 | (Down 40)
04:45 | Halo | 06504 | +0432 | 47.06% | Starcraft | 07318 | +0374 | 52.94% | Lead of 0814 | (Down 58)
05:00 | Halo | 06939 | +0435 | 47.14% | Starcraft | 07782 | +0464 | 52.86% | Lead of 0843 | (Up 29)
05:15 | Halo | 07398 | +0459 | 47.39% | Starcraft | 08214 | +0432 | 52.61% | Lead of 0816 | (Down 27)
05:30 | Halo | 07905 | +0507 | 47.86% | Starcraft | 08612 | +0398 | 52.14% | Lead of 0707 | (Down 109)
05:45 | Halo | 08396 | +0491 | 48.17% | Starcraft | 09033 | +0421 | 51.83% | Lead of 0637 | (Down 70)
06:00 | Halo | 08891 | +0495 | 48.46% | Starcraft | 09457 | +0424 | 51.54% | Lead of 0566 | (Down 71)
06:15 | Halo | 09402 | +0511 | 48.59% | Starcraft | 09946 | +0489 | 51.41% | Lead of 0544 | (Down 22)
06:30 | Halo | 09907 | +0505 | 48.72% | Starcraft | 10427 | +0481 | 51.28% | Lead of 0520 | (Down 24)
06:45 | Halo | 10475 | +0568 | 48.90% | Starcraft | 10945 | +0518 | 51.10% | Lead of 0470 | (Down 50)
07:00 | Halo | 11038 | +0563 | 49.09% | Starcraft | 11445 | +0500 | 50.91% | Lead of 0407 | (Down 63)
07:15 | Halo | 11577 | +0539 | 49.16% | Starcraft | 11974 | +0529 | 50.84% | Lead of 0397 | (Down 10)
07:30 | Halo | 12182 | +0605 | 49.31% | Starcraft | 12522 | +0548 | 50.69% | Lead of 0340 | (Down 57)
07:45 | Halo | 12809 | +0627 | 49.42% | Starcraft | 13110 | +0588 | 50.58% | Lead of 0301 | (Down 39)
08:00 | Halo | 13424 | +0615 | 49.56% | Starcraft | 13665 | +0555 | 50.44% | Lead of 0241 | (Down 60)
08:15 | Halo | 14037 | +0613 | 49.61% | Starcraft | 14260 | +0595 | 50.39% | Lead of 0223 | (Down 18)
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

08:30 | Halo | 14676 | +0639 | 49.73% | Starcraft | 14834 | +0574 | 50.27% | Lead of 0158 | (Down 65)
08:45 | Halo | 15328 | +0652 | 49.84% | Starcraft | 15427 | +0593 | 50.16% | Lead of 0099 | (Down 59)
09:00 | Halo | 15925 | +0597 | 49.94% | Starcraft | 15962 | +0535 | 50.06% | Lead of 0037 | (Down 62)
09:15 | Halo | 16550 | +0625 | 49.92% | Starcraft | 16603 | +0641 | 50.08% | Lead of 0053 | (Up 16)
09:30 | Halo | 17181 | +0631 | 49.93% | Starcraft | 17230 | +0627 | 50.07% | Lead of 0049 | (Down 4)
09:45 | Halo | 17806 | +0625 | 49.96% | Starcraft | 17833 | +0603 | 50.04% | Lead of 0027 | (Down 22)

It took 10:15 into the poll for Halo to finally pull even with Starcraft, but could it keep the momentum going? For quite a long time, it seemed as if this would be the case. Starcraft, despite a mass of Bnet spamming both on every game Bnet provides and every forum on battle.net itself, showed no signs of gaining back the magic it had in the early hours of the poll. With the exception of a couple of meager gains in the middle of Halo`s advance, the best Starcraft could manage was to keep the advance as slow as possible and hope to regain the momentum later on in the poll.

Then again, this is Starcraft we`re talking about. Right when it looked like Halo was going to finally steamroll Starcraft right out of the poll, Starcraft managed to hold strong for a good hour and a half before finally caving in to the pressure. It was a good dream for Starcraft, but it seemed as if it was all dead in the water for Starcraft and its fans after that hour and a half of fighting between the two was over. 12:45 into the poll, Halo finally started making the push that a supposed 1 seed should have made long ago in this poll and it looked to end Starcraft`s dream run in this poll once and for all.

The following the is aforementioned hour and a half of updates before Halo finally started making its big push in the match:

10:00 | Halo | 18415 | +0609 | 50.02% | Starcraft | 18403 | +0570 | 49.98% | Lead of 0012 | (Up 39)
10:15 | Halo | 19017 | +0602 | 49.98% | Starcraft | 19035 | +0632 | 50.02% | Lead of 0018 | (Up 30)
10:30 | Halo | 19662 | +0645 | 50.04% | Starcraft | 19632 | +0597 | 49.96% | Lead of 0030 | (Up 48)
10:45 | Halo | 20275 | +0613 | 50.07% | Starcraft | 20215 | +0583 | 49.93% | Lead of 0060 | (Up 30)
11:00 | Halo | 20830 | +0555 | 50.03% | Starcraft | 20809 | +0594 | 49.97% | Lead of 0021 | (Down 39)
11:15 | Halo | 21400 | +0570 | 49.94% | Starcraft | 21454 | +0645 | 50.06% | Lead of 0054 | (Up 75)
11:30 | Halo | 22016 | +0616 | 49.92% | Starcraft | 22085 | +0631 | 50.08% | Lead of 0069 | (Up 15)

Once this was done and overwith, Halo put on the best charge it made in the entire poll. More on that in the next post.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

And Halo may have been making a huge push, but Starcraft kept fighitng back with these occasional small gains that kept giving the people rooting for Starcraft some hope. But every time it seemed like Starcraft was going to cause soem damage, back came Halo with a huge gain to shoot everything down. But even then, the Starcraft fans never gave up hope. The common belief was that if Starcraft could hang on during the Halo surge, it could come back and win with the night vote. After all, Starcraft still had the potential to gain votes at a pace that it had going for it in the first few hours of the poll. But with every new update that popped up, the Starcraft dream died a little more. The supposed Starcraft evening vote that was supposed to save it did little more than give a false hope to all of its fans, as the best Starcraft could manage was to split the vote 50-50. It was 19:15 into the poll, 9:45 PM EST, and Halo had built a lead of 1108 votes. The vote totals were insanely high at this point, and the poll would wind up being the most popular poll of the contest. But even then, it seemed like Starcraft was done for at this point. There was, at most, 5:15 left in the poll, and possibly even only 4:45. There was no possible way that Starcraft could come back at this point, because Halo seemed to be too strong.

The following is the chart of Halo`s push:

11:45 | Halo | 22758 | +0742 | 50.01% | Starcraft | 22750 | +0665 | 49.99% | Lead of 0008 | (Up 77)
12:00 | Halo | 23721 | +0963 | 50.08% | Starcraft | 23642 | +0892 | 49.92% | Lead of 0079 | (Up 71)
12:15 | Halo | 24729 | +1008 | 50.14% | Starcraft | 24592 | +0950 | 49.86% | Lead of 0137 | (Up 58)
12:30 | Halo | 25726 | +0997 | 50.22% | Starcraft | 25496 | +0904 | 49.78% | Lead of 0230 | (Up 93)
12:45 | Halo | 26714 | +0988 | 50.30% | Starcraft | 26391 | +0895 | 49.70% | Lead of 0323 | (Up 93)
13:00 | Halo | 27759 | +1045 | 50.40% | Starcraft | 27320 | +0929 | 49.60% | Lead of 0439 | (Up 116)
13:15 | Halo | 28788 | +1029 | 50.42% | Starcraft | 28303 | +0983 | 49.58% | Lead of 0485 | (Up 46)
13:30 | Halo | 29830 | +1042 | 50.44% | Starcraft | 29313 | +1010 | 49.56% | Lead of 0517 | (Up 32)
13:45 | Halo | 30891 | +1061 | 50.44% | Starcraft | 30352 | +1039 | 49.56% | Lead of 0539 | (Up 22)
14:00 | Halo | 31912 | +1021 | 50.45% | Starcraft | 31346 | +0994 | 49.55% | Lead of 0566 | (Up 27)
14:15 | Halo | 32933 | +1021 | 50.50% | Starcraft | 32287 | +0941 | 49.50% | Lead of 0646 | (Up 80)
14:30 | Halo | 33904 | +0971 | 50.50% | Starcraft | 33236 | +0949 | 49.50% | Lead of 0668 | (Up 22)
14:45 | Halo | 34888 | +0984 | 50.54% | Starcraft | 34139 | +0903 | 49.46% | Lead of 0749 | (Up 81)
15:00 | Halo | 35855 | +0967 | 50.56% | Starcraft | 35062 | +0923 | 49.44% | Lead of 0793 | (Up 44)
15:15 | Halo | 36760 | +0905 | 50.55% | Starcraft | 35967 | +0905 | 49.45% | Lead of 0793 | (Up 0)
15:30 | Halo | 37681 | +0921 | 50.55% | Starcraft | 36867 | +0900 | 49.45% | Lead of 0814 | (Up 21)
15:45 | Halo | 38658 | +0977 | 50.62% | Starcraft | 37711 | +0844 | 49.38% | Lead of 0947 | (Up 133)
16:00 | Halo | 39539 | +0881 | 50.59% | Starcraft | 38622 | +0911 | 49.41% | Lead of 0917 | (Down 30)
16:15 | Halo | 40442 | +0903 | 50.62% | Starcraft | 39452 | +0830 | 49.38% | Lead of 0990 | (Up 73)
16:30 | Halo | 41228 | +0786 | 50.57% | Starcraft | 40294 | +0842 | 49.43% | Lead of 0934 | (Down 56)
16:45 | Halo | 42069 | +0841 | 50.56% | Starcraft | 41144 | +0850 | 49.44% | Lead of 0925 | (Down 9)
17:00 | Halo | 42873 | +0804 | 50.55% | Starcraft | 41941 | +0797 | 49.45% | Lead of 0932 | (Up 7)
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

17:15 | Halo | 43675 | +0802 | 50.58% | Starcraft | 42679 | +0738 | 49.42% | Lead of 0996 | (Up 64)
17:30 | Halo | 44415 | +0740 | 50.59% | Starcraft | 43380 | +0701 | 49.41% | Lead of 1035 | (Up 39)
17:45 | Halo | 45114 | +0699 | 50.57% | Starcraft | 44095 | +0715 | 49.43% | Lead of 1019 | (Down 16)
18:00 | Halo | 45807 | +0693 | 50.59% | Starcraft | 44747 | +0652 | 49.41% | Lead of 1060 | (Up 41)
18:15 | Halo | 46500 | +0693 | 50.60% | Starcraft | 45404 | +0657 | 49.40% | Lead of 1096 | (Up 36)
18:30 | Halo | 47176 | +0676 | 50.59% | Starcraft | 46074 | +0670 | 49.41% | Lead of 1102 | (Up 6)
18:45 | Halo | 47805 | +0629 | 50.59% | Starcraft | 46697 | +0623 | 49.41% | Lead of 1108 | (Up 6)

It seemed as if Halo had it won at this point. The vaunted Starcraft evening vote that its hopes were all pinned on had done little more than allow Starcraft to give a falso hope to its fans. All Halo had to do was to hang on for another 5 hours or so.

"NOT SO FAST, my friend!"

Starcraft sliced 74 votes off of Halo`s seemingly unbeatable lead with the next update. But no big deal, right? WRONG. Starcraft then cut 104 votes off of the lead! Out of no where, Starcraft looked like it was back in this thing! The update topics caught fire, Bnet saw the spamming increase to ethereal heights, Xbox Live started getting spammed, and even bungie.net started getting involved. It only took 30 minutes and two updates for this poll to turn into an even bigger war than it already was. At this point, you were either with one game or the other. That, or you were caught in the crossfire. It seemed that Starcraft had a chance, but time was beginning to run out. Even worse, the next three updates were not good for Starcraft. It only gained 38 and 26 with the first two, and Halo managed to win the third. But not to be outdone, Starcraft fought back with a brilliant 82 vote update. Halo fought back again by winning the next update by two votes. But at this point, we were 21:30 into the poll, Midnight EST, and had at most three hours to go. Taking down a lead of 796 within three hours at a time when the voting slows down was nearly impossible. Starcraft made a nice push, but it still looked to be over.

The following is the chart from what I just commented on:

19:00 | Halo | 48388 | +0583 | 50.54% | Starcraft | 47354 | +0657 | 49.46% | Lead of 1034 | (Down 74)
19:15 | Halo | 48965 | +0577 | 50.48% | Starcraft | 48035 | +0681 | 49.52% | Lead of 0930 | (Down 104)
19:30 | Halo | 49554 | +0589 | 50.45% | Starcraft | 48662 | +0627 | 49.55% | Lead of 0892 | (Down 38)
19:45 | Halo | 50188 | +0634 | 50.44% | Starcraft | 49322 | +0660 | 49.56% | Lead of 0866 | (Down 26)
20:00 | Halo | 50755 | +0567 | 50.44% | Starcraft | 49879 | +0557 | 49.56% | Lead of 0876 | (Up 10)
20:15 | Halo | 51248 | +0493 | 50.39% | Starcraft | 50454 | +0575 | 49.61% | Lead of 0794 | (Down 82)
20:30 | Halo | 51747 | +0499 | 50.39% | Starcraft | 50951 | +0497 | 49.61% | Lead of 0796 | (Up 2)

3 hours, 796 votes. Good game, Starcraft. It was fun while it lasted.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Halo seems to be more of a cult following among gamers who have nothing better to do on Friday nights than to watch Red vs Blue on Master Chief in Puma yaoi and declare Friday nights the Halo night.

I disagree. Halo is FAR from a cult following ala Earthbound, but more like Half-Life and sports games. In other words, a nix fanbase on GameFAQs, but popular everywhere else. It's all the boys in my chemistry & physics classes (and in the hallways) talk about, frankly: Madden and Halo. Hell, one of them even ran for class Senator using a campaign poster with cut-and-paste Master Chiefs and the Halo font. That was weird. I think another guy ran for treasurer with a picture of Mario, but that's almost something you'd expect.

Whereas I can't find ONE single person in my school who's played more RPG's than I have. And I haven't even played FFX yet. </rant>
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http://nihilism.danseibi.net --Nihilism. Breaking all the rules of shounen-ai by having a plot.

But as if we all spoke too soon, Starcraft set the entire world of gamefaqs on fire that fateful night. One night between Starcraft and Halo may have changed the courses of the two games involved forever. One night caused one of the biggest site-wide explosions ever seen on gamefaqs. One night had the entire community of one game wondering what went wrong, and the other game wound up getting a popularity boost seven years after its initial release.

As you can probably guess, Starcraft set gamefaqs on fire that night. With the next two updates in the poll, Starcraft sliced 98 and votes off of the lead, which was a pace faster than that required for Starcraft to come back and win this thing. But Halo fought back like the 1 seed it was supposed to be, and delayed the inevitable by only losing 6 votes off of its lead with the next update. But what would happen next would easily change the course of gamefaqs forever, or at least the course of gamefaqs during this contest. What Starcraft managed to do at this point in the poll was none other than miraculous; a game surviving against all odds to keep the dream of Starcraft fans everywhere alive and well.

Starcraft not only went on a push, it went on a dominating push rarely seen in such close matches. The update topics, as well as the entirety of the site, completely exploded. The odd thing is that it was extremely late at night, yet everyone stayed up to see what was going on with the poll. In comparison, the explosion that followed this poll was as large or larger than that which was caused by Mario/Crono II. I could tell you what happened, but it would simply be best to post the rest of the chart.

