Lamp, broken circa 1988

Please don't go away

I'd rather be sad than nostalgic. also nirvana is okay but I was like under 10 when they were all around

Knowing you and the Beatles, I'm gonna say "probably."

I was babbling with a friend about this stuff and someone pointed out to me that due to the rules of this exercise, Cave Story is eligible as its first retail release was on the Wii. So, hey. Cave Story is really, really, really good. The OG "I can't believe this was made by one guy" game. As an individual expression of the joy of video games, it's fantastic, but as an action game it's fucking incredible. Everything feels heavy and responsive.

I'm considering 3DS as belonging to the current generation (w/ Wii U, Vita, PS4, XBone). The DS was the first system out for this generation, and so too was the 3DS for its generation.

So, uh... I made this album called "Wards." It's my fourth one, and I think it's okay, for how dark it can be. Maybe you'd think it's okay too! You can find it here. Please take time to read the information posted about the album before hitting play. It's the stuff above the "buy now" link. Also, if you're curious, here's a track-by-track rundown of individual changes made in the editing process. The number on each item is on what listen of the record that note was made. I'm going to go throw up now.

"2014: The Year Of Vlambeer?" is how I would write a Kotaku headline about the thing I am about to say. So I've hyped up the almighty LUFTRAUSERS already, and that game is still great. Today because of birthday related things I ended up with a copy of NUCLEAR THRONE. It's a hardcore top-down roguelike shooter, w/ the works (character classes, random maps, permadeath) and it plays awesome and sounds great and has an amazing soundtrack. The best thing about Nuclear Throne is the best thing about Luftrausers: from launching it on steam, it takes under ten seconds to start playing the fucking game. No creepy cutscenes, no epic backstory, no tech engine logos, no tutorial, just fucking pedal to the metal action gaming. Now, Nuclear Throne is early access so I dont know if I'll be able to actually bring it back up for game of the year stuff, but HOLY SHIT this game. EDIT: Had to add this. This is the BGM for Level 1-1. It's like a Stoner Metal band comprised entirely of different Sega Genesis's.

"It's worse elsewhere" and "We need to do better" are ideas that exist at the same time. They don't cancel each other out.

Also an issue: the fucking shitty terrible way kids get educated and gendered, where boys get taught that love is sex and sex is success, and girls are taught all the severely fucking backwards & destructive things they're taught. This person's perceptive tools were busted, but they were busted within tragically familiar social norms. Making this a mental health or singular outlier is convenient, and anything convenient cannot be an answer. The way we teach (our schools and our communities) is failing us, literally catastrophically. So Fuck All Of That, I guess.

this is a paraphrase of a thing some one else said, but the way that old games were built were kind of similar. Action was handled in similar ways. The movement and timing were all very familiar even with minor variants. Through playing a bunch of action games kids were able to learn new ones very quickly and have a base level of mechanical skill at most new games of the day. The introduction of 3D movement kind of blew all of that up because of the long period of developmental growing pains (both for players and designers) combined with really different methods and theories of how to make traversal in a 3D space feel natural. There's still pretty significant disagreement on this. So the analog is your first time back at the gym after a time away. You should be able to lift _____ but you can't because you haven't been working those muscles.

I dunno, man. If I could vote for GoW2's Horde Mode as a game by itself isolated from the single player it'd be at the top of my list. The peak of my 360 ownership was clearing Horde Mode with my best friends on Fountain. I mean, I get 2 having a worse single player campaign and less interesting/more balanced competitive multiplayer, but uuuuugh horde moooooode.

The following are comments from WWE's poll about who has a better finish, John Cena or Bray Wyatt. "Attitude Adjustment it is told that if you AA someone on the ring or the floor you might have a big chance to break your back bones if not it will do a major splash on the back which can penetrate your body and not able to move in a match abkut 1:30 to 2 minutes." "Bray Wyatt and the Wyatt family is the reason why they are saying that the wwe is losing money. Get rid of them and save wwe" Adorable.

