Topic: Team [404 - Team Name Not Found] Deliberation Station

@Th3solution It was a really well put together cinematic experience; the story was decent enough for the time, the dialogue delivery and animations were great too. I was mid play through I think when the first Assassin's Creed was becoming popular. I tried that and took it back the same afternoon as a poor man's Heavenly Sword!
I didn't play an AC game after that until Black Flag.

@KALofKRYPTON Haha! Interesting that you felt Assassins Creed was a knockoff of Heavenly Sword. The way the two series have diverged is telling as to how a good game concept and execution is only a part of the reason for a game’s success. Ubisoft obviously had a higher investment in AC and being multi platform helped it reach sales numbers that probably propelled it.
I came across this interesting article from 6 years ago where the Ninja Theory cofounder is criticizing Microsoft’s approach to console gaming.
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/heavenly-sword-dev-on-xbox-...
Kind of ironic how now NT is owned by Microsoft. But it’s clear in this interview that the guy is salty about the whole AAA console scene where certain games make it to the top due to publisher and platform holder support and that smaller budget titles and shorter games don’t have an audience on consoles. With the release of Senua’s Sacrifice, a short AA game a few years after these statements, it’s clear where his artistic vision lies — in shorter lower priced games. We’ll see if Microsoft allows them to continue to follow that path.
Anyways, sorry to derail the discussion, but it is pertinent to assigning Heavenly Sword a place in the pantheon of console gaming.

@Th3solution AC being on the 360 and the difficulty pretty much all dev's had maintaining parity really did for Heavenly Sword.

Almost all of my proudest moments are accidental, so no.

@Jaz007 @themcnoisy @TowaHerschel7 @RogerRoger @Frigate

Ok friends, I decided to take one for the team and fall on the sword for you all. I researched all the Guitar Hero games.
Not quite as self abusive as trying to categorize all FIFA’s but almost.

But seriously, I didn’t spend a ton of time since this week is going to be a little rough for me, and as the week progresses, I will be having even more limited time, so I actually just looked at a couple of ranked lists online for the titles, as voted by users and found them to be quite consistent actually. So this is not a granular look, but a bird’s eye view of the series, but I think it suffices for our purposes. (And I think these games are especially hard to be objective about since music is so dependent on personal taste and gameplay and aesthetics are pretty consistent in a lot of these games)

A rough summary of my own conglomeration of Guitar Hero games, ranked in order from best to worst:

3
2
Metallica
World Tour (could have been called GH4)
Warriors of Rock
5
1
Smash Hits
Aerosmith
Van Halen
Live
Encore Rocks the 80s
On Tour Decades

This includes games not on our list as reference, some of these being PS2 games. And wouldn’t you know the best game in the series is on the other team’s list and we got all the leftovers 😉, but I’ll drop a line over there.

So with that ranking, this is my estimate of the fallout:

Very Important:
GH 3
Important:
GH Metallica
GH World Tour
Existing:
GH Warriors of Rock
GH 5
Not Important
GH Smash Hits
Pointless:
GH Aerosmith
GH Van Halen
GH Live (reliance on microtransactions)

And thanks to @Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy for her thoughts on GH Metallica, which are pretty much in line with the popular online opinion that it is one of the better ones.

I’m open to feedback from anyone with personal experience. It pains me to put Aerosmith and Van Halen that low, as I like both bands’ music a lot, but as for the game, the song list, the execution — the respective entries in the series sound like they were pretty awful and did nothing to help the series or gaming in general. And Live seemed to be the death knell of the series and reliance on mtx.

@Th3solution nice one we will run with that.

My ratings so far.

Guitar Hero 5 Neversoft - Existing

Guitar Hero: Aerosmith Neversoft - Pointless

Guitar Hero: Live Freestyle Games - Pointless

Guitar Hero: Metallica Neversoft - Important

Guitar Hero Smash Hits Beenox - Not Important

Guitar Hero: Van Halen Underground Development / Neversoft / Budcat Creations - Pointless

Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock Neversoft - Existing

Guitar Hero World Tour Neversoft Important

Hail to the Chimp Wideload Games - Not Important

Hannah Montana: The Movie n-Space
Happy Feet Two KMM Games
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I EA Bright Light Studio
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II EA Bright Light Studio
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince EA Bright Light Studio
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix EA UK
Hasbro Family Game Night 3 EA Bright Light
Hasbro Family Game Night 4: The Game Show EA Bright Light
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F Crypton Future Media
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd Crypton Future Media