20:45 | Halo | 52153 | +0406 | 50.34% | Starcraft | 51455 | +0504 | 49.66% | Lead of 0698 | (Down 98)
21:00 | Halo | 52512 | +0359 | 50.29% | Starcraft | 51908 | +0453 | 49.71% | Lead of 0604 | (Down 94)
21:15 | Halo | 52984 | +0472 | 50.28% | Starcraft | 52386 | +0478 | 49.72% | Lead of 0598 | (Down 6)
21:30 | Halo | 53393 | +0409 | 50.25% | Starcraft | 52856 | +0470 | 49.75% | Lead of 0537 | (Down 61)
21:45 | Halo | 53802 | +0409 | 50.23% | Starcraft | 53315 | +0459 | 49.77% | Lead of 0487 | (Down 50)
22:00 | Halo | 54150 | +0348 | 50.17% | Starcraft | 53773 | +0458 | 49.83% | Lead of 0377 | (Down 110)
22:15 | Halo | 54467 | +0317 | 50.12% | Starcraft | 54217 | +0444 | 49.88% | Lead of 0250 | (Down 127)
22:30 | Halo | 54729 | +0262 | 50.03% | Starcraft | 54665 | +0448 | 49.97% | Lead of 0064 | (Down 186)
22:45 | Halo | 55018 | +0289 | 49.96% | Starcraft | 55102 | +0437 | 50.04% | Lead of 0084 | (Up 148)
23:00 | Halo | 55347 | +0329 | 49.93% | Starcraft | 55508 | +0406 | 50.07% | Lead of 0161 | (Up 77)
23:15 | Halo | 55604 | +0257 | 49.89% | Starcraft | 55852 | +0344 | 50.11% | Lead of 0248 | (Up 87)
23:30 | Halo | 55829 | +0225 | 49.87% | Starcraft | 56114 | +0262 | 50.13% | Lead of 0285 | (Up 37)
23:45 | Halo | 56010 | +0181 | 49.85% | Starcraft | 56348 | +0234 | 50.15% | Lead of 0338 | (Up 53)
24:00 | Halo | 56198 | +0188 | 49.85% | Starcraft | 56544 | +0196 | 50.15% | Lead of 0346 | (Up 8)

The result is obvious enough to see for yourself, and I`m not kidding when I said the entire site exploded during this match. Come to think of it, three sites exploded. I`ll wrap this up tomorrow evening, as I have to be at work soon.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

GREAT Analyses. I was following this poll very close ly and I needed to go to bed to get up on time for school the next morning and I thought it was over for Starcraft, they were down by about 800. When I checked the next day I was upset that I didn't stay up until the end.
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This line will not change until the Bulls win an NBA Championship. Started 6/08/04

now that the site has finished soiling itself:
fair is fair, ulti...

I love how all of you people kept shooting me down when I kept telling you all that I was an idiot for listening to you when it came to changing my picks to SMB3 beating Zelda 1 and Chrono Trigger beating LTTP.

Now when both of them lose and my bracket gets shot to hell even though I had both of those matches in my bracket originally, a day or two of not speaking to any of you is in order.
[ultimaterializerx, 5/12/2004 6:07:11 AM]

for the record, i think you're enjoying this matchup a little too much...
...but that's just my opinion.
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signature (n.): a random bit of gibberish that no one ever reads.

That was truly a classic battle... just looking at the update numbers is exciting.

I wanted to respond to this...

South Korea has almost 50 million people, and Starcraft has only sold ~6 million copies worldwide. Even if every one of those copies was sold in South Korea, that would only be ~$300 million, at most. Not nearly enough money to save a nation. In 1998, the year of Starcraft's release, South Korea had its first negative economic growth, down to a dismal $690 Billion, $44 Billion less than the previous year. Now, tell me, how could Starcraft possibly have saved South Korea's economy?

Personally, I don't know how much of an effect Starcraft had on the Korean economy, but there are two problems with this argument. One was already pointed out, which is that any economic impact came from Starcraft as a professional sport, not from retail sales of the game (which was made in the US anyway). But the other point is that the 1998 numbers don't tell us anything about Starcraft. Starcraft wasn't even out during the first months of 1998, and Starcraft didn't become the national sport of Korea overnight. If you look at the old PGL from 1998, all of the top players were from North America and Europe. Starcraft started getting big in Korea in 1999, and obviously it was the center of the Starcraft world by the time Grrrr (the best Starcraft player of the time) moved there in 2000.

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"A fool and his money are soon elected."
- Will Rogers

Hey UltimaterializerX, sorry to hijack the thread, but I have a quick question for you.

Have you received an e-mail for your 5 games yet? The reason I ask is because I dont remember which e-mail I used to sign up (unless its the one that you created you account with) and I dont want to check all of the different addresses I have everyday.
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"Pain is only nature's way of telling you that you're in horrible agony."

Well, I was probably wrong when I said Halo wouldn't lose in the first round. But I still think anti-XBox fans woulnd't nominate XBox games, but that matters not. Starcraft is obviously a quintillion times more popular than Halo.. but I don't think that takes AWAY from Halo as a game, and I don't think Halo losing to Starcraft means it sucks. If anything, Starcraft was underseeded, but I don't think Halo was overseeded. Overrated...but I think if it really got more nominations then any game in the contest, one way or antoher, it's No.1 seed was earned well, even if it was because it's one of the few good games of a system. See, I don't know about you, but any game that had more nominations than FF7 has to be popular, and not just a mere "cult". It's the law as far as I'm concerned, especially on GameFAQs of all places...

Also, if Anti-XBOX fans really did nominate Halo out of all games, then that just proves further that Halo is a game everyone knows about, and I agree with Cromage that it's far from cult.

Like I said before...that's a lotta XBox fans..that's a lotta anti-XBox fans...Halo deserved it.

Just give Starcraft a higher seed in SP2K5. Kthxbye.

Just wanted to add a couple of cents..but apart from that, I was pwned. *sniffle* I'll just hope for better luck in SC2K4....


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"Haha SMRPG wins because this is RPGFAQs." "If SMRPG wins then GameFAQs has no credibility." - Fanboys.

Heh. Are you going to pull reviews this long for the WW and SSBM matches? Really good one for Halo. What kind of percentages do you think Halo and WW could get on SSBM, for fun?

There's a very slight chance that I might be getting Starcraft this weekend. If not, and I think that's what will happen, ordering it directly from Bliz seems to be my only option. Sucks not to live in Korea, heh.
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

but any game that had more nominations than FF7 has to be popular,

That it is popular is not really disputable - that much is obvious. But realistically, I don't think it was a one seed in any light - a three seed, sure, but not a one seed.
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Sp2k4C-120 pts.
Vincent, Ultros, Auron, Frog, Ghaleon, Nanaki, Kerrigan for S2k4C!

*tag*
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I am Metallideth18.
...The numbers at the end got annoying...

Starcraft was not released at the same time world wide. South Korea didn't get the game until very late 1998, and it wasn't popular until after Brood War came out.

"Sucks not to live in Korea, heh."

You don't buy the game there. You play it in a PC cafe (that's why the sales there do not indicate the popularity of the game).

LordOfDabu
Believe the hype.

But the other point is that the 1998 numbers don't tell us anything about Starcraft. Starcraft wasn't even out during the first months of 1998, and Starcraft didn't become the national sport of Korea overnight. If you look at the old PGL from 1998, all of the top players were from North America and Europe. Starcraft started getting big in Korea in 1999, and obviously it was the center of the Starcraft world by the time Grrrr (the best Starcraft player of the time) moved there in 2000.

And by this time the economy was already "saved". In any case, Starcraft's affects on the Korean economy were minor at best, and it certainly didn't save the nation. That's almost as dumb as saying that GTA3 saved America's economy after 9/11.

The two people who are presuming my opinion to be wrong are Nintendo fans.

Your opinion can`t be wrong, but it doesn`t make it anymore right like you said. You talked about a lot of things that were nothing more than speculation yet passed them off as fact, "the stats being right there". That is when I decided to say something not to mention you made it seem like people who thought OoT would win were delusional.
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Nintendo® - We Make Games Worth Playing
Ultimaterializer > Nintendo

starcraft is great i wont dispute that. but saying halo is a friday night thing or isnt popular is dumb. halo is a great game enjoyed by MANY MANY MANY fans. it lost on gamefaqs. xbox isnt popular here and halo still managed to put up a fight with starcraft. imo thats pretty good on GAMEFAQS for a xbox game. just like a previous poster said. sports games are nothing here on gamefaqs but just look at sales figures for them and see how popular the madden series is.

Great Halo vs. StarCraft analysis there Ulti. That was just awesome. =)
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Nintendo® - We Make Games Worth Playing
Ultimaterializer > Nintendo

In the paraphrased words of a fellow user...

Please excuse me while I politely orgasm over your Halo vs. StarCraft analysis. ^^

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When I think of Suikoden, I think of fifty (censored) guys standing in a burned-down village and groping each other. -http://videogamerecaps.com/

I`m not even done writing the thing yet. I still have to do a recap, because all I`ve really done so far is tell how the match went.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

So how did it all happen? Beofre I move on, let me make one thing perfectly clear. Though I was obviously biased as hell towards Starcraft throughout the match, I like Halo. It`s a damned good multiplayer game, and legendary multiplayer games are not easy to come by at all. Selling all of those millions of copies across the US alone was no joke, and like Cromage said, Halo is absolutely huge outside of our site. The same argument can sort of be made against Starcraft, but there is clearly a bigger Starcraft fanbase on gamefaqs than there is a Halo fanbase.

And come to think of it, there is a larger Starcraft fanbase outside of our site as well. I don`t know if anyone noticed, but this poll was easily the highest-scoring of the contest. Outside forces were being brought in from all over the place to vote in this thing. Both Starcraft and Halo had their times to shine within the poll, but Starcraft simply got all of the votes when it needed them the most. Either game could have won this thing, but it just so happens that there are more Starcraft fans that are immediately accessible than there are Halo fans. But tip your hat to both games in this match. Halo was obviously not a 1 seed, and Starcraft was obviously not a 16 seed. I feel that both games performed far better than expected in this match, and they both have my respect afterwards. Halo went down exactly like a highly-seeded game is supposed to go down. It went down fighting until the very end, and its performance can`t really be shot down here. It did well.

As for Starcraft, an absolute monster was unleashed upon this contest once it won this match, and believe it or not, it was destined to become even stronger once it knocked off the 1 seed in miraculous fashion. Starcraft winning one match in this manner can be attributed to luck, but I doubt that anyone could have possibly said that Starcraft simply got lucky once this contest was all said and done.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

*waves flag*

Yay for Ulti.
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I hope you fall down the stairs in a comical fashion. - Madd0cks
FFX-2: You hold your controller with one hand for 80% of the game. - Slowflake

Uh..bump.
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Nominate Sarah Kerrigan for the Summer Contest!

Tag

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"What I have shown you is reality. What you remember, that is the illusion."
- Sephiroth (Final Fantasy VII)

Wow, I got thanked a lot in first post. Thanks for the recognition Ulti :)

And so this is where all the contest discussion went. I haven't visited the site too much this week and have been suffering from withdrawal ;) Nice to see discussion still going on.

Excellent stuff here Ulti.

I haven't read much of this topic, but I did see Ngamer's Oracle post and this response:

Aw... not going to include the Oracle info in the rest of the writeups?

No, simply because I`m big on one format the whole way through. I was never one for adding things in the middle. But come the summer, give me that list the day after the contest ends =)

I was updating the average Orcale prediction within 48 hours of each match ending.

http://www.sc2k4.com/displaytable.php?contest=all&fields=all

solarshadow would post the consensus prediction in his topics and I'd put it up within a couple days. I guess you didn't know about this.

BTW, did you officially win the contest?
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UltimaterializerX is First among contest analysts, the best of the best
http://SC2k4.com/frog (click on the galleries)

CREATIVENAME!

1. Are you keeping the update charts up for a while on your site? I'm too lazy to do the SSBM/Starcraft graphs for now, hopefully I'll get around to doing it soon.

2. Some of the links given on the SC2K2 and SC2K3 brackets for the character pics link to "offensive stuff", just so you know. Any intention of fixing it?
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

Hey creative, would you mind putting up our analysis topic on your sc2k4 site?

Topic is here: http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?board=8&topic=13300223

Thanks.
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Moltar's Comics - http://www.stripcreator.com/comics/Moltar
Final Bracket Score: 167 points. Finished in the top 416 brackets.

Division 128 Round 1: (8)Soul Calibur vs (9)Kingdom Hearts

Soul Calibur - 44532 (49.40%)
Kingdom Hearts - 45620 (50.60%)
Total Votes - 90152
Vote Difference - 1088
Prediction Percentage - 45.45%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b26.jpg
Picture Rating - 8/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Soul Calibur - 8
Entries for Kingdom Hearts - 57
Total Entries - 65

This match was flat-out shocking. Kingdom Hearts was billed by many, including myself, to be one of the strongest games in Division 128. Most of us assumed that Kingdom Hearts would steamroll Soul Calibur and the Starcraft/Halo winner en route to a loss to Wind Waker in round three. But every contest has something that no one saw coming, and in this contest it was Kingdom Hearts. Simply put, it was the dud of the contest. Billed to be a game to gve threats to Wind Waker, it wound up flopping horribly. But don`t let its performance in this contest let any of you people think that Kingdom Hearts was not directly responsible for Cloud, Link, Sephiroth, and Squall doing far better in 2003 than in 2002. You nonbelievers have neglected the facts for far too long by this point.

But anyway, Kingdom Hearts helped prove that while it was an amazing catalyst for the Final Fantasy cast, the game itself isn`t one that masses of people would readily vote for. The game helped bring more popularity to Final Fantasy 7, Final Fantasy 8, and to a lesser extent Final Fantasy 10, but this spoke nothing of whether or not the game would bring popularity to itself. And there`s where so many of us made out mistake.

Case and point? And overwhelming majority of the experts figured that Kingdom Hearts woudl steamroll the first two rounds of this contest (over 80% of BOP brackets had it winning against Soul Calibur), yet in the beginning of the poll, Soul Calibur went toe to toe with Kingdom Hearts like it was nothing. But no big deal, right? Most of us figured that this was a Starcraft rollover effect from the last poll. But when Soul Calibur managed to take a good portion of the day and stretch a 700 vote lead out of this, many people started wondering what was going on. After all, Kingdom Hearts was supposed to own this matchup.

My take on it would be that Soul Calibur is quite the underestimated title. But don`t take my word for it. Go read on of ChichiriMuyo`s page-long rants about why Soul Calibur was one of fighting`s most innovative titles while Soul Calibur 2 was a cheap rehash of the original. There`s also the fact that even though Kingdom Hearts sold over 4 million copies, it doesn`t mean that the majority of people would vote for it. Soul Calibur may not have been expected to do much in this contest, but it looked like it was going to shock the world, or at least the experts, in this match.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

But like a lot of other games who performed well early on, Soul Calibur fell to a huge push by its opponent. Starting in the afternoon, Kingdom Hearts began making a huge comeback attempt by nabbing 100 vote gains with every update.

But unfortunantly, we must pause here. Right in the middle of Kingdom Hearts and its comeback attempt, CJayC hit us with the site update. Everyone knows that I feel this was one of the single worst things he ever could have done to the site (go check out www.alexa.com and put our url in the search engine if you don`t believe me), but it had a lasting effect on the contest. But this topic isn`t to complain about CJayC and his rediculous idea to change the site layout without telling us (we never would have known anything was going on had LUE not found the url for the beta test), it`s about the contest. The site, and the contest as a whole, was simply not the same after the site update. The average voter turnout dropped an average of a whopping 15,000 votes in every match from there on out until very late in the contest, and the contest itself didn`t have the same feel to it. It`s almost like CJayC stopped caring, more or less. The main poll had its spot taken up by an ad that takes up a quarter of the page, and the poll itself was moved below the ad. You also can`t see the poll unless you scroll down, hence the lower vote totals. The same philosophy applies to GameSpy`s contest. Did anyone else notice how much of a pain it was to actually find the poll going on? You had to go to at least two links before seeing the thing.

