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

So, all that means my initial hot take on this new list is as follows...

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Just Dance 2015
Just Dance 2016
Just Dance 2017
Just Dance 2018
Kung Fu Rider
🎮 L.A. Noire - Important
Lair
Last Rebellion
Legendary
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel - Very Important
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 2 - Very Important
The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon
Legends of War: Patton
Lego Batman: The Videogame
🎮 Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes - Important
🎮 Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham - Not Important
LEGO Dimensions Starter Pack
Lego Harry Potter: Years 1–4
Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7
Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures
🎮 Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues - Not Important
🎮 LEGO Jurassic World - Pointless
The LEGO Movie Videogame
LEGO Lord Of The Rings
LEGO Marvel's Avengers
🎮 Lego Marvel Super Heroes - Existing
Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game
Lego Rock Band
🎮 Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga - Existing
🎮 Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Pointless
🎮 Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars - Very Important

***

Thanks to @TowaHerschel7 for your input on the Legend of Heroes games. Despite having never played them myself, I'll support your rankings.

I've played Lego Batman one... The PS2 version though and it's been forever so I'm quite foggy on the details

All the levels are new (not inspired by a film's events basically) with there being a hero campaign and a villain campaign (You have to play the hero version first to get the villain version... The villain levels I think being how the hero version of the level's events are set up?)

It uses the mime set up of the original lego star wars games and such though with no voice acting.

I'd say an existing I guess? sorry really don't remember it all that much probably best if you do some additional research @RogerRoger

@RogerRoger Wonderful contribution there, my friend! Thank you so much! That’s exactly what we needed and your thoughts seem on target and well supported. Having never played more than a couple minutes of a LEGO game in a demo or at a friends place, I am inclined to trust your well thought-out expertise here.

@Jaz007 @themcnoisy @TowaHerschel7 @Frigate
As for myself, the only game on our list so far that I’ve played is the Legends of Cold Steel I, and I’ve only played the first 10 or so hours and probably shouldn’t even give myself a 🎮 credit on it per our criteria. With the small amount I’ve played, coupled with the fact that the game clearly spawned the sequel and a soon to be released third game on current gen consoles, I can get behind the ‘very important’ classification. Additionally, I think Trails is a pretty large franchise in Japan, but I’m not sure if we are supposed to really try to take that into consideration as it does open up a whole other can of worms to try to account to global influence since some games that Westerners would call ‘not important’ or ‘pointless’ would be quite important in the East. I think it best to keep within our own cultural perspective unless there is clear objective evidence to support a game’s influence (such as large sales) in Asia.
Nevertheless, Japanese success notwithstanding, ToCS is an impressive contribution and perhaps a little under-appreciated in the West when compared to what I would consider its counterpart— the Persona games. Despite following a lot of JRPG conventions and having a mixture of turn-based combat dungeon crawling along with social simulation relationship building like Persona, it has its own nuance and strong story telling. It really is quite an accomplishment. My only reservation would be that it didn’t seem to influence the gaming culture to the extent of Persona 3 or 4, even if the overall quality is on par. Alas, the high technical achievement, art, and personal reception is profound enough to stick with ‘very important’ imo.

The first LEGO Batman (autocorrected as Barman) is really good fun. I loved the locations, huge cast of characters and humour. Gameplay wise it's LEGO, so not a whole lot to say on that front; basically you bash everything in sight. One boss battle I remember being a pain in the bum is Mr. Freeze. Certainly an existing.

LEGO Dimensions Starter Pack - Existing.

I really dislike dimensions though. I have the portal and the Simpson mini figures. The levels don't make any sense, graphically poor and it's a haphazard game in every sense.

Lego Marvel Super Heroes - Very Important

Probably the last best game from Telltale before it became regurgitated beyond sense. Brought in an open world hub and loads of characters. This was pre 'paying for extra characters' and you could unlock everything in game.

@RogerRoger I agree with these scores for sure

🎮 Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues - Not Important
🎮 LEGO Jurassic World - Pointless
🎮 Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Pointless

I would bump this one up
🎮 Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga - Important

However I never played this version and am primarily basing my score on the original games. Which set the whole thing off. Existing is probably more apt.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy @mookysam Every little helps, thank you both! I think I may have played a demo of it at some point, actually, maybe on PS2. It's an early one so would've definitely just been "punch things made of LEGO and run around" in terms of gameplay; I think it was LEGO Batman 2 that started to get really nuts with the different ability-based bat-suits, although they may have started out in the first game (I seem to recall a Robin with magnetic feet who could walk up walls).