Haze Free Radical Design - Existing

Heavenly Sword Ninja Theory - Important

Heavy Fire: Afghanistan Mastiff - Not Important

Heavy Fire: Shattered Spear Mastiff - Pointless

Heavy Rain Quantic Dream - Important

Hellboy: The Science of Evil Krome Studios - Not Important

Heroes Over Europe Transmission Games - Existing

High Velocity Bowling Mastiff - Important

The History Channel: Battle for the Pacific Magic Wand Productions
History Civil War: Secret Missions Cauldron HQ

The History Channel: Great Battles Medieval Slitherine Software - Not important

History Legends of War: Patton Enigma Software Productions S.L. - Not Important

Hitman HD Trilogy IO Interactive - Important

Hitman: Absolution IO Interactive - Very Important

Homefront Kaos Studios - Existing

@Th3solution You're a hero, comrade. Huge thanks for this.

I've just settled down (with a cup of tea and Star Wars music blaring out) to do research on the list. I was dreading doing the Guitar Hero games, so you've rescued me from that. I agree with your take, great approach to look for aggregate rankings from fans (particularly since, you're right, music is subjective so I'd have ranked them all "Pointless" if it were up to me and me alone).

Watch this space for details on the rest of this week's crop; I won't post detailed breakdowns of those @themcnoisy has already ranked unless I find anything that's wildly divergent. We can all trust one another when we've drawn weeks like this, methinks!

Hannah Montana: The Movie is a rhythm-based button-presser when it isn't an open-world sandbox full of "please fetch this" requests and clothing stores. It looks like it got mauled by the only two outlets bothered enough to review it (PSX Extreme and IGN) and whilst Amazon user reviews are full of five stars, they're all accompanied by "it kept my daughter quiet for a weekend, so thanks for that" context; the only ones that aren't are considerably lower in score. It's apparently an easy four-hour platinum, but maybe that tells you all you need to know. Gameplay footage looks like they've put in a little bit beyond the bare minimum effort needed for a licenced cash-in, and I'm loathe to dismiss one of the few games made specifically for girls, but I can't see anybody else being kind enough to rank it above Pointless.

Happy Feet Two was given a solid 7/10 by our very own PushSquare. Apparently there's an increasing complexity to the game which gives it depth beyond the usual licenced tie-in. Gameplay surprised me by being a unique blend of platforming, rhythm-based dancing and racing. There's also co-operative gameplay. It looks like the developers actually put some effort in. It won't exactly go down in history as a classic, but the attempt to mix gameplay styles and provide some variety (when they really, really didn't need to in order to make money) is worth acknowledgement. I can't condemn it to the bottom of the pile, and therefore reckon it should be ranked as Not Important.

***

Before I do the next four games, I should point out that I really couldn't give a tiny rat's backside about Harry Potter. All of this will be as objective as possible, but if a fan feels I'm being unnecessarily unfair, please do speak up.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I received very low review scores at launch. Apparently some believed that it captured the darker tone of the film well, but the gameplay was severely broken and universally panned. It's a third-person shooter, by the way... yeah, I was surprised by that, too (one user review on Amazon simply says "Call of Duty with magic wands. Terrible game, though.") but apparently that's what they were going for. Reviewers also note how the games are feeling incredibly tired by this point. I'm torn between Not Important and Pointless.... wait, no I'm not. Pointless.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II is a direct continuation of the above game in every single way, except that reviewers seem to agree that there was a minor improvement in gameplay and pacing (although not by much, but it does bump the average scores from the 30s to the 40s). If we're being kind, let's acknowledge that with a Not Important categorisation.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince sounds much better. Critics and fans alike praise the mix of open-world exploration, wand-duelling combat and spell-casting (IGN, who gave scathing reviews to the lesser Potter games, give this one 77%). It's apparently quite easy and short, but those aren't necessarily bad things to look for when playing a licenced tie-in game. Even if it didn't exactly advance the art of videogames, it sounds pretty solid. Happy to call this one Existing at a push.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix sounds like, in terms of overall quality, that it's caught between the two examples covered above. It's got a bunch of mid-to-high 60s wherever you look for average critic and user reviews, with people saying that it's fun and atmospheric but also unchallenging and repetitive. To break the tie, I looked at some gameplay footage and would personally put it in the Not Important range, but am happy to be corrected by anybody who's actually played it.