Anyway, with the layout change, a whole new set of laws were applied to the contest right in the middle of it, which is about as unfair asit gets for everyone involved. Had we been informed ahead of time that such a change were to take place, people might have filled out their brackets differently. There is also the tiebreaker issue, which people would have no doubt gone lower with had they known of a layout change ahead of time. An average of 15,000 votes being cut off the poll is no joke, and it may have directly affected some of the later matchups within this contest.

But back to the current matchup. When the site was up and running again, we found Kingdom Hearts in the lead, followed by a push to give Kingdom Hearts the lead for good come the end of the poll. It stalled around 1000 votes or so, but with the way this poll was going, 1000 votes either way was enough. Despite a couple of minor attempts by Soul Calibur to come back later, Kingdom Hearts fought back and finally won the poll.

Kingdom Hearts had won the battle, but had it lost the war here? It was a game expected to dominate the first two rounds, but all of a sudden new life was given to Starcraft in the second round. It became the second round match to keep an eye on, and the debates started well ahead of time for it. And I don`t blame anyone for doing so, as Kingdom Hearts, good as it is, flopped horribly in this contest. Over half of the people that filled out brackets expected it to lose this match in the first place, but even then, I didn`t think Soul Calibur had a chance. Turns out that Ulti = teh pwned in Kingdom Hearts` case. But we all have our favorites, so shut up =p
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

I'd have to disagree slightly with the failure of kingdom hearts...it has a hell of a lot more to do with the surprise strength of starcraft.

KH, despite its second round loss, still ends up at 15th in the overall rankings, with an expected 46.5 percent against WW. Even acounting for some increase in starcrafts strength in bewteen the matches, its not like many people thought KH was going to get past WW anyway.

I think it is much more likely that Soul Calibur was simply underrated rather than KH being overrated - i feel that starcraft, and the 128 division in general, showed this well enough as the contest went on.
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Sp2k4C-120 pts.
Vincent, Ultros, Auron, Frog, Ghaleon, Nanaki, Kerrigan for S2k4C!

BUMP!!!
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Tejelpammed!

Problem is, Starcraft's power varied a lot during the contest. Wouldn't surprise me if the B.net spamming was kept at a minimum against KH since it won rather comfortably. Do you REALLY buy Halo in the top 10, dead even with the Gamecube's two biggest hits, given that there are twice as many GCN owners as X-Box owners here?

I still maintain a combo of the Saturday factor and the new layout are what sank Wind Waker. We had no idea either would take place before the contest began (remember the various delays?)

Living in such an odd country lawsuit-wise as the US of A, Ulti may be able to sue CJayC and win. ;) j/k
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

Or to save you the time of doing the archiving yourself, creative, I've got a copy of that MM/Dp/Ulti Analysis topic saved in my Archives. I agree that it would be well worth placing in your links section, along with the Stats links.

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the-elite.net congratulates Ulti, winner of the Guru Bracket Challenge! (185 pts)
Contest Archives: geocities.com/cyber1166/gamefaqs

Now that you mention it, I do have a lawyer, and it`s not that hard to prove that the unannounced layout change dropped the vote totals.

But honestly, I could care less if Kirin wins. I had a hard enough time finding 5 games I wanted. 10 would be a nightmare.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Wouldn't surprise me if the B.net spamming was kept at a minimum against KH since it won rather comfortably.

Agreed. However, i would question just how many votes b-net spamming was able to accomplish in the other matches. Being careful to try to seperate the night vote from b-net spamming, i don't think b-net spamming ever amounted to more than 3000 net votes gain for starcraft (Except for possibly the Halo match, where both sides seem to have had some spamming working in their favor). Taking this into effect, kingdom hearts is still decently powerful in this contest - possibly not in the top 16, but still in the top 20. To me, this would mean we mildly overrated KH to begin with, but not enough to warrant the major shock that it seemed to cause.

I don't think even the most devoted KH supporter could come up with reasoning that would have, at the start of the contest, put it in the top 10 games in this contest. 11th, maybe 12, sure, but nowhere in the top 10. It dropping 5 or 6 spots from where it was predicted is significant, but not earth-shattering.
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Sp2k4C-120 pts.
Vincent, Ultros, Auron, Frog, Ghaleon, Nanaki, Kerrigan for S2k4C!

But that's implying that Starcraft would be powerful enough to get 46-47% ON THE SOLE GAMEFAQS VOTE against WW and SSBM - thus being able to beat Halo on these same terms. That one's harder to swallow than a golf ball IMO. Also of note would be Soul Calibur coming too close for comfort from Metroid Prime, which doesn't make much sense either.
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

My opinion on the 128 rankings is that they should be thrown out entirely when considering next year's contest (if there is one). We really didn't get any comfortable results we can believe in, except that FE was a dud, and FFTA couldn't stand up to FFX, which we experts already knew. Starcraft screwed up the standings completely. Despite what the rankings say, I think Prime would beat Soul Calibur without breaking much of a sweat, Kingdom Hearts too. Wind Waker would sneak by Halo, though the Starcraft Anomaly makes it seem different. Not so sure about Prime against Halo, but I'd still pick Prime. You just have to interpret Division 128 correctly. If you don't, your beliefs will get you nowhere in a future Spring Contest.
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This is the alternate account of swirldude.
Ulti owned my sorry ass in the Spring Contest!!

But that's implying that Starcraft would be powerful enough to get 46-47% ON THE SOLE GAMEFAQS VOTE against WW and SSBM - thus being able to beat Halo on these same terms. That one's harder to swallow than a golf ball IMO. Also of note would be Soul Calibur coming too close for comfort from Metroid Prime, which doesn't make much sense either.

Soul Calibur wouldnt make sense, but if everything that made sense in these contests happened, we'd all be pulling 192 point brackets, wouldnt we? ;)

That being said, i think that for whatever reason, Soul Calibur is underrated. While the dreamcast release may not have enough strength in of itself, i am all but confident that the release of SC2 on all three consoles helped it out considerably - it is one of the most popular, if not the most popular, mainstream fighting game that has been recently released. I think that due to the nature of fighting games in general, this effect could be greater percentage wise than having final fantasy thrown in front of the name. Note - this would also go a little ways to explaining how MGS2 performed better in the rankings than MGS.

And as for starcraft receiving 45 or so percent on solely the gamefaqs vote? Yeah, i can see that. Think about it. at roughly 100k votes, starcraft, if it was getting just 45 percent of the vote, would have lost to halo by 10000 votes.

I cannot for the life of me see b-net spamming accounting for 10000 votes swung in the direction of starcraft, especially considering that there is no guarantee that all voters from b-net will vote starcraft. You can assume that a very high percentage will (90 percent), but even that mean that you would have need to pull 12500 people from B-net in order to vote to assume starcraft would only get 45 percent of the vote in a straight matchup.

Nothing that has been shown suggests that b-net spamming gave starcraft 5000 votes, let alone 12000+.

So, yes, starcraft would pull 46-47 percent on halo in a contest without spamming.
---
Sp2k4C-120 pts.
Vincent, Ultros, Auron, Frog, Ghaleon, Nanaki, Kerrigan for S2k4C!

Why did the discussion all move into this topic? The thing will hit 500 before I`m even done the first round. Unless, of course, we`re making this another discussion series.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

I just noticed you spelt my name wrong in the topic, lol, but I'm happy just to be thanked. The reason all the discussion is here is because we know that there are people here, and the points are here, and we're just too lazy to go back to the discussion topic.
Also, the Mario/Crono II board explosion was bigger than Starcrafts as a whole, and even technically, wasn't it? That was actually insane, and it was a match between 2 giants. Even though Starcraft and Halo are strong, the match was just not as monumental as Mario/Crono. Or at least to me, I just find it easier to get more absorbed with the characters than the games.
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Revenge is a dish best served cold.-Old Klingon Proverb
Congrats to UltimaterializerX, winner of the Guru Challenge.

Excellent write-ups so far!

One question: I'm wondering if the new main page layout (The "Sponsored by FF" one) affected the match at all.

Sorry if this was already discussed - I skimmed a lot of this thread and may have missed it.
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In Fallout when someone's being a cheesedick I can take a sledgehammer to his nuts.
Id of Ith, F2 Landspeed Recordholder

... Bump!

Great job with this.
---
(Sleeping) Hey Sexy Mama, want to kill all humans? Bender-Futurama
And I will never, ever, ever, ever, write a song about the Sibbie-Strong Bad

Slowflake:
1. Are you keeping the update charts up for a while on your site? I'm too lazy to do the SSBM/Starcraft graphs for now, hopefully I'll get around to doing it soon.

I don't intend on deleting anything, if that's what you're asking.

Some of the links given on the SC2K2 and SC2K3 brackets for the character pics link to "offensive stuff", just so you know. Any intention of fixing it?

Oh...o_0 I didn't see these before but I'm assuming they're with the female characters; I figured you'd have things like that with them. Not much I can do about that, I'm just linking to a Google image search for the character name.

Though because you mentioned this, I did see a bug where it would only search for the first part of a name. ("Spyro" instead of "Spyro the Dragon", "Donkey" instead of "Donkey Kong", heh) I fixed that.

Master Moltar:
Hey creative, would you mind putting up our analysis topic on your sc2k4 site?

I've put up Ngamer's archive :)

Ngamer:
Or to save you the time of doing the archiving yourself, creative, I've got a copy of that MM/Dp/Ulti Analysis topic saved in my Archives. I agree that it would be well worth placing in your links section, along with the Stats links.

Thanks again Ngamer.

Slowflake:
But that's implying that Starcraft would be powerful enough to get 46-47% ON THE SOLE GAMEFAQS VOTE against WW and SSBM - thus being able to beat Halo on these same terms. That one's harder to swallow than a golf ball IMO.

I don't find that difficult to believe at all. In retrospect it is rather easy to believe Halo was a powerhourse.

Also of note would be Soul Calibur coming too close for comfort from Metroid Prime, which doesn't make much sense either.

This is even easier to accept, given the popularity of Soul Calibur 2. After-the-fact, I also think Halo could beat Metroid Prime, though I think it might be 2-3 points closer than Wind Waker vs. Metroid Prime.

andaca:
Nothing that has been shown suggests that b-net spamming gave starcraft 5000 votes, let alone 12000+.

Yeah, anything over say 8,000 net votes extra would be beyond insane. I highly doubt it approached anything like that.

Ulti:
Why did the discussion all move into this topic? The thing will hit 500 before I`m even done the first round. Unless, of course, we`re making this another discussion series.

Well, this topic seems like a natural fit for Spring contest discussion :) Everybody else has moved on to the Summer Contest it seems. Sorrry if I'm contributing to taking this topic in a direction you didn't like, but hey, more 500 topics for you right ;)?

If you really want us to stop though, I don't think anyone will object.
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UltimaterializerX is First among contest analysts, the best of the best
http://SC2k4.com/frog (click on the galleries)

Great rant for Halo.

Btw, since when did KH help Link out!
---
Battlecruiser Operational
Supporter of Mario and Mega Man for sc2k4

I ment the Starcraft/Halo rant.
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Battlecruiser Operational
Supporter of Mario and Mega Man for sc2k4

I could care less if people discuss the contest here. I`m just pleasantly surprised, as there were nothing but a few bumps when I did this last year.

Some of the links given on the SC2K2 and SC2K3 brackets for the character pics link to "offensive stuff", just so you know. Any intention of fixing it?

I don`t think the mods would mind. You have to go to the site, then to a link to the bracket, then you`d have to notice that the links within the bracket lead to Google search images. The stuff is buried so deep within creative`s site that the mods wouldn`t give a rat`s foot about it.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Division 128 Round 1: (5)The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker vs (12)Skies of Arcadia

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker - 56544 (74.71%)
Skies of Arcadia - 19143 (25.29%)
Total Votes - 75687
Vote Difference - 37401
Prediction Percentage - 92%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b27.jpg
Picture Rating - 8.33/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for the Wind Waker - 70
Entries for Skies of Arcadia - 3
Total Entries - 73

This was one of the few matches in Division 128 where there was both a clear-cut favorite and a clear-cut winner. In fact if my memory serves me correctly, this was the biggest blowout of the division. And even then, it was only a 75-25 win in favor of the Wind Waker. Remember last year when Sonic had a similar win against Ken in the first round and some of us thought he was in trouble? I think the same philosophy applies here. Yes, Zelda`s win was convincing. But how convincing? The Wind Waker will always be one of the bastard children of the Zelda series for its graphics, despite how much they are defended by hardcore fans of the Zelda series. I can assure you that had there been the exact same storyline with slightly harder bosses, only with the graphics seen in the Zelda 10 trailor, the Wind Waker could have steamrolled this division over, and possibly even beat FF7. Well, save the fact that you`re stuck sailing for 80% of the damned game. That really pissed me off. But aside from that, the game was damned good.

When you factor in how the first round went in this division, then add in that Zelda had the best performance despite the division being so up in the air, the argument could easily have been made at this point that the Wind Waker was the clear favorite to win the division. I certainly wouldn`t disagree. FFX, SSBM, and Metroid Prime all wound up struggling heavily in their respective matches, yet the Wind Waker, despite having more of an anti factor than any other Zelda game in the contest, dominated its match. My God, were we ever in for a surprise.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Remember last year when Sonic had a similar win against Ken in the first round and some of us thought he was in trouble?

Heh, I remember that match... after it I thought CLOUD was the one in trouble. He did better than Samus did in 2002 against Ken, after all.
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

Heh, I remember that match... after it I thought CLOUD was the one in trouble. He did better than Samus did in 2002 against Ken, after all.

Cloud never faced Ken.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

He = Sonic. Sorry for the CATS-esque grammar.
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

Why would Sonic doing better than Samus against Ken say anything about either Sonic or Samus going at it with Cloud? Cloud is clearly out of Sephiroth`s league, if that`s the connection you`re going for.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Er. Somehow I'm still confused how exactly Ulti managed to get this thing so mathematically proper..

blarg.

Although I will say I got the BangFang Triangle 100% correct; but the 128 division was insane.

Even WITHOUT starcraft.

And FFT disappoints me in these contests...

*sigh*

Oh well.

I came close to winning in 2002's summer contest; and that's the best I've ever managed to pull off. Even WITH my Kirby screwup.

(DANG Link and Mario for beating Cloud and Sephy...)

I was around 15th or so *been a while, i forgot exactly where* and the first person on the list with Sephiroth to win.

So, had everything went as planned in the semifinals, i would have won $300...

oh well.

it's just a game.

*shrug*
---
RPG Elite (777) Dragoon Choco-Mage
"I think somewhere Tolkien mentions that elves had ears." - Epic of Man

Bump

Why would Sonic doing better than Samus against Ken say anything about either Sonic or Samus going at it with Cloud? Cloud is clearly out of Sephiroth`s league, if that`s the connection you`re going for.

But back then we didn't know that. I personally thought of Sephiroth as a more dangerous foe than Cloud, and that's the ONLY reason I even put him over Mario. Else I had a repeat final happening.
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

tag
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../|,-‘`¯¯`\(o)_\,----,,,_ Author of four 500 topics.
( `\(o),,_/` ¯ : o : : :o `-, SAT I: 1600 SAT II's: 3 800's.

I've copy-pasted this into a mega-Word file, so rest assured that your words will be saved for posterity ;)

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../|,-‘`¯¯`\(o)_\,----,,,_ Author of four 500 topics.
( `\(o),,_/` ¯ : o : : :o `-, SAT I: 1600 SAT II's: 3 800's.

