BATTLETECH
Well you tell all those kids to just get off our lawn! I don’t think there is a better example of the curmudgeonly, nerdy beard-man turn-based old schoolism of the Quarter to Three community combined with its undercurrent of undeniable jaw-drooping <drool drool> graphics whoreism, than the choice of this game based on a 35-year-old science fiction franchise. Battletech wasn’t able to garner the most, or even the second-most first-place votes. Until late in the voting, it didn’t even have the third-most first place votes. But with 38 people voting for it, it got six more votes than the second-place Subnautica and sealed the win.
The 13 people who voted for Battletech as #1 were a quiet bunch, so I just included the comments of anyone who had it on their ballot:
So: 1. Sweet, sweet mechs. 2. Bugs, but they’re fixed. 3. MECHS BOOM BOOM
This was an exciting contest to watch behind the scenes, as the vote was to keep the tally hidden until the results were final. Once things had stabilized after the first week of voting, it clear that it was going to boil down to a contest between Battletech and Subnautica. On the final day of voting, the margin was two points. Then @Richard_Holt dropped his vote, with Battletech in fourth place. That put Battletech up by four. Shortly thereafter, @mrcjhicks placed his vote with Subnautica at the top, and those five points put Subnautica up by one, for what I think was the first time ever. But it was not to be, as @Mr_Bismarck and @Seppey scored the equivalent of back-to-back Battletech touchdowns by posting votes with Battletech at #1 one right after the other to seal the win. @RichVR and @grahamiam scored the equivalent of pile-on points in garbage time with their #1 votes later as Battletech won by 12.
Here is how the top ten shook out.
Perhaps @arrendek can output a graph of the relative positions of the top five games over time to give an idea of how things played out. Into the Breach looked liked a strong contender for the top five until it suddenly dropped out over the last few days, while Slay the Spire hung around in the top five, dropped down, and the moved back strongly into the top five late in the voting. Red Dead Redemption 2 and Rimworld, the others in the top five, never really challenged for the lead, and Red Dead Redemption 2 seemed pretty much locked into third after a time. Although at the end, one vote could have rocked that house down to #5. Marvel’s Spider-Man had a good showing for a while but slipped late and finished out of the top ten. Again, no hardcore flight sims or wargames got a sniff. Douglas Bader and all that.
Here is the final tally of votes:
Thanks to everyone for voting. We had 132 votes this year, which blew the past two years out of the water. I feel like @arrendek has established a new standard for vote-counting, uncorruptible by Alabama Democrats. I’m just his puppet. It was fun!
I love the idea of a “best games of the past 15 years” vote suggested by someone (sorry I forgot!) powered by The Mighty Script™. Someone organize it!