***

Hasbro Family Game Night 3 is tough to find detailed information about, but I can tell you that it's a compilation of board games adapted for digital players (single player and multiplayer). One user review I found noted that the A.I. in the Yahtzee poker-style game seemed deliberately skewed to prevent "random chance" and therefore fair victory (that kind of thing has always bugged me in games). Others seem genuinely happy with it, saying it "did the job" when they had the family round for a couple hours, even if the graphics looked last-gen. I reckon we're looking at a Not Important ranking.

Especially since Hasbro Family Game Night 4: The Game Show is considered to be "a harsh drop-off in quality compared to other Hasbro Family Game Night titles", according to our very own PushSquare. I can't really find anything else to argue against that quote. So, that'll be a Pointless game, then.

Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F and its follow-up game, Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd have such a die-hard fanbase that I'm loathe to voice my own opinion of these J-Pop rhythm games. Trying to judge on reception and the weight of that following alone, they'd look to be somewhere around the Existing or Important rankings depending on whether or not the person championing them is a fan or not. Just remember that these were huge deals in Japan, both topping the sales charts at launch. I'm going to (objectively, I promise) put them in the lower of those two options when I post my list in a moment, but I wouldn't stand in the way of any hardcore fan wanting them elevated.

The History Channel: Battle for the Pacific is a generation-straddling FPS (so lots of mentions of SIXAXIS on the loading screens) set during the Second World War. Critics didn't like it so much, but some gameplay I found on YouTube has some positive user impressions at the start. It apparently controls well enough, but the graphics look supremely average, even if the History Channel attention to detail is relatively authentic. Unfortunately, an "authentic" experience usually translates to being a relatively dull one in terms of gameplay, and this looks to reinforce that rule; linear, repetitive missions trudge you through trenches and jungles, but you've seen this all before. Being a budget game is no excuse. I reckon Pointless would be harsh but fair.

History Civil War: Secret Missions is yet another History Channel FPS offering, but this one distinguishes itself by being set during the American Civil War. For that unique timeframe alone, for that attempt to be different, I'm tempted to boost it up a ranking. In terms of gameplay and execution, it looks competent, if not revolutionary, and as a budget title it impressed a couple of reviewers. Not only that, but when I skipped randomly into the middle of a gameplay video, I heard Nolan North. That's not a bad thing, is it? I'm gonna put it in the Not Important pile myself.

So, all this makes my own personal rankings as follows.

Guitar Hero 5 - Existing
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith - Pointless
Guitar Hero: Live - Pointless
Guitar Hero: Metallica - Important
Guitar Hero Smash Hits - Not Important
Guitar Hero: Van Halen - Pointless
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock - Existing
Guitar Hero World Tour - Important
Hail to the Chimp - Not Important
Hannah Montana: The Movie - Pointless
Happy Feet Two - Not Important
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I - Pointless
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II - Not Important
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - Existing
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - Not Important
Hasbro Family Game Night 3 - Not Important
Hasbro Family Game Night 4: The Game Show - Pointless
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F - Existing
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd - Existing
Haze - Existing
Heavenly Sword - Important
Heavy Fire: Afghanistan - Not Important
Heavy Fire: Shattered Spear - Pointless
Heavy Rain - Important
Hellboy: The Science of Evil - Not Important
Heroes Over Europe - Existing
High Velocity Bowling - Important
The History Channel: Battle for the Pacific - Pointless
History Civil War: Secret Missions - Not Important
The History Channel: Great Battles Medieval - Not Important
History Legends of War: Patton - Not Important
🎮 Hitman HD Trilogy - Important
🎮 Hitman: Absolution - Very Important
Homefront - Existing