I'm about to say a bunch of words about Gears of War, so if you somehow haven't played it, go play it to completion and then come back for a debriefing. Here's why Gears of War is the Game of the Generation. Everything is Gears of War now. A majority of the action games that will be praised in these threads is just goddamn Gears of War with few variants. -Uncharted is Gears of War with platforming. -Mass Effect is Gears of War with RPG elements. -Batman is Gears of War with Metroid Prime traversal and admittedly fantastic, deep melee. -Grand Theft Auto IV/V is Gears of War with GTA Driving and minigames. -Red Dead Redemption is Gears of War with the wilderness. -Spec Ops is Gears of War with Aggressive Subversion. (we will talk about Spec Ops in a few days. Spec Ops is Captial I Important in ways that are not really easily evident and I need to refresh myself so I can explain it.) -The Last of Us is Gears of War that thinks it's Spec Ops. So here's what I mean with "is Gears of War." I don't just mean "cover shooting." The actually impressive thing about Gears of War is threefold. creating level design that strains the ability to override it through idiosyncratic art design and clear pathing, creating a narrative delivery system that allows developers to explore the boundaries between cut scene and gameplay while using characters that aren't just faceless drones you drive (the FPS Story issue), and inspiring people to make passive game play elements active (reloading, recovering health). Gears of War kicked the game industry's ass so severely that Hironobu Sakaguchi- Mr. Final Fantasy- made Lost Odyssey, an RPG with Gears of War's sensibilities. Did you catch that? A US developer so thoroughly upset the understanding of how gameplay and storytelling (NOT THE STORY, JUST THE TELLING.) interact that a luminary of the Japanese game indsutry, an industry so resistant to change that it was essentially irrelevant all generation long, went "HOLY SHIT" and made an entire epic, impossible work inspired by it. That is influential. Everything about the actual design of Gears of War is impeccable. All of the guns feel dangerous. Level layouts are perfected laser beams. The introduction of new, confounding enemies scales like any 16-Bit Action Game you love so much that you shake when you think about playing it. Gears of War also happens to be Metallica, both in "everything is just this right now" and 1/2/3 = Ride the Lightning/Master of Puppets/And Justice For All. 1 is razor sharp simplicity and elegance. 2 is a doubling down of everything that made 1 cut so deep with new nuances that somehow blow you away even harder (Horde Mode). 3 is a further elaboration that, while excessively well made, is slightly divisive among the people that just like cutting themselves all the time (story mode that is actually good, super complicated Horde Mode). Unfortunately, this analogy fails a little bit, because it implies that Judgment is The Black Album. Untrue. Judgment is St. Anger. Don't touch Judgment for too long, you might get sick. So other people are going to say other games are the best game of the generation, or that this is their favorite game of the generation (or say best and mean favorite). That's perfectly alright! I mean, my favorite game of the generation is probably Burnout Paradise. Empirically, the answer is probably Gears of War*. *i would accept COD4 as an answer because of its bubble-creating sales and revival/corruption of FPS multiplayer** **i would also accept assassin's creed 2 as an answer because it's basically the spiritual successor to Mario 64 without being horrible broken dogshit like the first AC.*** ***i would also accept the orange box because it has half life 2 in it and half life 2 is a miracle.

here comes some appropriately weird answers 05- Mario Kart DS 06- Gears of War 07- Rock Band 08- Burnout Paradise 09- New Super Mario Bros Wii 10- EDIT: Cave Story 11- Dark Souls 12- Spec Ops: The Line 13- Monaco (it came out on 360 simultaneously so it counts)

Well, the reason I include these lists despite them being full of shit like that (Symphony of the Night is on one of the 360 lists) is for people to see those years, go "oh yeah that fucking thing, what else came out that year" and go look it up. I mean, I'm not going to stop anyone from putting in a list of re-releases, but I might call them a douchebag if they do it.

Baffling by its absence in all that is Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. Now, I don't have any idea if it's actually any good, but it is a game I think about a whole lot. You don't really get games that are as modular and idiosyncratic. Maybe as consoles let more crazy people make crazy shit for lower prices and budgets we'll get some experiences that are as directly responsive as Silent Hill, but I'm not counting on it.