Haha, as big a troll as I am, I too love contest analyses.

Tag.
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Married to my right hand since 11/01/85
It's as if we're attached to each other!

Sorry about not writing anything yesterday. My internet was down for most of the night.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Division 128 Round 1: (4)Metroid Prime vs (13)Half-Life

Metroid Prime - 41354 (56.16%)
Half-Life - 32288 (43.84%)
Total Votes - 73642
Vote Difference - 9066
Prediction Percentage - 56.97%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b28.jpg
Picture Rating - 8.33/10 (same rating that WW vs Skies received, ironically enough)

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Metroid Prime - 70
Entries for Half-Life - 3
Total Entries - 73

What an interesting match this was. Before our little site ever decided to run this contest, a site called GameSpy decided to run their own ****ty version of one such competition. The winner? Half-Life by a mile. Now let`s get back to our contest for a minute. In 2002, Gordon Freeman managed to get a 3 seed. What did he do with it, you ask? He was upended by Tina Armstrong, one of the characters from the Dead or Alive fighting series. Gordon Freeman, who is the main character of Half-Life for those that don`t know (and a lot of the people can actually play the game without knowing the main character`s name, hence why he sucks in the Summer Contest setting; you simply can`t piece 'Gordon Freeman' and 'Half-Life' together that well), became the laughing stock of the contest.

So in 2003, Gordon Freeman set out to get revenge for himself. He managed to get a 7 seed and an easy first round matchup against Max Payne. But yet again he lost, making Gordon Freeman the biggest joke in the history of the contest. It was so bad that our own Amazing Telephone ran a Google search on Gordon Freeman and found a picture of a cat with a bag over its head.

Enter 2004. Half-Life wins GameSpy`s contest, and gets a matchup against one of Samus`s two most popular titles in Metroid Prime. Metroid Prime is an interesting story in and of itself, too. It was given the impossible task of being the sequel to Super Metroid and it was made into a First Person Shooter. Yet despite all of the pre-release criticism, Metroid Prime delivered an amazing title to become of the best games ever created. But the same thing can also be said about Half-Life. I vaguely remember someone on this board saying that more people play Half-Life online than any other multiplayer game, including Starcraft. I didn`t verify this myself, but I wouldn`t be surprised if this were true. I can assure the readers of this topic that Half-Life is absolutely huge outside of our site, much like Halo. And like Halo, Half-Life can and would kick the living hell out of Metroid Prime on most other gaming sites. But this isn`t every other gaming site, it`s gamefaqs. Nintendo and Square are the rulers around here, and despite only 57% of people thinking Metroid Prime would win, it had little to no chance of actually losing this match. We have a credo on the contest board called Gordon Freeman Never Wins for a reason.

Anyway, to the match itself. Metroid Prime gained an early advantage of 300 votes or so. But Half-Life didn`t just roll over and die. It managed to split the vote virtually evenly before it was finally smoked by the morning vote and sent packing in this contest. But that doesn`t mean tht Half-Life doesn`t deserve respect after this match. If you go by Gordon Freeman`s past performances, Half-Life should have been smoked from the get-go in this matchup. Instead, it held its own against one of the mascots of the Gamecube for a few hours in the poll. That has to count for something.

One last thing before I move on. This poll marked the return of insta-updating, and it would remain for the rest of the contest. It may have given a 2002 feel back to the contest, but it completely killed the drama of 15 minute updates. All we really had to do to see the match trend swas hit refresh a few times, and not only that, but it completely bugged the **** out of creativename`s file. But aside from that, I`m sure the 2002 regulars didn`t mind seeing our old friend return ^_^

taggity

Instant updating is so much better than the 15 minute thing. The best feeling in this contest was watching Starcraft slowly and methodically slice Wind Waker's 2000 vote lead to ribbons in the wee hours of the morning.
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"None of us are as dumb as all of us together."

I'm torn on the instant updates... it is nice to be able to see what's happening, but there really is so much more suspense with 15 minute updates. I think the best system would be 5 minute updates, to preserve some of the suspense, but not make us wait quite so long to see what's happening.

Are you going to do the entire thing, Ulti?

hello?
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../|,-‘`¯¯`\(o)_\,----,,,_ Author of four 500 topics.
( `\(o),,_/` ¯ : o : : :o `-, SAT I: 1600 SAT II's: 3 800's.

Ulti must be taking a long break or something.
---
Nominate Sarah Kerrigan for the Summer Contest!

I put up a writeup this morning, and the cable here in AC has been on and off for a few days to increase the bandwidth. I`ll be back to full speed in a day or so, hopefully.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Division 128 Round 1: (6)Final Fantasy Tactics Advance vs (11)Fire Emblem

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance - 43716 (66.36%)
Fire Emblem - 22159 (33.64%)
Total Votes - 65875
Vote Difference - 21557
Prediction Percentage - 81.7%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b29.jpg
Picture Rating - 5.81/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Final Fantasy Tactics Advance - 58
Entries for Fire Emblem - 11
Total Entries - 69

The battle of complete losers right here. Correct me if I`m wrong, but didn`t this match have the lowest voter turnout of the contest? Both games had horrendous vote totals, the total votes were horrid, and the match itself was one that people really didn`t care about. One thing it did have was the tradition pre-match hype. As the hours drew closer to this match, a large number of people who have played both games preached on and on about how Fire Emblem should win because it is the better game. Decent enough point, but how many people have actually heard of and have played Fire Emblem before the release of Super Smash Brothers Melee? Fire Emblem wound up suffering from Ness disease. The characters appeared in Smash Brothers, and their cult smash hits wound up gaining vocal power because of people finally being exposed to the games.

But all that being said, the more recognizable game usually wins against cult hits in such matches. Simply look at Doom vs Earthbound if you need proof of this. Fire Emblem, while a great game in its own right, simply never stood much of a chance against a game that features the words 'Final Fantasy Tactics' in the title. Cheap rehash or not, the name alone was enough to give FFTA the win here. But it was a pyrrhic victory for FFTA; despite winning the match, it was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that it had no way in hell of getting out of the next round. Failing to double up a cult hit usually spells doom against the first threat that comes along.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Failing to double up a cult hit usually spells doom against the first threat that comes along.

Set-up for FFX's analysis in the 2nd round, Ulti? >>

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I can see the headline now. High Summoner Yuna in concert: sings like ass, shows ass.
-Videogame Recaps

Division 128 Round 1: (3)Final Fantasy X vs (14)Shenmue

Final Fantasy X - 57663 (74.48%)
Shenmue - 19761 (25.52%)
Total Votes - 77424
Vote Difference - 37902
Prediction Percentage - 92.24%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b30.jpg
Picture Rating - 4.14/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Final Fantasy X - 77
Entries for Shenmue - 2
Total Entries - 79

After the Wind Waker put up a tame number against Skies of Arcadia, it was up to FFX and SSBM to prove that they were worthy of winning the division. First up was FFX, and though everyone knew that FFX would win the match, the true test was whether or not it would prove itself as a title worthy of winning the division.

Needless to say, it flopped horribly in this match. Yes, Ryo Hazuki has performed well in the two contests, but that doesn`t mean that FFX had an excuse to perform worse against Shenmue than Wind Waker performed against Skies of Arcadia. It wasn`t much of a percentage discrepency between the two matches, but when one factors in the fact that Skies of Arcadia and and would beat Shenmue on this site in a poll, it meant that FFX was suddenly no longer the favorite to win the division (the BOP had it the most favored, I believe). The title went to the Wind Waker, odd as it may seem, after this matchup was over. When you are the favorite to win a division, 75% on Shenmue is unacceptable, and FFX would pay for it later on.

But in all fairness, this division looked as if it would be a battle of the Zelda and Final Fantasy titles from our generation. Gee, doesn`t that seem familiar? If FFX had any hope, it would be that it was clear that Final Fantasy 7 was going to beat Ocarina of Time after the first round. So why would FFX not be able to beat the Wind Waker? Makes enough sense to think that FFX could beat Wind Waker if FF7 could beat Ocarina of Time, no? The only thing the games had to worry about at this point was Super Smash Brothers Melee, who had yet to perform. Honestly, what else going to come between them, Starcraft? Puh-leeze.

Wait a moment....
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Set-up for FFX's analysis in the 2nd round, Ulti? >>

You know me too well, sweetie =)
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Yes, Ryo Hazuki has performed well in the two contests

o_O
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

Well his losses weren`t that bad. And the people he lost to (Lara Croft, Dante) didn`t get completely killed in the next round.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Lara did (though to be fair, it was to Crono), and the next year it was Dante who did all the killing. 77-23 blowouts not impressing anyone anymore... what has the first round of the Spring Contest done to our minds?
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

The characters appeared in Smash Brothers, and their cult smash hits wound up gaining vocal power because of people finally being exposed to the games.

Wrongo, Ulti. Neither Marth or Roy appear in Fire Emblem, and aside from that, the games are quite popular in Japan and are hardly "cult smash hits".

The Fire Emblem that was released in the US is really Fire Emblem 7. Marth appears in FE1 and 3, while Roy is in FE6.
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"Thank you, Mario. But our princess is in another castle."
-Toad in Super Mario Bros.

And excuse me if I'm wrong, but didn't FE6 come out AFTER SSBM, effectively making SSBM Roy's debut? I think I saw that somewhere.
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

Yeah, but Japan doesn't matter at all in these contests. Notice how none of the Dragon Quest games were nominated?

Well Fire emblem the franchise recived a small popularity spike after SSBM. Now what ever could have caused that, hmm?
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Neither Marth or Roy appear in Fire Emblem

Wait you mean the new GBA Fire Emblem correct? Because both Marth and Roy have been in a Fire Emblem game, but while Roy`s debut was in SSBM Marth appeared in the first NES version of FE and the SNES version.
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Nintendo® - We Make Games Worth Playing
Ultimaterializer > Nintendo

Ulti needs a job.

Analyzing a popularity contest is like running face-first into a wall. There really is no point to either.
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I'd like to point out that the vast majority of posters on Gamefaqs are idiots. ~FuzzyWuzzyWuzzuhbear

Eh, no need for that.
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-----
-------

i like ulti's analysis.
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UltimaterializerX, the most godly of prognosticators, has won the most rare of prizes - being in my first sig.

Maybe, maybe not...but what is the point of a huge analysis of game A beating game B in a popularity contest?

Isn't it obvious why each game won? "Because it got more votes" or for the slower, "Because it was more popular".

I think its cool that Ulti is taking the time to do something like this, but there are better things he could spend his time on, I'm sure of it.
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I'd like to point out that the vast majority of posters on Gamefaqs are idiots. ~FuzzyWuzzyWuzzuhbear

doesn't matter. we cannot choose how he spends his time; we can only choose whether or not to read the fruits of his choice.

i've made my choice - i'm going to keep reading.
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UltimaterializerX, the most godly of prognosticators, has won the most rare of prizes - being in my first sig.

I think its cool that Ulti is taking the time to do something like this, but there are better things he could spend his time on, I'm sure of it.

I`m going god-awful slow compared to last year. And why? Because I have a busy life. Go figure, eh? ^_^
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Roy is in FE7.

Only like 2 minutes, but he is.
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FIESTAAA!! CUÑAAAAAAAOO!!! BOOOOMBAAAA!!! ESPAÑA VA BIEN!!!! CERO PATATERO!!!

It's obvious that SSBM was the game that brought Marth/Roy into the spotlight. No question.
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Americans seem to think that they're being subtle when they refrain from grabbing you by the shirt collar. ~ Dave Barry

Analyzing a popularity contest is like running face-first into a wall. There really is no point to either.

You slept with Daisy's VA, didn't you?
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

gotta tag this topic.
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GameFAQs is to Square fanboys as the Special Olympics is to the handicapped. Neither can go anywhere else without being totally humiliated.

Vice City match coming up...

*retags*
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../|,-‘`¯¯`\(o)_\,----,,,_ Author of four 500 topics.
( `\(o),,_/` ¯ : o : : :o `-, SAT I: 1600 SAT II's: 3 800's.

Final Bump

Set up the bump

hello? i really like this
---
../|,-‘`¯¯`\(o)_\,----,,,_ Author of four 500 topics.
( `\(o),,_/` ¯ : o : : :o `-, SAT I: 1600 SAT II's: 3 800's.

Division 128 Round 1: (7)Grand Theft Auto: Vice City vs (10)Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City - 54055 (60.32%)
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - 35564 (39.68%)
Total Votes - 89619
Vote Difference - 18491
Prediction Percentage - 79.11%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b31.jpg
Picture Rating - 7.42/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Vice City - 68
Entries for Star Wars - 9
Total Entries - 77

Don`t let the 90000 votes allow you to think either of these games are all that strong. This match took place during the day of the board layout being changed, the poll went on for 48 hours. But that one tidbit aside, this was still a good match, if for no other reason then to set up some serious second round hype.

KOTOR has done what no other game could do: Shake openly stated that a game, any game, is better than Grim Fandango. There are also a ton of KOTOR fans of the board who went on and on about how great the game was, and how it would be a threat in this match. As an aside, is Xbox hate starting to come to an end? KOTOR, Ninja Gaiden, Halo, and EA`s support of Xbox Live seem to be allowing the system to gain some serious boom in the market.

But anyway, despite all of the hype for KOTOR, Vice City managed to put up over 60% on it. Apparently, selling 7 million copies of yourself is no joke. This victory immediately allowed Vice City to gain serious steam from the board in this contest, and the debate for Vice City`s chances to make the sweet sixteen were on. After all, SSBM was a game that could lose any match between the first round and the Final Four, and since we hadn`t seen it before Vice City`s matchup, there was no guarantee of how well SSBM would do. Hell, Metal Gear Solid 2 had a serious chance of taking down SSBM. Another interesting debate that stemmed from this match was which game was stronger, Metal Gear Solid or Metal Gear Solid 2? I wound up being very happy at the results of that little situation, but more on that later. For now, all that we needed to worry about was how Vice City was suddenly a strong oponent for whoever it would go up against in the second round.

...or was it? In 48 hours, this entire poll managed 90000 votes. We`ve had 24 hour polls in the past that have horribly outscored this one, so Vice City wasn`t locked into the sweet sixteen just yet. It would have to earn the spot.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Round 1 closes next analysis.
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Americans seem to think that they're being subtle when they refrain from grabbing you by the shirt collar. ~ Dave Barry

Round 1 closes next analysis.

He still has Smash Bros Melee vs. Metal Gear Solid 2 left
---
My Collection: users.ign.com/collection/Dark115.
(1) Final Fantasy VII (2) The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (3) Halo (4) Super Mario 64 (5) Chrono Trigger

And therefore, when he finishes, the round will close.

=X
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Americans seem to think that they're being subtle when they refrain from grabbing you by the shirt collar. ~ Dave Barry

...no comment.
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Moltar's Comics - http://www.stripcreator.com/comics/Moltar
Final Bracket Score: 167 points. Finished in the top 416 brackets.

sorry didn't read it properly
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My Collection: users.ign.com/collection/Dark115.
(1) Final Fantasy VII (2) The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (3) Halo (4) Super Mario 64 (5) Chrono Trigger

C'mon, Ulti!

I dont think Ive tagged this yet...
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There are 3 types of people in this world. Those who can count, and those who can't
My SpC2K4 bracket: http://www.geocities.com/sbslyrics/SpringContest2K4.txt

My turn to tag.
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How could ANYONE like Billy Hatcher? He's the worst Video Game character to ever exist. -Heroic Billy Hatcher

These analyses are very good.
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The topic is dead. Not the kind of dead that can be cured with a Phoenix Down. I'm talking FMV sequence dead.- The King in Teal

As an aside, is Xbox hate starting to come to an end? KOTOR, Ninja Gaiden, Halo, and EA`s support of Xbox Live seem to be allowing the system to gain some serious boom in the market.