Since you've both indicated Existing then that's probably where I'll end up. I might do a bit of research just to confirm that memory of the demo.

@Th3solution Happy to help! I'm just sorry that I haven't played more, but given the sheer volume of LEGO games I've always felt it best to spread them out across different systems when there's potential of a pile-up (for example, when The LEGO Movie came out, I'd just finished playing a previous LEGO game on console, so the smaller PS Vita version was the natural fit).

They're great when you play one every year / eighteen months, and it obviously helps if you like the source material; I think a lot of people's LEGO fatigue comes from trying to play them all. There's no way in heck I could do that (I did go through a phase of getting the main console version AND the handheld version of each new release, but by the time I was halfway through the latter I was invariably kinda bored, with the exception of LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars on PSP). If you're looking for something simple and funny, though, and you like one of the franchises represented, you can't go wrong for a tenner.

@themcnoisy Thanks for balancing out LEGO Marvel Super-Heroes with such strong support. As I said, it really is a heck of a lot of fun and you're right, probably the last hurrah of the traditional "all in the box" approach. I'll likely stick with my ranking of Existing if you're gonna vote it so high, so it'll likely settle into a well-earned Important classification.

If you wanna bump up LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga, go right ahead. The legacy of the previous two games is pretty huge and as I said, it's a well-handled remaster with a lot of extra care and attention which made it a worthwhile purchase even if, like me, you had both of the original PS2 games on your shelf already. Given that it was such an early PS3 game as well (no trophies, alas) it might've been a lot of people's first exposure to a LEGO game. I'm happy wherever it ends up between the two rankings.

Otherwise, thanks for agreeing with my analysis! And yeah, Dimensions never grabbed me. There's a lot about it I should love (Batman! Sonic! Doctor Who!) but the fact I've never gotten around to it speaks volumes. Glad to hear I wasn't missing out on much.

Totally got the little Sonic minifigure, though. He's adorable!

I had forgotten about Lego Avengers. Its one of the weaker efforts. It was also the last Lego game I played with my youngest Son.

Not Important imo. Underwhelming.

Legendary - run of the mill fps with bad presentation and on the PS3 bad performance. I had this on the xbox and found it fun for a night. I would rate it as not important.

Kung Fu Rider - a launch ps3 move game which has a brilliant original idea. You ride down streets on a chair, very original. However it's one of the most unresponsive games using move and gets boring very quickly. This has to go in the pointless category and one of the main candidates for worst game on ps3.

@Th3solution Just catching up on an extended weekend's worth of threads. There are lots of good debates across the message boards, a lot of great points made. But when taken out of context, "Hannah Montana isn’t splitting the atom" is one of my personal favourite Push Square quotes of all time.

@Gremio108 Lol, yeah, well... the best quotes are always unintentional. 😂
It does sound pretty funny when you take it out of context.

@Th3solution @Gremio108 @themcnoisy @RogerRoger @Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy
Right then Lair!

Factor 5’s much maligned dragon ‘em up and for me, one the most lazily reviewed games I ever had the pleasure of playing.

First things first - this is a Factor 5 game and I think, was in immediate development after the not-that-great Rebel Strike on the GameCube and using what appeared to be the same engine.

Following the stunning trailers for the game, Lair was met with a decidedly hostile reception from the majority of reviewers. While I would say that the same basic design principles carried over from the Rogue Squadron games and the engine struggling to perform are open for legitimate criticism - the ire of most reviewers was pointed at the mandatory Sixaxis motion controls. The knock on effect of this was detrimental to the game and, as I mentioned earlier seemed wholly down to lazy reviewers.