Yeah, this was a generation of thoroughly brutal launches. Looking back at the DS launch was pretty hard.

goddamnit I knew I'd doublepost eventually

Here are the Top 10 games of each year according to aggregate review scores from Gamerankings DS PSP

Here are the Top 10 games of each year according to aggregate review scores from Gamerankings 2006 1. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess 2. Trauma Center: Second Opinion 3. Madden NFL 07 4. Rayman Raving Rabbids 5. Wi Sports 6. Elebits 7. Excite Truck 8. Metal Slug Anthology 9. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 10. Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 2007 1. Super Mario Galaxy 2. Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition 3. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption 4. Guitar Hero 3: Legendso f Rock 5. Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure 6. Super Paper Mario 7. Warioware: Smooth Moves 8. Geometry Wars: Galaxies 9. Mario Strikers Charged 10. Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn 2008 1. World of Goo 2. Super Smash Bros. Brawl 3. Okami 4. Boom Blox 5. Mega Man 9 6. Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 7. Bully: Scholarship Edition 8. No More Heroes 9. Mario Kart Wii 10. Wii Fit 2009 1. Metroid Prime Trilogy 2. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10 3. New Super Mario Bros. Wii 4. Boom Blox Bash Party 5. Punch Out!! 6. Little King's Story 7. Dead Space Extraction 8. EA Sports Active 9. Madworld 10. Wii Sports Resort (somehow Muramasa: The Demon Blade and A Boy and his Blob didn't make the top 10) 2010 1. Super Mario Galaxy 2 2. Kirby's Epic Yarn 3. Donkey Kong Country Returns 4. Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars 5. Sin and Punishment: Star Successor 6. And Yet It Moves 7. Monster Hunter Tri 8. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11 9. No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle 10. Goldeneye 007 Okay so it only lists games with 20+ reviews, so... 2011 1. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sqord 2. Kirby's Return to Dream Land 3. Fortune Street 4. Lost in Shadow 5. Conduit 2 6. Mario Sports Mix 7. Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games 2012 1. Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Rhythm Heaven Fever 3. The Last Story 4. Mario Party 9 2013 1. Pandora's Tower

Here are the Top 10 games of each year according to aggregate review scores from Gamerankings 2006 1. Resistance: Fall of Man 2. Fight Night Round 3 3. NBA 2K7 4. Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 5. Call of Duty 3 6. Ridge Racer 7 7. NHL 2K7 8. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 9. Tony Hawk's Project 8 10. Need For Speed Carbon 2007 1. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion 3. Rock Band 4. Uncharted: Drake's Fortune 5. The Orange Box 6. Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction 7. Ninja Gaiden Sigma 8. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2 9. Virtua Fighter 5 10. Unreal Tournament 3 2008 1. Grand Theft Auto IV 2. Little Big Planet 3. Bioshock 4. Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots 5. Rock Band 2 6. Fallout 3 7. Dead Space 8. Burnout Paradise 9. Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix 10. Bionic Commando Rearmed 2009 1. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves 2. Street Fighter IV 3. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 4. Batman: Arkham Asylum 5. Assassin's Creed 2 6. God of War Collection 7. Killzone 2 8. FIFA Soccer 10 9. Demon's Souls 10. The Beatles: Rock Band 2010 1. Red Dead Redemption 2. God of War III 3. Super Street Fighter IV 4. Rock Band 3 5. MLB 10: The Show 6. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood 7. NHL 11 8. Heavy Rain 9. Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City 10. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit (Criterion) 2011 1. Batman: Arkham City 2. Portal 2 3. Mass Effect 2 4. Little Big Planet 2 5. The ICO & Shadow of the Colossus Collection 6. Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception 7. Metal Gear Solid HD Collection 8. Deus Ex: Human Revolution 9. MLB 11: The Show 10. NBA 2K12 2012 1. Journey 2. Mass Effect 3 3. Borderlands 2 4. Okami HD 5. Dishonored 6. Far Cry 3 7. FIFA Soccer 13 8. MLB 12: The Show 9. UFC Undisputed 3 10. Persona 4 Arena 2013 1. Grand Theft Auto V 2. The Last of Us 3. Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag 4. MLB 13: The Show 5. Guacamelee! 6. Fifa 14 7. Diablo III 8. Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch 9. DmC: Devil May Cry 10. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist

Here are the Top 10 games of each year according to aggregate review scores from Gamerankings 2005 1. Call of Duty 2 2. Project Gotham Racing 3 3. Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 4. Dead or Alive 4 5. Need For Speed Most Wanted (EA Canada) 6. Condemned Criminal Origins 7. Perfect Dark Zero 8. Kameo: Elements of Power 9. Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game Of The Movie 10. NBA 2K6 2006 1. Gears of War 2. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion 3. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 4. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 5. Burnout Revenge 6. Viva Pinata 7. Fight Night Round 3 8. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent 9. Dead Rising 10. F.E.A.R. 2007 1. The Orange Box 2. Bioshock 3. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 4. Halo 3 5. Guitar Hero 2 6. Rock Band 7. Mass Effect 8. Forza Motorsport 2 9. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night 10. Virtua Fighter 5 Online 2008 1. Grand Theft Auto 4 2. Gears of War 2 3. Fallout 3 4. Rockband 2 5. Braid 6. Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 7. Left 4 Dead 8. Dead Space 9. Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix 10. NHL 09 2009 1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 2. Street Fighter 4 3. Batman: Arkham Asylum 4. Forza Motorsport 3 5. Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City 6. Assassin's Creed 2 7. The Beatles: Rock Band (8 and 9 are the individual episodes so here's other games) 8. Peggle 9. Shadow Complex 10. NHL 10 2010 1. Mass Effect 2 2. Red Dead Redemption 3. Rock Band 3 4. Halo: Reach 5. Super Street Fighter IV 6. Pac-Man Championship Edition DX 7. Limbo 8. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood 9. Super Meat Boy 10. Bayonetta 2011 1. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim 2. Portal 2 3. Batman: Arkham City 4. Gears of War 3 5. Forza Motorsport 4 6. FIFA Soccer 12 7. Deus Ex: Human Revolution 8. Dead Space 2 9. Rayman Origins 10. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 2012 1. Mass Effect 3 2. Trials Evolution 3. Mark of the Ninja 4. FIFA Soccer 13 5. Borderlands 2 6. Far Cry 3 7. Dishonored 8. Fez 9. XCOM: Enemy Unknown 10. The Walking Dead 2013 1. Grand Theft Auto V 2. Bioshock Infinite 3. Rayman Legends 4. Tomb Raider 5. Rocksmith 2014 6. Diablo 3 7. DmC: Devil May Cry 8. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons 9. Battleblock Theater 10. Skylanders Swap Force (hahahaha)

okay no update on a subforum request, so... HELLO WELCOME TO GENERATION OF GAMES 7 Rules! 1. Eligible systems are Playstation 3, X-Box 360, Wii, DS and PSP. 2. Please keep pimping in their related threads. Since this board is largely US-centric, use the United States release date as the relevant year. 3. Create a ballot (minimum 20 games, maximum 50 games) and submit it to have your votes count. Suggestions! -Wikipedia wont always have the data you need, so if you want to double check a release date or a developer, GameFAQs and Giant Bomb are pretty reliable. -Maybe don't start system wars shit? -If it's a multiplatform game, just bring it up in the thread of the system you played it on. SEND BALLOTS TO dvdvr.generationgames AT gmail.com DUE DATE IS AUGUST 15TH, 2014 but I am willing to extend it if people want more time

i will be making a case for spec ops later because i am pretty sure everyone here that played it missed "the point"

I'm going to get that embossed on cardstock, and every time a friend of mine says something like "I'm thinking about getting married/starting a family" I'm going to hand it to them with the note "make sure you can feel this strongly about them."