I don't know how much KOTOR's popularity says about the X-Box, since it was also released on PC. I personally will never buy an X-Box, but I played KOTOR on the PC and it's a great game.

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"A fool and his money are soon elected."
- Will Rogers

Plus, I forgot to mention that KOTOR does have the Star Wars franchise behind it. Despite the fact that the Star Wars franchise has produced a bunch of crappy games and 2 crappy movies, it's still a pretty strong factor.

---
"A fool and his money are soon elected."
- Will Rogers

Plus, I forgot to mention that KOTOR does have the Star Wars franchise behind it.
Just like The Simpsons had that franchise behind it?
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"Yes, yes, yes….the black wind howls…wails…blows…….does a somersault….whatever" ~MMXcalibur

KOTOR is, frankly, one of the weakest games in its division. Granted, the 128-bit division is fairly strong (what it has in its favor is that, Fire Emblem and FFTA aside, it lacks any truly weak 'pushover' games like the other divisions have. I still stand by my point that most of the better 16 or 32/64 bit games would have easily trounced their 128 bit counterparts). Even still, though, KOTOR not putting up 40% against a game like Vice City isn't all that impressive. Not impressive at all given the closer margins in most other matches.

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TU NE CEDE MALIS SED CONTRA AUDENTIOR ITO.

I still stand by my point that most of the better 16 or 32/64 bit games would have easily trounced their 128 bit counterparts

I still stand on the side of the statistics we saw from the contest. Comparing the brackets to one another, the 128 division is much stronger on average. There are a bevy of 128 games which, statistically, would crush all except the top two or three games in the other divisions.

And for all those who blame the statistical strength of 128 as an anomoly due to starcraft, realize that with the size of the lead the 128 division has on the other divisions, in order for starcraft to be responsible it would have needed to be pulling in roughly 15000 votes from b-net a match, with 100 percent of them voting starcraft.

Not very likely.
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Sp2k4C-120 pts.
Vincent, Ultros, Auron, Frog, Ghaleon, Nanaki, Kerrigan for S2k4C!

Division 128 Round 1: (2)Super Smash Brothers Melee vs (15)Metal Gear Solid 2

Super Smash Brothers Melee - 42494 (56.72%)
Metal Gear Solid 2 - 32429 (43.28%)
Total Votes - 74923
Vote Difference - 10065
Prediction Percentage - 60.69%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b32.jpg
Picture Rating - 8.38/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Super Smash Brothers Melee - 82
Entries for Metal Gear Solid 2 - 6
Total Entries - 88

Finally, the last writeup of the first round. With Vice City`s impressive win against KOTOR, it was all up to SSBM to prove that it was worthy of being a 2 seed in this division. The problem here is that SSBM didn`t prove itself to be a favorite in this matchup. Metal Gear Solid 2 managed to put up a crazy fight early on in this poll, and though SSBM wound up winning by 10000 votes, the damage may have already been done. SSBM`s struggle in this match paired with Vice City`s good performance set up an interesting second round matchup between the two games, and the hype for it started before this poll was even over.

Another interesting thing to note is how little faith the bracketmakers had in SSBM throughout this entire contest. 2 seeds simply don`t have merely 60% of people pick them to win in the first round, yet that`s what SSBM was facing after this matchup. If you go by the past, SSBM was in some trouble in this contest, and this poll turned Division 128 into a giant cluster****. Most of the games left had great chances of winning the division, and though we knew this after the first round, few of us knew just how crazy of a race it was going to be.

But I can`t go through this match and speak nothing of the strength of Metal Gear Solid 2. I`ve always believed it to be the best game in the series. The entire game from start to finish, Raiden or not, is pure genius. Kojima was going for a genius tough on the ending to this game, and I feel that he pulled it off perfectly. Others don`t agree with me, but hey, opinions are opinions. I also find it funny that Metal Gear Solid 2 wound up being stronger than Metal Gear Solid once the final extrapolated (and non SFF) standings were released, despite all of the people who swear up and down that Metal Gear Solid 2 completely sucks.

There was also a developing pattern from SSBM that can be taken from this match. It likes to start off slow, win the day vote, and then end slowly. Not all that good when you have a 7 million copy title awaiting you in the second round. This was a very 'meh' win for SSBM. Not breathtaking, not large enough of a win against a strong title that it made the game not look as bad as some might think.

One last thing. Time and time again, people kept posting how they felt that SSBM had no chance to win this division because of SSBM`s weak showing in this match, and time and time again, I kept preaching that Metal Gear Solid 2 was being vastly underestimated and that the game was far stronger than its seeding may show. These posts were of course deemed simple denial and shot down immediately.

Funny how these things work out, no? Anyhoo, the first round is now OVAH! On to round two of this crazy contest.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Hey andaca, a topic you might take intrest in:
http://boards.gamefaqs.com/gfaqs/genmessage.php?board=8&topic=14635087
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Division 8 Quarterfinal: (1)Super Mario Brothers 3 vs (8)Metroid

Super Mario Brothers 3 - 63246 (78.04%)
Metroid - 17799 (21.96%)
Total Votes - 81045
Vote Difference - 45447
Prediction Percentage - 72.04%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b33.jpg
Picture Rating - 6.73/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Super Mario Brothers 3 - 81
Entries for Metroid - 0
Total Entries - 81

Finally, a new round was upon us! Some normalcy returned back to our contest, as we entered back into the Archaic Division of 8 Bit with an easy match to analyse. Another new addition to this round was the match pictures. We were back to the character portraits as shown in the first rounds of the 2002 and 2003 contests, which created all sorts of nostalgia.

As for the actual match, if you go solely by stats, Mario and Samus are supposed to be close together in character strength. I personally don`t believe this, as I think Mario would take Samus apart in a poll. But this isn`t a character contest, it`s a game contest. And in this game contest, Mario 3 showed that it was the favorite to win the 8 Bit division after it utterly destroyed the original Metroid. It was up in the air after The Legend of Zelda trounced Adventure so badly, but this match seemed like a huge wakeup call, at least until Zelda 1`s next matchup. Three Metroid titles were in this contest, and this was the first one to go down. And it went down with a huge thud, too.

Nice to see the board calm down, too. This was the first of many predictable matches all in a row. Bad for drama, but at least there was no reason to stay up all hours of the night to see what was going on.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Division 8 Quarterfinal: (12)Contra vs (4)Final Fantasy

Contra - 23901 (29.95%)
Final Fantasy - 55895 (70.05%)
Total Votes - 79796
Vote Difference - 31994
Prediction Percentage - 82.01%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b34.jpg
Picture Rating - 7.76/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Contra - 3
Entries for Final Fantasy - 77
Total Entries - 80

First and foremost, I am disgusted that the Black Mage was not the character representing Final Fantasy in the match picture. I mean, what did he ever do to deserve such punishment? ...besides all the sinning...

And then there is the prediction percentage. Only 72% of people predicted Mario 3 to reach the sweet sixteen, while 82% of people predicted Final Fantasy making the sweet sixteen. Mario 3 was a lock from the beginning to win its half division, yet it was outnumbered by Final Fantasy by 10% to even reach the sweet sixteen? If that isn`t gamefaqs Square bias, I don`t know what is. Either that, or people relying too much on past results to choose their brackets in this contest.

Anyway, Contra wound up performing well in this contest as a whole. Phantasy Star was overseeded, yet Contra beat it soundly. As for its match against Final Fantasy here, yes it lost 70-30, but 30% of the vote on a Final Fantasy title on this site is nothing to laugh at. In the overall standings, Contra isn`t powerful at all. But within the realm of Division 8, I don`t think it did badly at all. If we knew of the results of the Final Fantasy/Mario 3 poll before this match, we wouldn`t call the game that lives on the best cheat code ever made losing 70-30 to Final Fantasy all that bad. It`s still a decent franchise -- nothing amazing, but nothing too bad either -- and it still has some very loyal fans. Just look at MWIS ~_^

The perspective on Final Fantasy is slightly different. As I said before, 10% more people thought Final Fantasy would get here than Mario 3. Did people look at their brackets and assume that since Samus and Solid Snake could pose threats to Mario that their games within Division 8 stood a chance? It`s the only thing I can think of, and it makes enough sense. But looking at the stats before the imminent Final Fantasy/Mario 3 match, one could actually assume that Final Fantasy had a chance of winning. I maintain that Mario 3 was a lock for at least the elite eight in this contest, and the very thought of another game in Mario 3`s half division being able to pose any threat whatsoever was simply unheard of before this contest. Final Fantasy did that well in the first two rounds, and it wound up doing damned well in the third as well.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

I hate killing topics, but somehow I always manage to...
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Drizz'l: "You think you've won, don't you?"
Black Mage: "Short Version, Yes. Long Version, Hell Yes."

I agree as far as SMB3's opposition vs. FF1's opposition is concerned, I think the reason for these numbers is that the opposition SMB3 had was more fearsome than FF1's... but how could one think it's fearsome enough to beat SMB3 is beyond me. Still, Metal Gear, Metroid and Pac-Man will sure have more recognition than Phantasy Star, Contra or Pitfall.

To the one who said the 128-bit games would get beaten by their older counterparts: I agree, to the exception of MGS2.

OoT or LttP would beat Wind Waker.
SM would beat Prime.
FF7 or FF6 would beat FF10.
FFT would beat FFTA.
And, although it wasn't in the tournament, many Mario games would beat the tar out of SMS.
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

OoT or LttP would beat Wind Waker.
SM would beat Prime.
FF7 or FF6 would beat FF10.
FFT would beat FFTA.

I`m not so sure about Super Metroid beating Metroid Prime.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

I'd be very confident in picking Super Metriod over Metroid Prime.
---
Nintendo® - We Make Games Worth Playing
Ultimaterializer > Nintendo

Division 8 Quarterfinal: (6)Donkey Kong vs (3)The Legend of Zelda

Donkey Kong - 9559 (12.96%)
The Legend of Zelda - 64193 (87.04%)
Total Votes - 73752
Vote Difference - 54634
Prediction Percentage - 87.68%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b35.jpg
Picture Rating - 7.30/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Donkey Kong - 0
Entries for The Legend of Zelda - 72
Total Entries - 72

While Mario 3 was getting ready its next bid to stake claim as the favorite in the division, Zelda 1 was waiting in the wings with a counterattack to cement Zelda`s place in this division, as well as this contest. The Zelda games were the most convincing games in round one, and the board hype for an all-Zelda Final Four was running rampant. Zelda didn`t just own the first round, it owned the first round. The only games that looked like they could take down Zelda titles after the first round were Mario 3, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 7, and the cluster**** within Division 128. In fact, it almost seemed as if the Wind Waker was the only one that could lose (save my belief that OOT was doomed after the first round, but we`re not getting into that argument again).

And in the second round, it seemed like Zelda was going to roll all over this contest even more. An 80-20 win over Metroid is nice if you`re Mario 3, but how do you feel if you`re watching Donkey Kong get his TJF handed to him (he clearly had exposed breasts in that picture) under silver platters with fillet mignon on the side? Killing Adventure is one thing, and Donkey Kong may be the most unreliable character and/or game in these contests, but an 87-13 victory for Zelda 1 in this match? If there was ever any doubt that Donkey Kong was one of the weak links of the Nintendo franchise, this match ended them. This match was a complete domination from the start, and even DK Junior felt this one. But that`s Donkey Kong for you. He has a close match in all of these contests, followed by him getting his ass kicked next round. Well, save the fact that he lost to Tommy Vercetti, but Mega Man would have owned his ass. His matchup with Duck Hunt was legendary, but this was the single worst followup Donkey Kong has ever had after a close match. He`d be better off actually losing the close calls; he would have more respect that way. Instead, he`s made into someone`s ***** every year.

Back to Zelda for a minute. Five Zelda games had appeared in the contest to this point, and they were a resounding 5-0. And when I said that Zelda was the most convincing force in the contest to this point, I wasn`t being biased. It`s just that FF6 was unimpressive, Chrono Trigger isn`t Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy X could have been labeled a bust, and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is in the contest. Zelda, to this point, had absolutely no issues whatsoever save for a 'meh' win against Skies of Arcadia. But Skies is a Sega title, and Sega fans are among the most loyal in gaming.

For those who didn`t think Zelda was going to dominate this contest, were you the least bit worried after this match? It`s almost as if they were unstoppable, and even the legendary Mario 3 looked like the underdog going into its match against Zelda 1. And if you weren`t worried after this match, were you worried after the next one? That match was as shocking as any match in this contest, but we`ll get into that later.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

It was the hype that made people believe Zelda would own all, but I still believed LoZ had no chance against SMB3.

Mario's opponents:
Metal Gear
Metroid
Final Fantasy

Zelda's Opponents:
Adventure
Donkey Kong
Tetris

Clearly, Zelda pwned it's matches because its opponents were weak while SMB3's wins were not as big as Zelda. People got misleaded into thinking Zelda would own all, and it came back to haunt them in the divisional finals when SMB3 convincingly beat Zelda.
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Battlecruiser Operational
Supporter of Mario and Mega Man for sc2k4

Forgive me for asking if it's been said already, but did Ulti or Kirin end up winning? I have yet to hear.
---
Now is the time to choose: Die, and be free of pain, OR LIVE, AND FIGHT YOUR SORROW! - Auron
I love God! He's so deliciously evil! - Stewie, Family Guy

Division 8 Quarterfinal: (7)Pong vs (2)Tetris

Pong - 17956 (26.53%)
Tetris - 49723 (73.47%)
Total Votes - 67679
Vote Difference - 31767
Prediction Percentage - 71.52%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b36.jpg
Picture Rating - 9.55/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Pong - 1
Entries for Tetris - 71
Total Entries - 72

BEST. PICTURE. EVER. Since the days of 2002, we`ve all joked around about how a Pong/Tetris pic would be the best we`ve ever had in this contest. But we never actually thought we would see such a picture. But sure enough, CJayC proved that he can actually have a sense of humor when we saw the Pong Paddle go up against the Line Block in the match pic. The actual match itself sucked, but the hilarity that was the match pic was more than enough for the board to enjoy a good laugh for a day. It was necessary as well, because Division 128 caused every flame war in the book, while the first three matches in Division 8 put everyone to sleep. A good site-wide fad was a nice break.

An actual analysis, you ask? The Tetris Line Block didn`t win the Best Tetris Block contest for nothing, and this is clearly the reason why Tetris won this match. Had it been that pain in the ass Staircase Block, we may have seen a different result. The Pong Paddle takes **** from no one, and had it not gone up against itself in this match, it could have easily won the contest. But alas, it was not to be. Tetris and its 33 million copies distributed were simply too much for one Pong Paddle to take, and Pong bowed out of the contest after this matchup. Still, the two matches involving Pong were among the most fun in the contest, and it almost made up for Zero Wing not making it in. ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO PONG, *****es =)

On a more serious note, this match truly did suck. 67000 votes is a horribly low voter turnout, and it was blatantly obvious that Tetris wasn`t going to do squat against Zelda 1 in the next round because of this. Division 8, from day one, was nothing more than filler until the Mario 3 vs Zelda 1 final. The other games are nice, but they simply don`t stack up to the fanbases of the aforementioned two on this site.

I won`t lie though, I was rooting for Pong to win this match the whole way. It sucks that it got killed so badly, but hey, I had Tetris in my bracket. And with this, the second round of Division 8 is done and overwith. Four matches, four insanely easy picks to make. And for the 28% who didn`t think Mario 3 was making it out of its 4 pack alive, pass some of that stuff over this way please?
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Forgive me for asking if it's been said already, but did Ulti or Kirin end up winning? I have yet to hear.

