Qualifying Poll 2/10: Seven Deadly Sins

[This Old Neon]

You can vote for 1-3 games in this poll. Vote carefully—you can't change your votes after submitting them. The top 3 games at the end of the week will earn a spot in the Top 128.

1980 - Berzerk - A2600
1992 - Star Control II - PC
1992 - Sonic the Hedgehog 2 - Genesis/MD
1994 - Uncharted Waters: New Horizons - SNES
2001 - Halo: Combat Evolved - XB/PC
2001 - Pikmin - GCN
2003 - Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow - GBA
2008 - Valkyria Chronicles - PS3/PC

You are encouraged to discuss your choices and your reasons for selecting the games you did.

[Humphries90]

Some decent games in here but I'm sticking with the adorable Pikmin.

[SkyPikachu]

Easily Halo, I was in a clan back in the days and clocked up hours upon hours of game time on it.

[Kong Wen]

Good bracket. This is the round where I stop giving out "soft" votes (sorry Halo, sorry Valkyria Chronicles).

Uncharted Waters: New Horizons and Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow get my votes here. The former is a great, unique Koei strategy game. The latter is one of the best games in the Castlevania series (and indeed genre!).

[The Shoemaker]

I just picked up Aria of Sorrow the other day, I'm liking it. It gets started quick.

[Kong Wen]

I just picked up Aria of Sorrow the other day, I'm liking it. It gets started quick.

Another BGE success story.

[Pluvius]

How about a success story regarding Star Control II? It's free, guys:

http://sc2.sourceforge.net/downloads.php

Rob

[Drauks]

Uncharted Waters: New Horizons was by far and away one of my favorite exploration games. The only downside is to this day I've never gotten the hang of the rock-paper-scissors dueling system. This one came at the perfect time while I was getting into the high seas areas of literature, and has forever cemented itself as amazing for me, from the music to the locales. I am very pleasantly surprised to see it show up here.

[Niahak]

Man, it's cool to see not one but two great exploration-based games here!

I picked up Star Control II when Accolade (sp?) was selling it as a download on their site - probably two years before Ur-Quan Masters was announced. Needed to set up a boot disc for the first time in a few years. No regrets! It's a fantastic game, made even better with the voicing from the 3DO version and other tweaks the community made. It's free, go play it! It's incredible how intense the game can be even when you're just trying to scrape together the resources to prep for a long-term scouting mission - even if you spoil yourself and look up a vague idea of which race is where, don't spoil yourself on how to deal with them - you'll still have a lot of intense encounters regardless! I love how some things are left deliberately ambiguous, specifically one of the races that... may not be advisable to deal with.

Uncharted Waters: New Horizons is a great game too! It's fun to break the game's economy as early as possible - although some scenarios are far better than others! I'd recommend Piotr or the Portuguese dude (Joao?), stay the hell away from the mapping guy or the merchant dude - not only do they have boring scenarios, but mapping dude locks you out from Japan until the very end of the game. It's weird how they felt the need to have the game's plot go weird and ahistorical on you in the late game in some scenarios, but it does keep things interesting.

[Kong Wen]

Pikmin and Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow will advance to the Top 128.

A tie-breaker between Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Uncharted Waters: New Horizons, and Valkyria Chronicles will be posted soon.