As with the Rogue games, Lair is a fairly straightforward proposition - you ride dragons and shoot and maul air and ground targets as the story (I'll speak more about that later) progresses. All well and good really, apart from the motion controls for some.
The DualShock 3 set up used the majority of the face and shoulder buttons in game, but flight direction was handled by tilting the controller as you would a flight stick. Criticism of this generally centered on a lack of precision and reviewers feeling frustrated that they weren't very good at it - blaming the set up and the game for their lack of skill.
It wasn't an easy pick up and play for sure, but it always struck me as being in control of an animal, like riding a horse (which admittedly, I've only done a couple of times). When you're riding a horse, you can't stop immediately, you can't spin on a sixpence at full speed and take off in another direction. You convey your wishes to the animal through your body movement and the reins. So with Lair, the movement of your dragon felt like being in control of a living thing; not the stick precision of piloting an X-Wing in the vacuum of space, but the partnership of guiding a giant beast through the air. And when that gelled, it was sublime.

It wasn't perfect however. Some of the motion control choices were mildly annoying; a mid-air-melee-mini-game that required you to shunt an opposing dragon with a quick slam of the pad left or right just wasn't fun and the yank up for a 180 turn wasn't the best either. But none of this was the broken mess reviewers made it out to be.
In fact, just the flying alone made it worth the purchase. A later patch for the game enabled the option for analogue control, which was unfortunately too late to help things commercially. It was already possible before the update to enable analogue control through an exploit however, but it really didn't add anything to the game, and possibly exposed how weak a proposition it was as it really did just become Rogue Squadron Dragons.

The engine struggled; and at times it felt rather ‘last gen’, with regular frame drops and the basic gameplay tropes.
At times Lair looked fantastic. Explosions and ground units weren't all that, but the player dragon, the enemy dragons and vistas were rather enthralling.

The story for Lair was actually rather good. It had a unique fantasy setting and there was politics, religion, friendships and betrayals. A shame then that the well acted and conceived narrative was intertwined with what amounted to a rather sloppy mission structure that you would be very familiar with having played any of the Rogue Squadron (or similar) games.

Accompanying the satisfying narrative was another criminally overlooked PS3 score. John Debney’s score for Lair is an equally satisfying, if unsurprising fantasy romp. Initially, I had written more on the power and suitability of the music in Lair, but it had a more important role to play for the future of PlayStation that merits a better than ‘Existing’ rating…

… and that is: Remote Play! Yep, Lair was the first game that properly ran Remote Play. From the PS3 to the PSP no less - and it worked, really well.
It was mostly a curiosity for me, a show off piece for my many RROD suffering 360 mates - and it lead me to the aforementioned analogue control exploit (the PSP was assigned to controller 2 and allowed for analogue flight control, which worked the same with just connecting a second DualShock and playing with that).

Lair proved that Remote Play, the basic principle and functionality was viable. That screen mirroring wasn't just the playground of the ‘PC Master Race’, that combining the PSP and later the Vita to the PS3 could have incredible results and provide worthwhile experiences (apart from that MvC Ultimate Controller thing… 😂).

From Vitas, Xperias, PSTVs, work laptops and now even iOS *spits like the old woman in Allo, Allo - Remote Play started with Lair - test bed for what has become a banner feature for the PlayStation platform. ‘IMPORTANT’.

@KALofKRYPTON Wow. Thanks for that! I would have never given Lair much credit, so it’s nice to see someone who really played it with an open mind extol it’s virtues. Right on!

I’ve also played Lair and feel like labeling it important. The reviewers were just closed minded and it felt like it controlled like it should. It was so unique to use the motion controls and showed the possibilities it had. I had no problem with it whatsoever. Beyond flying, there was a shake it up and down to rip turrets out and it gave me a headache. Other than that motion controls were great. The graphics were also pretty good and that was the best reviewed part do the game. It has a lot of technical achievement and missed future opportunity with it. I don’t like arcade plane games much, but this brought something new to the table. Story was an okay, but forgettable affair. I also tried out the analog stick cottons. They felt terrible and ruined the game and it’s spirit.

@KALofKRYPTON I'm sold. Thanks for your thoughts, nicely backed up by Captain @Jaz007 there so yeah, I'll happily add another "Important" ranking to the Lair pile.

@Th3solution @Jaz007 @RogerRoger
No worries 🤘🏽

I'm afraid the rest of my week looks rather busy, so I've done some rapid-fire research on the remaining games I've yet to rank, to provide an early locked list.

Whilst I'd normally give blind support to any comrade when stuck like this, and there is a list of rankings above from @Frigate which I could use, our difference of opinion on some of the LEGO games previously mentioned seems rather vast, so I'm not quite sure we'd be on the same page enough for me to do that, alas. Hurrah for democracy and balance, I guess!

