The Big Gaming in the 2010s Discussion Thread (the 2010s-Defining Game currently being discussed)

Maybe if it's easier to play Animal Crossing New Horizons online with people, we'll have other people helping out in our towns. In which case, maybe that's a sort of sub-genre, not quite Kojima's stranding, but an "online helping each other simulator". That's something I can get behind in 2020!

I don't want any babies in cylinders in Animal Crossing though

Jimbob wrote:

I don't want any babies in cylinders in Animal Crossing though

I think it already has them, if we count Metroids.

I think that would improve the game immeasurably to be honest. There should be a room in the museum devoted to babies in containers. Baby in crate, baby in jar, baby in tupperware...

That would be lmost as creepy as my house in New Leaf.

I remember visiting former ONM alumnum Joe Skrebels' ACNL town. It was called The Void. It was quite a nice early-stages village (a bit empty), but in the corner of the map was a giant black abyss made of floor patterns.

Did you just use the correct declension of 'alumnus' (or, er, alumni) Jim? if so! And that town is excellent.

I once had a room decked out like a kid's playroom, with KK Dirge playing and a bunch of clankoids in the corners, clanking. That's the closest I've ever got to The Baby Room.

I remember the Void! That was around the time I was sending in papier mache effigies and winning prizes, so me and Skrebels were in fairly regular contact.

With the conversation dying down, mind if I bump this over the next few weeks with a few 'alternative' discussion points?

~

Here's one: what was the most average, okay, just fine, 50%, 5/10 game that you played last decade?


I played lots of games that were just a little substandard and just better than passable, but this was mine:




Absolutely not a bad game at all, but nothing about it connects in any meaningful way. The graphics, animations, tunes, structure and controls are all exactly as you'd expect. The difficulty is low, it doesn't take much skill, and it would never be a shout for multiplayer. It's a perfectly OK, inessential Mario sports game that you wouldn't be unhappy to play, but wouldn't be unhappy to miss either.

Ooft, there's a tricky one. A more recent game that I remember is The Gardens Between, one that plenty have raved over but I found left me cold. Straight-down-the-middle 5/10. I think my top pick would have to be Castlevania: Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate on the 3DS though, simply because it was mediocre enough for me to remember it now, years later. It was my first Castlevania, and I went in expecting Demon Killer blasting at me while I shot magic spells and leapt about whipping zombies. Instead I got a very grim, slow, almost brawly-thing that I just about enjoyed.

Castlevania is a solid one, I loved Lords of Shadow and after hearing the praise for Mirror I was very excited. Did not live up to hype...

I felt this way about Game & Wario. The Pictionary game was a highlight, but the rest of the game was very middling - Wario Bland if you will. For every "Gamer" that made great use of the GamePad, there was a clanger like "Ski". The decision to put fewer minigames in, but to flesh them out, meant they had better be bangers. Unfortunately, they weren't and at £40 it was a hard sell. Still worth picking up, but it's a game that looks bang average next to its stellar predecessors.

It was definitely mediocre compared to the WarioWare titles, but I liked Islands and the drawing game too much (and didn't play the bobbins ones) to put it in the purely mediocre category.

One game that was maybe a step below mediocre was Mario & Luigi: Dream Team. Somehow they managed to take a series that thrived on charm and remove the charm. Instead we got this slog.

Yeah, some of those early WiiU titles, man. Game and Wario as you mention; Nintendoland was great and shit in equal measure. Starfox 0... I almost want to try and play it again.

On the PC, I was really excited for Apotheon - wow, it looks like an ancient piece of pottery! It plays like an ancient piece of poo.

I am Setsuna is one that comes to mind for me. I was jonesing for a JRPG during the early days of Switch and what I got was... fine. Utterly fine. It did some things well, it did some things badly, and then it left my thoughts as soon as it arrived.

Nothing comes to my mind, as I play a lot of games which I can remember the really good ones or the bad ones not the games in the middle.

Jimbob wrote:

On the PC, I was really excited for Apotheon - wow, it looks like an ancient piece of pottery! It plays like an ancient piece of poo.

This is tagline worthy.

And because I don't have any other ideas (please give me other ideas), it's two Jimbob poop taglines in a row!

This category is hard because I think most games I play that I don't think are great I at least find some aspect of that sets them apart to still make them interesting. Star Fox Zero is a great example, because sure it isn't a great game but the controls make it far from average!

Maybe Gris and Rime are good fits - they're both fine, they both have some flaws in their game design that let them down for me, and they both seem pretty derivative in their artistic approach.

Right now OR is on the lexicon of the el mas.

masofdas wrote:

Right now OR is on the lexicon of the el mas.

Mas have you just Sinister Bottomed yourself?

I don't get any of this, apart from when I saw that OR post I figured I was probably safe from being skinned by Mas for a while.

masofdas wrote:

Right now OR is on the lexicon of the el mas.

This sounds genuinely mental without the AEW reference. I had no idea what you were on about until you linked the video.

Ill let you off then. I knew it was a Jericho reference but I didn't know the man himself had gone insane!