Me either. I think CJayC was in love with the idea of creating a contest, but didn`t enjoy seeing it through much. That`s why we should have a Winter and Summer contests, so that they`re spread out more.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

Put MGS VS MGS2 in a match, Ulti, and we'll see who wins.

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TU NE CEDE MALIS SED CONTRA AUDENTIOR ITO.

Not a problem. I don`t even think MGS2 would break a sweat.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
I would like to take this moment to politely orgasm over Ulti's Halo/Starcraft analysis. -smitelf

MGS2 is the better game.

Now, MGS2 versus the original PLUS the twin snakes remake...

that's a better question.
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RPG Elite (777) Dragoon Choco-Mage
s81014628: wtf is stuntman? some megaman boss?

Twin Snakes didn`t even sell 200,000 copies, and would be a non factor in such a match.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
Ulti pwned me so completely in the Sp2k4 contest that I won't be able to sit for a week. -smitelf

Twin Snakes sold THAT bad? Guess it's the same disease that made Sonic Heroes sell like crap on PS2 and X-Box.
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

Twin Snakes did sell horribly.
---
Nintendo® - We Make Games Worth Playing
Ultimaterializer > Nintendo

Well, the game seems like it was meant to be a rental. I picked it up two days ago, and beat it yesterday, with a final time of 10:23 on Normal. And I've never played a MGS game before.
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Final SpC2k3 Score: 163 (It's all Starcraft's fault)
Nominate Frog for SC2k4!

Conker's Bad Fur Day sold even worse than Twin Snakes if I recall correctly and against Yoshi, he. . .well, he didn't fail miserably or anything.

But then again, he was A SQUIRREL* WITH UZIS!!!


*What is Conker exactly?
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UltimaterializerX is my God!

Conker sold downright terrible, with a whomping 50,000 copies. Tell me that's not bad.

Anyway, Conker is a squirrel.
---
Nintendo® - We Make Games Worth Playing
Ultimaterializer > Nintendo

PDS got three times the amount of copies it sold in votes against Goldeneye, for kicks.
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

Conker's sales figures may have been low, but there will NEVER IN THE HISTORY OF GAMING be a better boss than the Great Mighty Poo. I will never forget that game as long as I live, if only because of that one part.
---
Now is the time to choose: Die, and be free of pain, OR LIVE, AND FIGHT YOUR SORROW! - Auron
I love God! He's so deliciously evil! - Stewie, Family Guy

Can't wait for SC2K4.
---
"Haha SMRPG wins because this is RPGFAQs." "If SMRPG wins then GameFAQs has no credibility." - Fanboys.

retag
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../|,-‘`¯¯`\(o)_\,----,,,_ Author of four 500 topics.
( `\(o),,_/` ¯ : o : : :o `-, SAT I: 1600 SAT II's: 3 800's.

B-b-b-bump.
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"Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!"
Account by Janors.

i love the analysis, Ulti, but this made me laugh:

and Sega fans are among the most loyal in gaming.


if that's true, than why did Sega go 1 - 8 in the first round with it's only victory being against another Sega game? not only that, but Sega's only victory came from it's mascot Sonic, who got annihilated by Mario World in the second round. in fact, only FOUR of Sega's NINE games broke the 20% barrier. that means that over half of Sega's games had their opponent's get more than FOUR TIMES their vote total. and only TWO of those NINE games managed to get over 26% of the vote (Phantasy Star and Sonic 2).

sorry, Ulti, but Sega got hardly any support in this last contest. i saw very little Sega loyalty.

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Nominate Shadow from FF3/6 for SC2K4!!
Through great Luck (and a bit of skill) ULTI pounded me in the Spring Contest!!

Tells you a lot about the SIZE of the Sega fanbase, not necessarily their loyalty. Think Earthbound.
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"I'd like to see things from your point of view, but unfortunately I can't get my head that far up the rearend." -Jerry "The King" Lawler

Tells you a lot about the SIZE of the Sega fanbase, not necessarily their loyalty.

Slowflake beat me to it. They aren`t a large enough fanbase to win many matches, but you`ll rarely see any of their games or characters get absolutely killed in a match.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
Ulti pwned me so completely in the Sp2k4 contest that I won't be able to sit for a week. -smitelf

Division 16 Quarterfinal: (1)Chrono Trigger vs (8)Super Mario RPG

Chrono Trigger - 53516 (67.06%)
Super Mario RPG - 26288 (32.94%)
Total Votes - 79804
Vote Difference - 27228
Prediction Percentage - 73.2%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b37.jpg
Picture Rating - 5.17/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Chrono Trigger - 61
Entries for Super Mario RPG - 4
Total Entries - 65

This Prophet Challenge wasn`t nearly as popular in this contest as it was in the Summer 2003 Contest. Wonder why.

Anyhoo, Division 16 was upon us and with it, a watered down version of Mario vs Crono. It may have been those two in the match picture, but this match was Chrono Trigger the whole way. How only 73.2% of people thought Chrono Trigger wouldn`t get past Secret of Mana and Super Mario RPG/Street Fighter 2 is simply beyond me. As I said in Chrono Trigger`s last matchup, Chrono Trigger had a pattern in this contest. It started off hot against Super Mario RPG, and looked like it was going to cement its spot in Division 16 with a victory convincing enough to make it the clear-cut favorite. But once the day vote began rolling in, Chrono Trigger lost percentage like crazy. I tried looking on SC2K4.com for the update charts (are they on the site, creativename?), but couldn`t mind them. If my memory serves me correctly, Chrono Trigger lost around 8% during the day before finally coming back a little bit to make the percentages what they were at the end of the match.

During this little tailspin by Chrono Trigger, the people who were rooting for it not to win the division were all rooting for the percentage to fall even farther, as it meant that Chrono Trigger was in a high probability for losing future matchups. Personally, I think that Chrono Trigger simply faced two great games up to this point. SNES Squaresoft RPGs are nothing to take lightly, and I think that even the best of games could have possibly lost percentage points to Secret of Mana and Super Mario RPG at some point during matches against them. Still, that big a percentage loss could really kill Chrono Trigger if it kept that pattern up against games such as Link to the Past or Super Mario 3. Whether or not this would actually come into fruition was made to be seen, though this little pattern of Chrono Trigger`s made for one of the best matches we had ever seen in this history of our contests.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
Ulti pwned me so completely in the Sp2k4 contest that I won't be able to sit for a week. -smitelf

This is sort of off topic, but someone mentioned it a page ago when y'all were talking about MGS1 vs. MGS2 and theoretical polls such as that.

(by the way, I would proudly vote MGS)

Would Super Metroid or Metroid Prime win? Maybe it's just me (and the fact that I played MP before I played SM), but I think Super Metroid is overrated. :/
---
University of Georgia Football: 9-3
2004 Capital One Bowl Champions

Division 16 Quarterfinal: (5)Sonic the Hedgehog 2 vs (4)Super Mario World

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - 21647 (29.43%)
Super Mario World - 51911 (70.57%)
Total Votes - 73558
Vote Difference - 30264
Prediction Percentage - 72.98%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b38.jpg
Picture Rating - 7.71/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - 18
Super Mario World - 61
Total Entries - 79

This match shocked quite a number of people, apparently. Some of the best posters on this board went on and on from day one about how this match was the Mario vs Sonic duel we`ve all been waiting for, and how Sonic 2 would win the match because of it. There`s also the fact that a 4 seed had yet to beat a 5 seed in any of these contests, and the fact that Sonic is simply the cooler Mario, and deserved to win this match.

IT`S A TRAP!

I picked Super Mario World to win this match, and I didn`t even have to think about it. I`ve played and beaen Sonic 2 many, many times. I`ve literally sat in the Casino Night zone for hours racking up tons of extra lives for no reason, have beaten the game with just Sonic, just Tails, and with both of them. I know that game inside and out, and trust me when I tell you that the game has some serious gameplay issues. Speed is nice, but when it starts getting all glitchy, then you have a problem. I`ve died on platforms that were going up because the game thought I was stuck between the platform and a wall. There are also the zones where you can`t go fast at all, or you will die. Hill Top is a perfect example of this. And don`t even get me started on how useless it is to play with Sonic and Tails in that game, be it single or multiplayer.

It pretty much goes like so. Sonic runs way past his little two-tailed friend Tails, then Tails gets left in the dust. Tails then comes flying back on the screen, only to be left in the dust again. It`s completely pointless, and it makes Tails out to look like a complete pansy. OF course if you`ve ever seen the Sonic cartoon, you`d know that Tails truly is a complete pansy. They portray him as some whimpy little brat who idolizes Sonic. Why, we`ve never seen the corny sidekick routine before! And even worse, the ring quota for getting the Chaos Emeralds gets higher when you have both Sonic and Tails. The computer sucks at using Tails, and humans aren`t much better. So in the end, you`re stuck with Sonic trying to more work than he was doing in the first place. Single player is nice, but only for Sonic. He gets to be Super Sonic before the cave zone is you`re good enough. Tails? He gets the shaft again. You don`t get a Super Tails in this game, and it becomes completely useless to ever go get the Chaos Emeralds with him. Personally, this is a slap in the face, as we have all been robbed of seeing a sexy beast of a fox with two tails. Damn Sega to hell for that.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
Ulti pwned me so completely in the Sp2k4 contest that I won't be able to sit for a week. -smitelf

I would have Metroid Prime in my bracket any day of the week.
---
Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
Ulti pwned me so completely in the Sp2k4 contest that I won't be able to sit for a week. -smitelf

Now Super Mario World, at my last check, does plenty of the things that Sonic 2 can do, only better. Can Mario not run up walls in Super Mario World? Is Mario not surrounded by complete and total morons at all times? Can you actually see the pits before reaching them and take the necessary course to avoid them? Does Mario not have other forms to take in the game? And lastly, does the game encompass more than simply running to the end of the stage as fast as you can, hitting a sign, and occasionally jumping on an easy boss a few times? Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. And Mario World has harder bosses that aren`t the same damned thing over and over again. Holy unlyrical lyrics Eminem, Robotnik has taken on yet another useless form that is so slow that Sonic can simply run corcle around it for as long as he damned well pleases! At least Mario can actually be challenged in Super Mario World. The only issues that even an average player would have in Sonic 2 is the very last zone of the game. And why? Because you die in one hit, and you have two bosses to go through. Neither of them are hard once you know their pattern, but hey, it`s something.

And that brings me to another point, and that is this whole nonsense with the rings. If Mario gets hit, he has to go and find another mushroom (or Fire Flower or a leaf or something) before he`s safe again. Sonic gets hit, and all he needs to be safe is to pick up one of the hundreds of rings that magically flew off from him out of no where and keep on running. Could you imagine how much the Mario series would suck if Mario only needed coins to stay alive?

So yes, Sonic 2 deserved this beating. I didn`t think it would be anything along the lines of 70-30, but I`m not going to complain about it. In fact, Mario World was so impressive in this match that when compared to Chrono Trigger`s weak showing against Super Mario RPG, we had the makings of an imminent Mario vs Crono clash yet again. Only this time Super Mario World actually had a good chance to win, and the people of the board knew it.
---
Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
Ulti pwned me so completely in the Sp2k4 contest that I won't be able to sit for a week. -smitelf

Division 16 Quarterfinal: (6)The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past vs (3)Super Metroid

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - 53413 (74.00%)
Super Metroid - 18763 (26.00%)
Total Votes - 72176
Vote Diference - 34650
Prediction Percentage - 73.42%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b39.jpg
Picture Rating - 6.97/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - 66
Entries for Super Metroid - 8
Total Entries - 74

Excuse me Samus while I smack you in the head with my boomerang. And also, allow me to poke some fun at Xenobi =)

Hey X, how many times did I tell you on AIM before this contest that you`ll almost never see Samus or any of her game take down Link or any of his games? Unless you`re pitting The Adventure of Link against Metroid Prime or something, Link almost always wins. And this goes for everyone else in future contests. Samus beating Link? No thanks.

But that being said, Super Metroid was one of the greatest and most revolutionary games of all time. Most top 100 lists have it way up there in the top ten at least, and for good reason. The game featured huge levels, a ton of powerups, some of the best attacks ever, and boss fights that remain legendary to this very day. Samus vs Mother Brain is still one of the all-time great battles in gaming, and for good reason. Long boss fights make for the best boss fights, and I think this is the reason why so many people don`t like RPGs much. So many of them get way too easy near the end. Excuse me while I hit you with my strongest attacks and merely heal when necessary!

This is all well and good of course, but this is gamefaqs. Square and Zelda reign supreme around here, and if Zelda`s dominating 5-0 start didn`t open everyone`s eyes, then the beating that Zelda laid on Metroid in this match certainly caught some attention. Dominating Adventure, Fallout 2, and Gunstar Heroes is one thing, but sheer dominance over Donkey Kong and Super ****ing Metroid is an entirely different animal. I was honestly upset with myself after this matchup, because I originally had Link to the Past over Zelda 1 in the first Final Four match in my bracket, and all signs pointed to seeing that match at this point in the contest. I mean god damn, 74-26 over Super Metroid??? This match was as shocking as any other match in this contest, and though I was rooting for LTTP to win this thing, my jaw hit the floor when I first checked the score of it. And even as I type this, I still can`t believe how badly Link to the Past flattened Super Metroid in this match. The best series in gaming (IMO) was 6-0 at this point at still going strong.

"Ulti, you`re a dumbass. Final Fantasy is the best series in gaming. Look at who won the contest!"

Eh, we`ll get into that later. But let`s just say that the weak Link of the Zelda series is The Adventure of Link, which I happen to think is a damned good game. Every other game in the series, including the Wind Waker, kicks ass. Final Fantasy has to deal with such titles as Mystic Quest, Final Fantasy 5, Final Fantasy 8, and the best of them all, Final Fantasy X-2, featuring Yuna both singing like ass and showing ass.

Might as well bust out the big question now. Who do you feel would win in a match between Metroid Prime and Super Metroid?
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
Ulti pwned me so completely in the Sp2k4 contest that I won't be able to sit for a week. -smitelf

I loved Adventure of Link it's the only one where you don't run around looking for a master sword.

And I loved FFX-2....cause Yuna has a hot ass.
---
Use of the word 'Owned' signifies immaturity, unoriginality and stupidity. Use of the word 'Pwned' means all that and you can't spell.

Division 16 Quarterfinal: (7)Doom vs (2)Final Fantasy 6

Doom - 20285 (27.28%)
Final Fantasy 6 - 54078 (72.72%)
Total Votes - 74363
Vote Difference - 33793
Prediction Percentage - 66.89%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b40.jpg
Picture Rating - 5.74/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Doom - 0
Entries for Final Fantasy 6 - 54
Total Entries - 54

Doom had no chance in hell of winning this match on our site, so there is really no point saying how FF6 won. This is gamefaqs, where Square and Zelda are boss. First Person Shooters may have existed without Doom, and they they would have sucked. A shame that such a great title went down with such a thud, but hey, gamefaqs is a console-based site.

What I will get into is the final four within this division. Originally, this division seemed like a collision course between LTTP and Chrono Trigger. But with Chrono Trigger`s struggle against Super Mario RPG and FF6`s good showing in this match, it turned into a four way race. There were multiple posts in the discussion topic involving the favorites in each division. At this point, the favorites in the first two divisions were Zelda 1 and LTTP, while the other two divisions were up in the air.