So, with brief elaboration beneath it, here's my final list for this week.

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Just Dance 2015 - Existing
Just Dance 2016 - Not Important
Just Dance 2017 - Not Important
Just Dance 2018 - Not Important
Kung Fu Rider - Pointless
🎮 L.A. Noire - Important
Lair - Important
Last Rebellion - Pointless
Legendary - Not Important
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole - Not Important
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel - Very Important
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 2 - Very Important
The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon - Not Important
Legends of War: Patton - Existing
Lego Batman: The Videogame - Existing
🎮 Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes - Important
🎮 Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham - Not Important
LEGO Dimensions Starter Pack - Existing
Lego Harry Potter: Years 1–4 - Existing
Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7 - Existing
Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures - Existing
🎮 Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues - Not Important
🎮 LEGO Jurassic World - Pointless
The LEGO Movie Videogame - Not Important
LEGO Lord Of The Rings - Pointless
LEGO Marvel's Avengers - Not Important
🎮 Lego Marvel Super Heroes - Existing
Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game - Not Important
Lego Rock Band - Not Important
🎮 Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga - Existing
🎮 Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Pointless
🎮 Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars - Very Important

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A quick scan of the Just Dance games reveals that 2015 was seen by some as a "reinvigoration" of the flagging franchise, whereas 2016 was not (although it won a Kid's Choice Award, showing its target audience a bit too blatantly there; did the same in 2017, too). Apparently, 2017 was a slight improvement, but by this stage I'm not seeing any innovation or real achievement to reflect that in a higher ranking, despite its huge popularity with kids. Also, wow, the PS3 got Just Dance 2018, eh? That says something about that aforementioned popularity, to still be releasing so late on the last generation.

Last Rebellion made me chuckle when I looked it up, because President of NIS America Haru Akenaga has gone on record saying that he felt "really sorry for our customers because we released that title" and that... well, that says it all, really.

By all accounts, the Owl game (hey, I said I was rushing) was a family-friendly film tie-in that didn't offend anybody, even if it didn't amaze them either. I think "Not Important" is fair.

The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon was an unfortunate fall from grace for our purple pal, especially considering it was rounding out a reboot trilogy that didn't start on PS3 and hadn't lit the world on fire like the developers had hoped. If anybody was still playing by this point, they were treated to a supremely average affair by all accounts. Spyro deserves better, and got better a generation later with his recent remasters. Move along; nothing to see here.

I could only find two professional reviews for Legends of War: Patton but something one of them said stuck in my head; specifically, that the strategy genre wasn't hugely well-represented on PS3. Combining those two firm-but-fair reviews with some YouTube footage, I'm probably being a tad generous with an "Existing" ranking but hey, it's where my gut has landed.

Turns out praise for LEGO Harry Potter (both games) was pretty solid, with only a few passing comments about the lack of LEGO gameplay innovation countered by others saying that it was a good evolution of the template. So there we go.

LEGO Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures was new enough in the LEGO cycle for folks not to be bored yet, and the minor tweaks in the gameplay mechanics worked well in the context of all that fortune and glory... however, I still get the feeling that a lot of reviews are written by Indy fans (because hey, who isn't a fan?!) and can sense that they're heaping praise on because they like the source material more than the game itself. It's taking a lot of self-control not to rank it higher!

I'm giving a lower rank to The LEGO Movie Videogame because whilst the PS3 version was quite highly rated, almost everybody acknowledges that the game is both "more of the same" LEGO gameplay and quite unstable from a technical perspective, riddled with bugs and glitches. I can only imagine these would be more prevalent on the older console.

LEGO Lord of the Rings was the first LEGO game to start lazily ripping dialogue straight from the source material. It was also the first to come with DLC expansions. The rot begins.

All the reviews for LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean complain that it doesn't advance the LEGO series "as the Clone Wars game did a few months back" (nudge nudge). Scores across the board were actually pretty low. I watched a little bit of gameplay and yeah, I think they're right.

LEGO Rock Band seems like a total disaster to me, merging Rock Band with customisable LEGO band members and instruments. Many noted at the time that the musical selection included in the game is at odds with the kid-friendly presentation, but it included a Super Easy Mode to help corrupt young minds even earlier than the main Rock Band games would (and yes, I can see that bias flare you just sent up; it's late and I'm tired). Long story short? Yet another average LEGO experience.

