(6)Super Mario Galaxy 2 vs (11)Mass Effect 2015

Ulti's Analysis
Though Paper Mario TTYD/Symphonia was our first close match, this was our true first close match.

You know how every contest has a few matches where the casuals just embarrass us here on Board 8? This was one of those matches. 80% of gurus had Galaxy 2 winning without much thought, and most Oracle folks picked Galaxy 2 in the 55-60% range. The idea, outside of IT'S FREAKING MARIO, is that Mass Effect 1 has never had much strength on this site. On top of that, people have learned time and time again to ignore our Game of the Year polls when evaluating contest strength, so people just ignored Mass Effect 2 embarrassing Galaxy 2 in the GOTY poll in 2010.

First off, Mass Effect 1 does have strength. That one match in 2009 was clearly either SFF, or something weird happened. Mass Effect, Left 4 Dead, Fallout 3, and Halo 3 probably have fanbases that hilariously overlap. Someone had to get the short end of the stick there. For two, Mass Effect winning two matches in Game of the Decade before getting 46% on Portal is no joke. Galaxy had strength that contest as well, but a lot of people just pick the Nintendo option in any debatable match and move on. Usually they're right, but this was a case where they weren't right. I'm sure somewhere here I should blame Mass Effect 3's ending for ME1 being underrated here, but I'm saving that rant for the Undertale match.

Galaxy 2 took the early lead thanks to the Board 8 vote and Nintendo Power Hour, but then Mass Effect got a cut very early in the match. Galaxy 2's lead would peak at 265 about an hour in, but then the power hour ended and Mass Effect began the slow (very slow) overnight bleed. It can't really be overstated how slow this was, especially given the low vote totals. These two games were basically deadlocked with Mass Effect getting very slow leeway overnight, but people had to treat Galaxy 2 winning an update 72-62 overnight as OH MAN GALAXY IS PUSHING AHEAD.

No, that's just AntiTrendsFAQs in action. This match, among many others, showed this contest that trends mean as little now as they ever have, thanks to things like social media and smart phones not forcing people to wait until morning votes and after school votes to get their options in. Point being, Galaxy 2's 265 vote lead an hour in didn't get knocked below 100 until 5:30 in the morning.

Mass Effect kept bleeding away, but people just assumed the traditional Nintendo morning and day vote would save the match for Mario. But before the day vote showed up, we had a dead zone to get through. During that dead zone, Mass Effect got this thing tied up. Then the morning vote seemingly favored Mario, as he pushed back to a 50 vote lead very quickly (I'd like to take this time to once again point out that rallying happens in every single match and the people who whine about rallying are ridiculous, it's no accident when a comeback happens and then just stalls the second a tie happens). People assumed the match was over in Mario's favor here too, because obviously the morning vote would just favor Mario, right?

Nope. This match stayed tied all morning long, with Mario trying and trying and trying to pull away and get a lead, but every time he managed even a 10 or 20 vote lead, Shepard was there with a pistol and full points in Marksman to blast that shit away immediately -- the easiest way to cheese through the original game, for sure!! It continued like this all the way to lunch time and even a little bit beyond, and a lot of us hoped it would stay like this all day so we could set a new "closest 24 hour match" record.

Unfortunately, Shepard decided to stop dicking around, busted out a shotgun and started going full Carnage on the poll -- that is, the battered remains of our once-mighty ASV showed up, and it favored Mass Effect by quite a lot. What was a deadlocked match turned into Mass Effect pulling in 55-60% updates for the rest of the match, which turned things from a tie into a comfortable 625 vote win. This would end up only being a 1 point match, but contests aren't really contests without F5 spam.

It was a great win for Mass Effect, and was a win for the good guys. Galaxy 2 is forced motion control garbage, Yoshi's worst-ever appearance in a mainline Mario game, and one of the biggest offenders of "obvious cash grab" in Nintendo's history. Yahtzee did a very accurate review of the game that I suggest people check out. Nintendo isn't even trying to hide it anymore with how dumb they think their fans are.

But hey, you all bought and defended Wind Waker. You deserve what Nintendo has turned into. Every time the Wii U gets embarrassed, a kitten gets a comfortable rest, and a game as amazing as Mass Effect doing the honors makes it all the better. Mass Effect in general was in the middle of a lot of interesting things this contest, but before rallies got involved, there was Mass Effect telling the Wii U to fuck off.

Justice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTy9v9a7Tmo