I also had a discussion on AIM with BigCow involving Division 16, and he said that despite FF6`s low prediction percentage to even make the sweet sixteen (what was going to beat it, anyway? Doom? Earthbound? Mortal Kombat? Give me a break here), that the three heavy hitters in Division 16 all had equal chances of winning. And here is why:

Chrono Trigger`s votes against Super Mario RPG: 53516
Link to the Past`s votes against Super Metroid: 53413
Final Fantasy 6`s votes against Doom: 54078

665 votes was the difference between the three big hitters of Division 16 out of 161007 total votes. Oddly enough, Link to the Past had the lowest vote total of the three games, while Final Fantasy 6 wound up with the highest. And despite prediction percentages and bracket voting and all of that other nonsense BigCow, yet again, wound up being dead-on with his analysis of these three games. They did all have an equal chance of winning, with an outside chance that Chrono Trigger may even lose its next match against Super Mario World. And the next three matches that would decide this division wound up showing that these three games were a lot closer than some of us may have thought.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
Ulti pwned me so completely in the Sp2k4 contest that I won't be able to sit for a week. -smitelf

Who do you feel would win in a match between Metroid Prime and Super Metroid?

Super Metroid.
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Nintendo® - We Make Games Worth Playing
Ultimaterializer > Nintendo

and the best of them all, Final Fantasy X-2, featuring Yuna both singing like ass and showing ass.

Ahh... I see that you've read Videogame Recaps' latest work ^^

...or you noticed the new sig, one or ther other >>

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I can see the headline now. High Summoner Yuna in concert: sings like ass, shows ass.
-Videogame Recaps

Who do you feel would win in a match between Metroid Prime and Super Metroid?
I'd take Metroid Prime.
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Proud supporter of Geno, Jigglypuff, Kefka, Knuckles, Meta Knight, Mewtwo, Samus, Ultros, Viewtiful Joe, and Zero for SC2k4!

I'd take Metroid Prime...

Ulti, stop trashing Sonic 2. Comparing it to SMW is unfair because you're comparing totally different gaming elements in both.

And while I haven't played SMW extensively, if its bosses are anything like SMB3's, then it has even less variety than Sonic 2 (which I haven't played, but I've played Sonic 1 and 3K, so cut me some slack =P)

Anyway, your analyses still pwn, just pointing that out.
---
Americans seem to think that they're being subtle when they refrain from grabbing you by the shirt collar. ~ Dave Barry

You know my stance on this... I doubt Prime would win it. Sad, really. SM is good, but not THAT good.

But, there's still one question that's tormenting me...

WHO IN THE WORLD IS MARY SUE?
---
I'm going to kick the first person to tell me that it's really spelled Arrith Dome in the balls. -Videogame Recaps on CT's Arris Dome

So yes, Sonic 2 deserved this beating.

Oh my... you don't know how much I agree with that. :)
---
Nintendo® - We Make Games Worth Playing
Ultimaterializer > Nintendo

I can`t bash what`s wrong with a game? That`s news. Anyhoo, let me do my next writeup.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
Ulti pwned me so completely in the Sp2k4 contest that I won't be able to sit for a week. -smitelf

SM is good, but not THAT good.

It's that good and then some.
---
Nintendo® - We Make Games Worth Playing
Ultimaterializer > Nintendo

Super Metroid was... bland and boring. Too bad they never really delved it any good meaning and it was a completely random game. There's more of a point to playing Megaman than SM. I'm not surprised it lost that badly to LttP (well I guess lots of people aren't).
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RPG Elite (064) Chaos Angel: AoK

How was Super Metroid bland and boring?
---
Nintendo® - We Make Games Worth Playing
Ultimaterializer > Nintendo

Sonic 2's demise to SMW was expected and well deserved, IMO.

If Sonic 2 is anything like S3K, all of the bosses are mostly the same, and 99% of them is Robotnik with another fake-ass machine. Now, since I didn't play Sonic 2, I don't know that for sure. You can just educate me on whether I'm right.

Besides, then there's the pwnzor game that's SMW itself.

I downloaded it on a ROM to play it. It was that good that I had to download it. :-) Yep, it's definitely one of the best games I've ever played. It's bosses were very unique, along with the flow of the game as a whole, IMO. I enjoyed every second of it, and I think it defenitely deserved to ass-whoop Sonic 2, no doubt.

Absolutely no comparison.
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"Haha SMRPG wins because this is RPGFAQs." "If SMRPG wins then GameFAQs has no credibility." - Fanboys.

You were thrown on some random planet for an extended period of time and arbitrarily ran around fighting enemies on bosses until some magical things happened and I finally found the mother brain. I wasn't even sure if there was a point to it until the end. Really, there was nothing substantial going on the vast majority of the game other than just shooting things and finding new things to open doors and fight some more. Then again, too many games are like that
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RPG Elite (064) Chaos Angel: AoK

That's the way Metroid games are.

Like it? Good. Don't like it? Fine.

But that doesn't makes SM bad.
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Spain for Euro 2K4 Champion!

Division 32-64 Quarterfinal: (1)Final Fantasy 7 vs (9)Xenogears

Final Fantasy 7 - 57876 (80.03%)
Xenogears - 14445 (19.97%)
Total Votes - 72321
Vote Difference - 43431
Prediction Percentage - 89.52%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b41.jpg
Picture Rating - 4.78/10

Prophet Challenge

Entries for Final Fantasy 7 - 66
Entries for Xenogears - 1
Total Entries - 67

Three matches in a row, three victories (and two losses, as well) for Squaresoft RPGs. And convincing victories at that. Xenogears never stood a chance in this match, and I`m sure the game getting its ass handed to itself didn`t bother smitelf very much. She went as far as to compare the second disc of Xenogears to a miscarriage in her own poetic fashion. The best thing about this match is that it was expected to be a blowout. The only thing this meant was to see how well Final Fantasy 7 stacked up against Ocarina of Time, because no game would come between them. Almost 90% of bracketmakers knew that Final Fantasy 7 would make the sweet sixteen, and the only other game that came this close to FF7`s prediction percentage was The Legend of Zelda. Pure dominance right here, and if you weren`t a believer that Ocarina of Time was already done for by this point in the contest, then you were hoping that Ocarina would put up a dominating performance against Mario 64.

*whew*

One of the easiest matches to look at in the entire contest =) Xenogears, Fei, and the Weltall were all creamed by the power that is Cait Sith`s pinkie in this match, and the only drama here was seeing whether or not Final Fantasy 7 would get above 80% before the end of it.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
Ulti pwned me so completely in the Sp2k4 contest that I won't be able to sit for a week. -smitelf

You weren't randomly thrown onto the planet, Zebes, was a planet that Samus had visited before when she destroyed the Metroids. She followed Ridley, who took the Metroid, from the Space Station to Zebes again. And going around shooting things and fighting enemies is pretty much what you do Metroid games.
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Nintendo® - We Make Games Worth Playing
Ultimaterializer > Nintendo

Tai said something I agree with? The world is about to end, people.

Anyhoo, you`re correct on your assumption on the bosses in Sonic 2. If you played the game enough time, you might agree with my little mini-review wholeheartedy. I like Sonic and all, but that game had some serious issues.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
Ulti pwned me so completely in the Sp2k4 contest that I won't be able to sit for a week. -smitelf

[This message was deleted at the request of the original poster]

Division 32-64 Quarterfinal: (5)Final Fantasy Tactics vs (4)Metal Gear Solid

Final Fantasy Tactics - 40292 (49.98%)
Metal Gear Solid - 40330 (50.02%)
Total Votes - 80622
Vote Difference - 38 (!!!)
Prediction Percentage - 54.77%
Match Picture - www.gamefaqs.com/shared/spr04b42.jpg
Picture Rating - 3.13/10

Prophet Challenge Statistics

Entries for Final Fantasy Tactics - 16
Entries for Metal Gear Solid - 48
Total Entries - 64

What a damned match this was. Until this match, I think the closest wire to wire poll we ever had was either Kingdom Hearts vs Soul Calibur or Tommy Vercetti vs Donkey Kong where at no point during either poll did the lead ever break 1100 votes or so. But this match was something else entirely. I believe the largest lead either game saw in this poll was around the 750 mark, possibly a little bit lower. I know for a fact that it was above 700, but not above 750. So we can at least agree on that much. Dammit creativename, do you have those update charts on your site? I can`t find them ;_;

Anyway, one could make a good case for either game heading into this match. On one hand, you had the favorite in Metal Gear Solid. A lot of people, inclusing myself, figured that Metal Gear Solid was the clear favorite in this match. After all, Solid Snake is supposedly the most popular non-Square, non-Nintendo character on this site, with the sole exception of possibly Sonic. Personally, I think that Snake would best Sonic in a poll, as Sonic the Hedgehog is a has-been. Deny it all you wish, but compare Sonic`s popularity during the Genesis days to his popularity now. Sonic never has (and I doubt he ever will) recover from Poll 994. And speaking of that poll, check out the percentages between that poll and this one. They`re exactly the same. Coincidence, perhaps? Maybe, but this match was far closer than Sonic vs Samus way back in 2002. Sonic had a 1500 vote lead on Samus throughout the day back then, but Metal Gear Solid could only manage a lead of ~720 in this match. But we`ll get into that later. The fact here is that Metal Gear Solid was the favorite, both by board and bracketmaker standards. the biggest reasons for this would be Solid Snake`s performances in past Summer Contests, as well as the release of The Twin Snakes during our contest. Metal Gear Solid was supposedly exposed to an entirely new audience on the Gamecube, and it was supposed to allow Metal Gear Solid to run away with this matchup.

...but there is a big factor to consider when one looks at how much The Twin Snakes affected this matchup. The Twin Snakes has sold roughly 150,000 copies, which doesn`t seem like nearly enough to affect this poll one way or the other. And this is where Final Fantasy Tactics and its chances to win came into play. Final Fantasy Tactics is very close to the numbered series in strength. I wouldn`t know where to place the game if all Final Fantasy titles were grouped together, but I know for a fact that it would be in the top five in strength. And as we all know, a strong Squaresoft RPG is dangerous in any poll, any time, anywhere, any place. You simply never underestimate a Squaresoft RPG and its fans on this site, ever. There is also the fact that Final Fantasy Tactics outperformed Metal Gear Solid in the first round. FFT managed 60,000 votes and 76% of the vote against Dance Dance Revolution, while Metal Gear Solid was only able to manage 52,700 votes and 70.6% of the total vote against Resident Evil.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
Ulti pwned me so completely in the Sp2k4 contest that I won't be able to sit for a week. -smitelf

http://sc2k4.com/update.php?pollid=1660&sort=time&type=ASC

Just change the 16XX number to whatever the match number was and you have the updates. :)
---
Nintendo® - We Make Games Worth Playing
Ultimaterializer > Nintendo

Oh and I'd imagine you forgot about Mega Man when it comes to non-Square, non-Nintendo characters.
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Nintendo® - We Make Games Worth Playing
Ultimaterializer > Nintendo

WHO IN THE WORLD IS MARY SUE?

Short Answer- A Mary Sue is any character who is most likely an author's avatar for the sake of wish fulfillment through projection. Altohugh this term came from a Star Trek fanfic, this can be applied to any other kind of fanfic, or indeed, any form of media.

Long Answer- http://www.subreality.com/marysue/explain.htm

Does that answer your question Slowflake? ^^

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I can see the headline now. High Summoner Yuna in concert: sings like ass, shows ass.
-Videogame Recaps

I believe that when FFT almost beat MGS, that FF7 had this won, because the fact that the Square fanbase actually were able to give FFT the boost it needed to almost take the match from MGS, just to lose by under 40 votes was pretty unbelieveable. And if that's what FFT was able to against MGS, what could FF7 do?

Win the contest. :-(
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"Haha SMRPG wins because this is RPGFAQs." "If SMRPG wins then GameFAQs has no credibility." - Fanboys.

Now Resident Evil is clearly stronger than Dance Dance Revolution, but by how much? Another thing to look at if you aren`t a believer that FFT outperformed MGS in the first round are the total votes in the respective polls. FFT`s poll scored nearly 80,000 votes, while Metal Gear Solid`s poll only managed to score around 75,000 votes. Slowflake may not believe that total votes in polls matter, but I feel the opposite. Going solely by the board and prediction percentages, Metal Gear Solid was supposed to own this match. Yet Final Fantasy Tactics managed to make this poll the second closest poll of all time.

And now, for my commentary on how the match finally went. After all the incoming board hype and theories, the poll had to happen sooner or later =)

As expected, Metal Gear Solid jumped out to an early lead. It wasn`t anything huge, but Metal Gear Solid managed a lead of around 720 within the first few hours of the poll. But the morning vote soon kicked in, and the real fun began to kick in. Final Fantasy Tactics began to fight back in the poll, and slowly, very slowly, it managed to slowly take votes off of the lead Metal Gear Solid had built. This pattern continued throughout the entire day. Every time Final Fantasy Tactics made a small push, Metal Gear Solid fought back to make it look like it would hold FFT off for good. But FFT kept countering these small shots all day with small shots of its own. The games went back and forth taking shots at each other all day long, but the upper hand clearly belonged to Final Fantasy Tactics. If the matches still had 15 minute updates, you would find that most of the updates would have been won by Final Fantasy Tactics in the end.

Come the evening, when the vaunted Square vote takes full effect, Metal Gear Solid had a lead of roughly 200 votes. Final Fantasy Tactics continued the pattern it had been taking throughout the contest to that point, and simply continued its methodical dismantling of Metal Gear Solid`s lead. It was slow and meticulous, but Final Fantasy Tactics kept the push going. And while it seemed at times that FFT was making a fast push, the consistent counterattacks by Metal Gear Solid kept the overall movement very small. But even then, Final Fantasy Tactics made a push to bring the lead to less than 100 votes (actually, it was closer to 50 or so) in the later parts of the evening. At this point, many people of the board felt that FFT would win based solely on the pattern it had going for the entire match after falling behind by 720 votes. But sadly, I had to go to work with roughly five hours left in the poll. I did however manage to get Tanya to send me text messages all the way up until around 12:30 AM EST. From what I can gather, Final Fantasy Tactics made a decent push to try to take the lead back, but Metal Gear Solid managed to fight back to take a lead of over 100 in the match. But with a mere 150 minutes left in the poll, Final Fantasy Tactics began making a push again. It had cut the lead of 100 all the way down to 60, and it was still going strong when Tanya went to sleep. She even sent me a text saying that FFT was coming on so fast that it was probably going to win, and that she was going to go to sleep. So I worked the rest of the night under the assumption that I was coming home to a victory for Final Fantasy Tactics.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
Ulti pwned me so completely in the Sp2k4 contest that I won't be able to sit for a week. -smitelf

Oh how wrong you were. =P
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Moltar's Comics - http://www.stripcreator.com/comics/Moltar
Final Bracket Score: 167 points. Finished in the top 416 brackets.

***SPECIAL THANKS GO TO CREATIVENAME, STARION, AND TEAM ROCKET ELITE FOR THE REST OF THIS ANALYSIS***

I couldn`t have known the amazing details of what happened in the final 150 minutes without them, and I heart you guys <3

Final Fantasy Tactics made a quick push within the next few minutes to make the poll dead even between the two games. After some fighting back and forth between them, Final Fantasy Tactics made a push so that it took a lead of around 30 or so. Slowflake called the match in the favor of Final Fantasy Tactics at this point, but no sooner than he finished typing the post did Metal Gear Solid make its push to get back into the match. It pulled the poll dead even again. Soon later, it managed to push itself out to a lead of around 40 or so. But back came Final Fantasy Tactics to push the poll to being even again. But once Final Fantasy Tactics managed to do this, Metal Gear Solid counterattacked with another small push of its own. These pushes were never more than 20-30 votes or so, but in a match this close, everything mattered. This pattern continued all the way until the end of the poll. Around 2:45 EST, Final Fantasy Tactics managed to push the poll to being even again, but yet again, it was unable to make the push necessary to win the match. Metal Gear Solid made a huge push of around 50 votes or so, and since it happened that late in the poll, it meant the end for Final Fantasy Tactics in the match, and a win for Metal Gear Solid.