My locked in decision

Guitar Hero 5 - Existing
🎮 Guitar Hero: Aerosmith - Pointless
Guitar Hero: Live - Pointless
Guitar Hero: Metallica - Important
Guitar Hero Smash Hits - Not Important
Guitar Hero: Van Halen - Pointless
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock - Existing
Guitar Hero World Tour - Important
Hail to the Chimp - Not Important
Hannah Montana: The Movie - Pointless
Happy Feet Two - Not Important
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I - Pointless
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II - Not Important
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - Existing
🎮 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - Not Important
Hasbro Family Game Night 3 - Not Important
Hasbro Family Game Night 4: The Game Show - Pointless
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F - Existing
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd - Existing
🎮 Haze - Existing
Heavenly Sword - Important
Heavy Fire: Afghanistan - Not Important
Heavy Fire: Shattered Spear - Pointless
🎮 Heavy Rain - Important
Hellboy: The Science of Evil - Not Important
Heroes Over Europe - Existing
High Velocity Bowling - Important
The History Channel: Battle for the Pacific - Pointless
History Civil War: Secret Missions - Not Important
The History Channel: Great Battles Medieval - Not Important
History Legends of War: Patton - Not Important
Hitman HD Trilogy - Important
Hitman: Absolution - Very Important
Homefront - Existing

Nice one @RogerRoger good work.

@themcnoisy Always happy to help, comrade.

@Jaz007 @Th3solution @TowaHerschel7 @RogerRoger @Frigate

We have 2x locked in results already team. Let's make like the Sunderland vote counting team and be first team with a locked result.

I’ll go with the following:

Guitar Hero 5 - Existing
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith - Pointless
Guitar Hero: Live - Pointless
Guitar Hero: Metallica - Important
Guitar Hero Smash Hits - Not Important
Guitar Hero: Van Halen - Pointless
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock - Existing
Guitar Hero World Tour - Important
Hail to the Chimp - Not Important
Hannah Montana: The Movie - Not Important
Happy Feet Two - Not Important
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I - Pointless
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II - Not Important
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - Existing
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - Not Important
Hasbro Family Game Night 3 - Not Important
Hasbro Family Game Night 4: The Game Show - Pointless
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F - Existing
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd - Existing
Haze - Existing
🎮 Heavenly Sword - Very Important
Heavy Fire: Afghanistan - Not Important
Heavy Fire: Shattered Spear - Pointless
🎮 Heavy Rain - Very Important
Hellboy: The Science of Evil - Not Important
Heroes Over Europe - Existing
High Velocity Bowling - Existing
The History Channel: Battle for the Pacific - Not Important
History Civil War: Secret Missions - Pointless
The History Channel: Great Battles Medieval - Not Important
History Legends of War: Patton - Not Important
Hitman HD Trilogy - Important
Hitman: Absolution - Very Important
Homefront - Existing

Many thanks to everyone’s contributions. Great job!
I more or less go along with what’s been posted with a few slight personal tweaks. Overall I think we’re all pretty close in our opinions. Notably - The more I think about it I am leaning ‘very important’ to Heavenly Sword. I might be letting personal taste taint my views, but it’s just such an iconic PS3 game for me. But I can certainly live with ‘important.’ Also I gave Hannah Montana a little credit for the early easy platinum, making it not necessarily pointless, but certainly not important. Oh and I might have missed discussion about High Velocity Bowling. A quick search and it seems kind of mediocre so I put ‘existing’ instead of ‘important.’ Otherwise I’m pretty much in line I think.

@Jaz007 Our fearless leader can weigh in to make the final call on some of these.

Hold on a moment.
So I've played History Civil War: Secret Missions. And I can promise you all it's pointless. It's actually the second Civil War game. The first being on the PS2. The first one had some decent novelty to it because you used actual civil war weapons even if that meant reloading after every shot on occasion. It was a competent game with some definite novelty because no one had done it yet.
Let's talk about Secret Missions now. This does not have that novelty. This game didn't dare tell you to have a one-shot musket. This gave you 20-shot guns that barely had a moment in-between shots for a quick lever action animation the game did for you. I'm not sure, but you may have been able to hold the fire button down too. This is to say it did it's very best to give you a COD assault rifle without literally giving you one. The game played like any typical shooter too and the entire civil war novelty of the first one was just gone. This was very much a dumb COD clone as much as possible. The missions were also less inspired than before and felt much more plain. Also pretty short too. It's just a bad game. Please make this pointless.
The other two history channel games reviewed awfully as well and just didn't look very good.

I think Hannah Montana is not important instead of pointless for what it did for trophy culture. I've heard about the game many times because of that.