***

And that's all I got, so it just remains for me to wish the rest of the team luck in getting these locked down before I'm back, and to remind you all that if you don't elevate LEGO Star Wars III: The Clone Wars to ultimate supremacy, I'll be mildly vexed for, like, a good thirty seconds.

@Frigate Sorry, I just read my post back and I come across as being a bit of a dismissive jerk towards your rankings; that wasn't my intention, apologies. I'm really pleased to have some balance and diversity, because otherwise I'd feel guilty in basically saying "right everybody, follow me" and dictating everything, so please don't feel the need to support my (desperately-trying-to-remain-impartial) analysis.

Interesting that you only ever watched your wife play them all. Whilst I'm not really one for watching others play games anyway, I'd imagine LEGO games are even less watchable than your average streamer fodder. You never felt the urge to drop in with a second controller and help out?

Great week. We all have experience of Lego games being hardcore gamers lololol.

I will post my final thoughts after work tonight. Great work @Th3solution @RogerRoger @Frigate @KALofKRYPTON @Jaz007 @TowaHerschel7

I’ve played LEGO Batman and both of the first Star Wars Clone Wars Games (which I believe makes up the complete saga). I’ve played some of LEGO Indiana Jones 2 (tiny bit of first one too) and LEGO Harry Potter 1-4. First two LEGO games, the two SW ones, are great games. New and classic. Batman was good but also ran the formula out. Then Harry Potter was more of the same, not important at best. LEGO Indiana Jones 2 tries to innovate combat but ended up making a total and complete mess. Pointless and as I understand rehashed the first one a lot too. I barely remember the first one.
I’m not sure whether to say the Lego SW; The Complete Saga is existing or important. It was a great game, but also a later collection and release. So important or existing, not sure.
And I never played it, but LEGO Dimensions is a money and blood sucking parasite to gaming with it’s toys and locking basic content behind them, so it makes me want to say pointless.

Here are my votes. I’m mostly relying on other people’s reports.

Just Dance 2015 - Existing
Just Dance 2016 - Not Important
Just Dance 2017 - Not Important
Just Dance 2018 - Not Important
Kung Fu Rider - Pointless
L.A. Noire - Important
Lair - Important
Last Rebellion - Pointless
Legendary - Not Important
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole - Not Important
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel - Very Important
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 2 - Very Important
The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon - Existing
Legends of War: Patton - Not Important
Lego Batman: The Videogame - Existing
Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes - Important
Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham - Not Important
LEGO Dimensions Starter Pack - Existing
Lego Harry Potter: Years 1-4 - Existing
Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7 - Existing
Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures- Existing
Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues - Pointless
LEGO Jurassic World - Pointless
The LEGO Movie Videogame - Not Important
LEGO Lord Of The Rings - Not Important
LEGO Marvel's Avengers - Existing
Lego Marvel Super Heroes - Important
Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game - Not Important
Lego Rock Band - Pointless
Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga - Existing
Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Pointless
Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars - Very Important

Final votes

Just Dance 2015 - Existing
Just Dance 2016 - Not Important
Just Dance 2017 - Not Important
Just Dance 2018 - Pointless
Kung Fu Rider - Pointless
🎮 L.A. Noire - Important
Lair - Important
Last Rebellion - Pointless
🎮 Legendary - Not Important
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole - Not Important
🎮 The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel - Very Important
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 2 - Very Important
The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon - Existing
Legends of War: Patton - Not Important
🎮 Lego Batman: The Videogame - Existing
Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes - Important
Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham - Not Important
🎮 LEGO Dimensions Starter Pack - Existing
Lego Harry Potter: Years 1–4 - Not Important
Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7 - Existing
🎮 Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures- Existing
Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues - Pointless
🎮 LEGO Jurassic World - Pointless
The LEGO Movie Videogame - Not Important
LEGO Lord Of The Rings - Not Important
🎮 LEGO Marvel's Avengers - Not Important
🎮 Lego Marvel Super Heroes - Important
Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game - Not Important
Lego Rock Band - Pointless
🎮 Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga - Existing
Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens - Pointless
Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars - Very Important

Sorry about not replying yesterday. I was rushed into ozy. Anyway I'm better now so here's my final thoughts.