Now, did this writeup sound like I wasn`t too into the match? Did the lack of board or site activity make it seem like few others cared all that much, either? Or what about CJayC not posting a topic saying there was no cheating? After all, those pishes from Metal Gear Solid late in the poll seemed fishy, did they not? Or what about the low vote total for the match? Close polls don`t score merely 81,000 votes. Mass spamming is supposed to cause the vote totals in such matches to skyrocket. So why not in this match?

That`s because despite how close this match was, few people outside of the board cared about it. Know why? Because CJayC decided to create an ad for Syphon Filter that took up the entire homepage. Even worse was the fact that the entire homepage was an ugly green color, which caused the page to be unreadable. Of course, this only worked when you used the classic layout. Users who used the new site layout didn`t have to worry about the hideous new homepage, as the page blocked the ad. Users who were smart enough to view the site on 1000 pixels didn`t see the ad at all, but that isn`t even the point. Am I the only one who has noticed that the extra ads have stopped since the end of the contest? No shared polls, no ad-sponsored polls, no page-wide ads, nothing. The site has been normal ever since the contest ended, and why? Does it happen to be a coincidence that all of these ads happened during a contest that the leaders of our site knew would cause extra traffic? I think not, but we won`t know for sure until the next contest rolls around. If the ads don`t happen for awhile, then all of a sudden start up again during the next contest, we`ll have our answer as to whether or not these ads have been interrupting the contest on purpose. I`ll give CJayC the benefit of the doubt until such an event happens, but I will say that the Syphon Filter ad killed any and all credibility of this match. No matter who you were rooting for, a 50 vote jump right before the end of the poll is a little odd. I was rooting for Metal Gear Solid the whole way, but if the claim of 50 votes all coming in at once is true, then something should have been done about it. But no, nothing was done, and to our knowledge, there is no proof that the match was even looked into at the end. All we have are the final results, and I believe that they aren`t credible because of the ad.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
Ulti pwned me so completely in the Sp2k4 contest that I won't be able to sit for a week. -smitelf

Ulti- you can find all of the contest updates at this link:

http://geocities.com/cyber1166/gamefaqs/04Spring-AllVoteUpdates.txt
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"Thank you, Mario. But our princess is in another castle."
-Toad in Super Mario Bros.

But in the end, Metal Gear Solid walked away a winner, and Final Fantasy Tactics walked away a loser. I walked away somewhat happy that Metal Gear Solid was the game that won, but I am flat-out disgusted by the fact that an ad may or may not have been the deciding factor in the match. The only deciding factors in these matches should be the popularity of the entities involved. Now the games have to deal with consistent, changing variables on the very site that they are being posted on? That is completely unfair to the participants in the contest, as well as the people who actually entered the contest itself.

In closing, while I may be happy that Metal Gear Solid actually won, I feel that both games were given the shaft in this poll. It`s almost like the poll was given a back seat in order for the site to plaster another disgusting ad all over itself like a prostitute looking for a quick dollar. And with the crusty stains of CNET`s violation comes a poll in which no one can say who truly won. And while it is well-known how big a fan of Final Fantasy Tactics I am, some of you may have caught me feverishly defending the Metal Gear series as well. I love Metal Gear Solid, and I would have liked to see an actual poll between the two games, not some freak show in which some voters may not have even known who they were voting for in the damned match.

On a more serious note, I think it is safe to say that should this match actually be legitimate, every factor in the book decided it for Metal Gear Solid. Can bracket voters can The Twin Snakes, insignificant as they both are in the large scale, be responsible for 38 votes? I`d like to think so, if for no other reason than to not say that the ad solely decided the match.

I`ll say this much, however. I hope the new Syphon Filter game bombs so badly that the company that made it goes bankrupt. I refuse to adhere to selling out, ever. I stopped like Metallica because of it, I stopped liking Korn because of it, I stopped liking Evanescence because of it, and you can also say the same about Limp Bizkit, Linkin Park, and to a lesser degree, most hip hop artists. I`m a Tool fan for many reasons, one of the biggest being that they don`t give a **** about you, your opinions, or the intellectual vaccuum that some of you casually refer to as skulls. They make music for the benefit of enlightenment for themselves and their fans, and nothing more. And that`s how everything should be. It would all be so much better if the entire world didn`t revolve around money, but this match was a perfect example that the world will forever revolve around money, no matter the course of action needed. It sickens me.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
Ulti pwned me so completely in the Sp2k4 contest that I won't be able to sit for a week. -smitelf

Whoever said who would win between Super Metroid and Metroid Prime? I'll tell you when I've played Prime for more than ten minutes on my new Gamecube (yes, I've finally bought a console about six years since I got rid of the Playstation), I'd probably vote SM unless Prime blows me away (and hence gets the new "best game ever IMO" tag), but I think Prime would take it.
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Jon Thomson - final score : 138/192

I love these..
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Meh...

i think the argument he's trying to make about how Super Metroid was bland and boring was that it didnt have an ultimate OMGWTFBBQ storyline, which might have something to do with the fact that SUPER METROID WAS NOT A FREAKIN RPG, SO IT DOESNT REVOLVE AROUND A STORYLINE, IT ACTUALLY REVOLVES AROUND GAMEPLAY!!!

of course, good gameplay is something a lot of rpg fans (read: FFFanboys) dont understand.

Besides, if the guy couldnt figure out what he was on Zebes for or what he was supposed to do or why he was killing things, he obviously did not look at the screen once, during the introduction movie, which explains the history of Metroid, or the prologue, where Ripley takes the Metroid. So, there was a story, he just didnt understand or didnt read. Or didn't think was awesome because there wasn't an angsty teen or a identity crisis in it.

of course, a good story is something a lot of rpg fans (read:FFFanboys) dont understand.


Disclaimer: I am not attacking everyone who likes FF. I like quite a few of the FF games, FFT and FF6 are two of my favorite games of all time. But we all know, they do not have the most spectacular storylines ever (excepting FFT), and they also do not have the most innovative or enjoyable gameplay.
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http://diabloii.net/columnists/a-b-a-l-a-n-c-e.shtml <my article
5/24/04 6:56-6:57 PM #5 I helped LUE count to 10!!!

FFT and FF6 are two of my favorite games of all time. But we all know, they do not have the most spectacular storylines ever (excepting FFT), and they also do not have the most innovative or enjoyable gameplay.

FISSION MAILED

Good God, those two games have the best gameplay and storylines in the entire series.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
Ulti pwned me so completely in the Sp2k4 contest that I won't be able to sit for a week. -smitelf

oh, and i forgot to ask Ulti:

You mention in your SM vs. LTTP analysis about how SM is on several top 100 games ever, usually in the top 10 or so, and for good reason, you said...

Now, about Metroid Prime vs. Super Metroid... why would you pick Super Metroid, a game that you feel is justly deserving of being one of the top 10 or so games of all time, over Metroid Prime???

Personally, I'd pick Super Metroid. More people have seen it and played it I think, but I haven't played Metroid Prime, to compare the two directly.
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http://diabloii.net/columnists/a-b-a-l-a-n-c-e.shtml <my article
5/24/04 6:56-6:57 PM #5 I helped LUE count to 10!!!

Thanks Seijun. On VGR they call characters like Marle and Aryll Mary Sues, that's why I asked.
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I'm going to kick the first person to tell me that it's really spelled Arrith Dome in the balls. -Videogame Recaps on CT's Arris Dome

Personally, I'd pick Super Metroid. More people have seen it and played it I think, but I haven't played Metroid Prime, to compare the two directly.

Yeah, and everybody and their brother has played Pong, but look how far THAT fact got it.

I'd be voting for Super Metroid, but i think I would pick Metroid Prime for my bracket. SM just doesnt seem to have the active base of support that is needed to make games of that generation continue to be very strong.

Were they to have met this year, MP would have won. Next year, if they meet, MP would probably win. Ten years down the road, however, i think SM would win over it - it simply has more staying power. However, it just doesnt have a big enough pull at the moment to propel it over MP.
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Sp2k4C-120 pts.
Vincent, Ultros, Auron, Frog, Ghaleon, Nanaki, Kerrigan for S2k4C!

Good God, those two games have the best gameplay and storylines in the entire series.

FF Tactics has the best gameplay in the series. What's so great about FF VI's gameplay? IMO there's nothing that makes it better than FF IV's or V's, and the only thing that makes it better than VII's or IX's is that it's faster.

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"A fool and his money are soon elected."
- Will Rogers

FFT and FF6 are two of my favorite games of all time. But we all know, they do not have the most spectacular storylines ever (excepting FFT), and they also do not have the most innovative or enjoyable gameplay.

FISSION MAILED

Good God, those two games have the best gameplay and storylines in the entire series.


read closer this time, Ulti. I said FFT has a great storyline. What i was saying that on the whole, the FF games do not have a the best storylines (except FFT). I am saying the FF's have pretty basic run of the mill storylines, and excepting FFT from that group. And although it isnt quite a fair comparison, since FFT is an entirely different kind of game than the rest of the FF's, I do agree, of them all, it does have the best gameplay. There are reasons why it is one of my favorite games ever, and those are two of the reasons, another one being its excellent characters.


As for FF6, it may not have incredibly special game play, but I think it was better than most of the other FF's, because Espers > 10 minute summon animations and the magic system overall was the best. Further, the turn based battles were faster than in the other games. But what really makes me love FF6 is the characters. FF6 has some of my favorite characters ever. A lot of games, you can read a good story, but it doesnt make you care so much about the characters. FF6, with its tons of side quests, and especially the recollecting of the party in the World of Ruin, makes you like the characters a lot. They arent perfect (and neither are they basket cases), they are funny and quaint and they all end up with a stake in the battle they're fighting... except Umaro. I guess his only motivation was the Wangsock. That's what he fought to save.

as much as I love FF6, I will admit, its storyline is not as good as FFT or Xenogears, it isnt much further than general "bad guy wants to destroy the world", but the individual support it gives its characters and each of their own little stories and situations really help it out.
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http://diabloii.net/columnists/a-b-a-l-a-n-c-e.shtml <my article
5/24/04 6:56-6:57 PM #5 I helped LUE count to 10!!!

Disclaimer: I am not attacking everyone who likes FF. I like quite a few of the FF games, FFT and FF6 are two of my favorite games of all time. But we all know, they do not have the most spectacular storylines ever (excepting FFT), and they also do not have the most innovative or enjoyable gameplay


Using just the part of my disclaimer that you quoted, i can see how you would think the first "they" in that last sentence refers to FFT and FF6, but with the context of the entire post, and the fact that I say FFT and FF6 are two of my favorite games, is how you're supposed to figure out that "They" meant FF games in general. That second sentence about FFT and FF6 being two of my favorite games was just preemptively defending myself from being called Anti-Square or some other crap like that and further showing that I am not just attacking anyone who likes FF.
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http://diabloii.net/columnists/a-b-a-l-a-n-c-e.shtml <my article
5/24/04 6:56-6:57 PM #5 I helped LUE count to 10!!!

Err, how do you "tag" a topic?
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Congrats on finishing the game. Now get a life!!-Eiji Nakamura-(Chrono Trigger)

If you post in a topic, you can check it later from your User Control Panel.
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Spain for Euro 2K4 Champion!

If you post in a topic, you can check it later from your User Control Panel.

*blinks* You can?

*goes to my User Control Panel and sees that, indeed, I can, and that I didn't have to go through the relatively more tedious process of searching for specific topics*

Doh! ><

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I can see the headline now. High Summoner Yuna in concert: sings like ass, shows ass.
-Videogame Recaps

lol. Seij, you n00b.


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I was raped by Ultimaterializerx's sexy number 1 spot in the Best. Game. Ever contest. and all I got was this bloody N-Gage

*hangs head in shame* I shall now prostrate myself before my wiser masters and humbly await punishment for my n00bicity.

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I can see the headline now. High Summoner Yuna in concert: sings like ass, shows ass.
-Videogame Recaps

FF6 is the finest FF :)

Syphon Filter 4 is a lousy game. It will bomb.

Thats all for now!
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SCK24: 164/192, User Tourney V: Rank 32!, Oracle #30
Steve Illumina: Proud to be a Pub Trivian Since 9/03!

btw, when a topic has reached post no 485 or so, "tagging" it could almost be viewed as an act of sarcasm...
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Member: CATS army. All Your Nomination Are Belong to CATS!

That`s because despite how close this match was, few people outside of the board cared about it. Know why? Because CJayC decided to create an ad for Syphon Filter that took up the entire homepage. Even worse was the fact that the entire homepage was an ugly green color, which caused the page to be unreadable.

I am SO glad that I wasn't the only one with that problem. I thought my comp was screwed or something, I didn't know it was real. And since it polymerized with the site, I couldn't even read what the ad had. It just made it pointless.
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"Haha SMRPG wins because this is RPGFAQs." "If SMRPG wins then GameFAQs has no credibility." - Fanboys.

I think everyone that was viewing the site on Classic had that problem. You should have been on MBH that day >_<
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
Ulti pwned me so completely in the Sp2k4 contest that I won't be able to sit for a week. -smitelf

tag

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"Tails is the only person Gordon Freeman could beat. Or the other way around. I always forget which." - Dranick

lol

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Member: CATS army. All Your Nomination Are Belong to CATS!

Looks like you'll need a part two to your analysis, Ulti. It's times like these that I find the 500 cap supremely annoying....
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Now is the time to choose: Die, and be free of pain, OR LIVE, AND FIGHT YOUR SORROW! - Auron
I love God! He's so deliciously evil! - Stewie, Family Guy

cid - it's already begun. check the first 2 or 3 pages for ulti's post contest analysis part 2.
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Member: CATS army. All Your Nomination Are Belong to CATS!

500 post!
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Join the army. Meet interesting people. Kill them.

500
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Kids in the back seat cause accidents; accidents in the back seat cause kids.

Yeah, I found it about two minutes after posting. Woo, I felt smart.
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Now is the time to choose: Die, and be free of pain, OR LIVE, AND FIGHT YOUR SORROW! - Auron
I love God! He's so deliciously evil! - Stewie, Family Guy

As you should.
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Married to smitelf on 5/21/04
Ulti pwned me so completely in the Sp2k4 contest that I won't be able to sit for a week. -smitelf

Sorry Ulti, I'm just posting in your topic to hijack it for lots of points.
"Alas".
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Cool Whip. I want you to rub it all over your body so I can make love to you like only Lucky Jack can. ~SSJ3 Popo

No! You can't hijack this topic!
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Meh... alas

Surely you can disguise it a little better than that?
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I wanted to be a neo-deconstructivist but mom wouldn't let me.

I could, but I'm too lazy.
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Cool Whip. I want you to rub it all over your body so I can make love to you like only Lucky Jack can. ~SSJ3 Popo

*blinks* Why are there still people here? oO

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I can see the headline now. High Summoner Yuna in concert: sings like alass, shows ass.
-Videogame Recaps

Ok, all this hijacking stuff is getting out of hand...

You people really gotta just cut it out...

Geez, sometimes the fads on this boards are just, annoying!
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Vote in my User Tag Tourny II, User OOT, alas & Capcom/Konami OOT
Plot? What plot? I'm Canadian, that makes me brutally simple. - HydraCores

Why did Ulti stop this one before 500?
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"I think major league baseball should have a salary cap... alas, how does a salary cap work?" -Granddaughter of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner

No Hijacks!
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Meh... alas

arg
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Vote in my User Tag Tourny II, User OOT, alas & Capcom/Konami OOT
Plot? What plot? I'm Canadian, that makes me brutally simple. - HydraCores

Heh. Nice one, Sabin.
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"Booster, sir! There's a 70% chance that the object you're standing on is a cake..." -Snifit (SMRPG)

Stop trying to hijack this topic.
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*UltimaterializerX is my God!*
I'll think of something better later...