(8)Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald vs (9)Grand Theft Auto IV 2010

Ulti's Analysis
All things considered, this match shouldn't have been debated in any way. This was Pokémon during the day against GTA, a series that can bomb like no other on GameFAQs, coming off of Pokémon's best contest yet. But then KP, who knows the Pokémon fanbase better than anyone else on Board 8, went and said RSE had no chance because it was the black sheep of the series. Suddenly, this easy and meaningless 1 point match had people arguing about it.

People really should have left well enough alone and gone "Okay, Pokémon in the day, done deal", though to be fair GTA4 was legitimately the stronger game before 4chan got involved.

When the match started, GTA4 had the early lead much to everyone's surprise. But then RSE eliminated it quickly, so people quickly assumed RSE would win away with the match. Didn't quite happen that way, as GTA went nuts after the 20 minute tie update. It exploded about as well as a game *can* explode during a close 12 hour match, and things were looking great.

Then two key things happened: The ASV favoring RSE and 4chan's rallying. 4chan can't have the effect here that they do on Gamespot, mainly because the people at Gamespot are idiots and deny vote-stuffing takes place in their own version of annual contests, but they can still have a decent enough effect with legitimate rallies during close matches. But more importantly, the ASV favoring RSE just ruined Grand Theft Auto 4 here. As soon as GTA's lead went from 385 to 320 just after 3 when the ASV kicks in, everyone aware of contest trends knew the match was over. In six and a half short hours, RSE swung more than 1400 votes to turn this once-close match into a joke. GTA made a small run at the end, but it was meaningless.

A lot of people complained about this result, but... really, we're complaining about this? GTA4 is objectively the most overrated game ever made (No really, it is: http://www.gamerankings.com/browse.html), so the game getting thoroughly embarrassed by a third-rate Pokémon title in the very first round was the best possible thing that could have ever happened to it. And make no mistake: RSE was not a good generation. It shows that voters are smarter than we give them credit for, because they pay no mind to terrible reviews from so-called "professionals" that anyone with a brain realizes are paid off.

I mean really, it doesn't take an exceptionally cynical mind to connect a few dots: http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/50134

Rumor or not, let's not pretend there was no truth there and that this doesn't go on. So f*** Grand Theft Auto 4 for being the posterchild of why professional game reviews are terrible sources for gaming opinions. It helps that every GTA game after 2 wasn't any good, but let's not go nuts here. This was one of the best things that happened all contest. And after all that, it's just icing on the cake when we can look at this match and have a collective, hearty HAW HAW CASUALS: http://thengamer.com/guru/desstats.php