I haven't played it but I'd argue Heavy Rain is very important for being a widely liked game that was considered an experience to contemplate on. It wasn't a fun game as much as an artful game with tough decisions that made it gripping but hard to play at the same time. I think it helped advance games not needing to be "fun" and moved games as art forward a bit. It was also very unlike other games when it came out.

@Jaz007
I’d support your thoughts, all three.
Since you seem to be the only one to actually have played the History games, I can support the ‘pointless’ for the Secret Missions game. I thought the novelty of the Civil War setting sounded interesting; it’s a war that is not usually a popular topic for gaming yet is one of the most fascinating times in American History. It’s a hot button that no one seems to want to touch. But yeah, your description of the implementation sounds awful.
I felt the same about Hannah Montana. By virtue of so many people playing it for the platinum, it can’t be pointless.
And I played and liked Heavy Rain, it was a little wonky and the acting kinda rough, but I could see just the sheer innovation of it all and the way it broke some new ground that it could be ‘very important.’ I guess my opinion of it is tainted by the significantly superior and wonderful Detroit: Become Human. But it’s not fair to judge it against a PS4 game. So I could be convinced to move HR up to ‘vp’
I’ll edit my post.

Guitar Hero 5 - Existing
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith - Pointless
Guitar Hero: Live - Pointless
Guitar Hero: Metallica - Existing
Guitar Hero Smash Hits - Not Important
Guitar Hero: Van Halen - Not Important
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock - Existing
Guitar Hero World Tour - Important
Hail to the Chimp - Not Important
Hannah Montana: The Movie - not important
Happy Feet Two - Not Important
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I - Pointless
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II - Not Important
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - Existing
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - Not Important
Hasbro Family Game Night 3 - Not Important
Hasbro Family Game Night 4: The Game Show - Pointless
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F - Existing
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd - Existing
Haze - Existing
Heavenly Sword - Important
Heavy Fire: Afghanistan - Not Important
Heavy Fire: Shattered Spear - Pointless
Heavy Rain - Very Important
Hellboy: The Science of Evil - pointless
Heroes Over Europe - Existing
High Velocity Bowling - Existing
The History Channel: Battle for the Pacific - Pointless
🎮History Civil War: Secret Missions - pointless
The History Channel: Great Battles Medieval - pointless
History Legends of War: Patton - Not Important
Hitman HD Trilogy - Important
Hitman: Absolution - very Important
Homefront - Not Important

Oh look? Another week another thumb-twiddling session from me. I have never played a single game from this list...

@themcnoisy @TowaHerschel7 @RogerRoger @Frigate @Th3solution
Final results:
Guitar Hero 5 – EXISTING
Guitar Hero: Aerosmith – POINTELESS
Guitar Hero: Live – POINTLESS
Guitar Hero: Metallica – EXISTING
Guitar Hero Smash Hits - NOT IMPORTANT
Guitar Hero: Van Halen - POINTLESS
Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock – EXISTING
Guitar Hero World Tour – IMPORTANT
Hail to the Chimp - NOT IMPORTANT
Hannah Montana: The Movie - NOT IMPORTANT
Happy Feet Two -NOT IMPORTANT
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I – POINTLESS
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II - NOT IMPORTANT
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – EXISITNG
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - NOT EXISTING
Hasbro Family Game Night 3 - NOT IMPORTANT
Hasbro Family Game Night 4: The Game Show - POINTLESS
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F - EXISTING
Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA F 2nd - EXISTING
Haze - EXISTING
Heavenly Sword - IMPORTANT
Heavy Fire: Afghanistan - NOT IMPORTANT
Heavy Fire: Shattered Spear -POINTLESS
Heavy Rain -VERY IMPORTANT
Hellboy: The Science of Evil - NOT IMPORTANT
Heroes Over Europe - EXISTING
High Velocity Bowling - EXISTING
The History Channel: Battle for the Pacific - POINTLESS
History Civil War: Secret Missions POINTLESS
The History Channel: Great Battles Medieval - NOT IMPORTANT
History Legends of War: Patton - NOT IMPORTANT
Hitman HD Trilogy -IMPORTANT
Hitman: Absolution - VERY IMPORTANT
Homefront - EXISTING

@TowaHerschel7 You can still research and use what you know about the games to participate. Even if you haven't played any or all of the games doesn't mean you can't participate and contribute. You'll see plenty of that if you look through the thread.