Results[]
Sunday, July 21st, 2013
Ulti's analysis[]
All the credit for this match and this upset goes to yoblazer and Leonhart4. Those two went on The Show and banged for the Crash upset hard, and he came through. Their logic was that Portal 2 was not nearly as big or "meme-y" as the original Portal, that people don't have the connection to Wheatley that people have with GLaDOS, and that Crash being the most recognizable character in this poll would get him the casual vote. They even called that this match meant nothing for GLaDOS's popularity and that she would still do just fine in her own matches.
Of course I'm probably done listening to or ever mentioning events from The Show ever again, because Ngamer had the bright idea to not have me on one time this entire season, and doesn't even have the nuts to explain why -- or why multiple other people were getting on multiple times each, or why none of my PMs were never answered, or anything else. Putting that into a PCA is a small form of protest, but it's getting in here nonetheless because that s*** is so stupid. And yes, "i mad". I probably never will stop being mad, either.
Oh yeah, there's a match to discuss here. People who picked Wheatley had a really good reason. Lots of them, actually.
Summer 2002 - Crash beats Ulala in round 1, loses to Sephiroth in round 2.
Summer 2003 - KOS-MOS > Crash in round 1.
Summer 2004 - Master Chief > Crash in round 1.
Summer 2007 - Magus > Phoenix Wright > Bomberman > Crash in round 1.
Summer 2008 - Samus > Nightmare > Crash > Raz in round 1.
Fall 2010 - Ryu Hayabusa > Crash in round 1.
Rivalry Rumble - Pac-Man/Blinky > Crash/Cortex in round 1.
Crash's contest history is so bad that everyone completely forgot he actually has won a match in the past. This upset was billed as CRASH IS FINALLY GOING TO GET HIS FIRST CONTEST WIN, and no one actually bothered looking up the Ulala thing from way back in 2002. I even completely forgot about it until looking it up myself just now. He is seriously that forgettable in contests.
So if anyone ever deserved to score a close upset in memorable fashion, it was Crash. Wheatley held him off early, and he tried holding serve for half an hour, but Crash finally put him away for good about an hour in. The cool thing here is contest vets were really happy for Crash, and no one was really upset at the little guy finally turning heads. This was really cool for contest historian types, even if we did completely forget that he won a match before LOL
Pop some champagne, Crash. You've earned it.
Oh, and Tommy Vercetti was also in this match but literally no one gave a s***. That dude has fallen so far, so fast. He went from epic matches against Donkey Kong and Kefka to getting doubled by Crash f***ing Bandicoot. And good, because screw that terrible casualbait series and all the idiots who are currently mugging people for a copy of Grand Theft Auto 5. I read a story about some mentally challenged guy saving up money for months to get GTA5, getting mugged for it, and it made me absolutely sick to my stomach. People donated the game to him once the media caught wind of that story, which gives me some faith in humanity, but I still can't believe the sick freaks that live on this planet sometimes.
People really need to read The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions. If you're more interested in baubles than being a decent human being, you can go to hell.
Zen's (Late) Analysis[]
I was trying to find words for describing how flash-in-the-pan Wheatley was at the time, but that just put me in a melancholy mood. Wheatley is great. GLaDOS is great. Cave Johnson is great. Portal is great. Valve... was great. Now you can buy the use of their assets and IPs for a nominal fee. Portal Bridge Builder, anyone? What a timeless classic. Dozens of people are sure to have fond memories of that fun-filled two hours when they played Portal Bridge Builder before requesting a refund.
I'm being really sour, but I think we all kind of are. Valve now gives bonuses based on how much of a profit you can turn with whatever you're working on. They encourage their employees to do whatever they can to make money as fast as they can. What takes a ton of employees and a lot of time? Making full Portal and Half-Life games. You know what takes just one or two dudes and a week? Making Team Fortress 2 hats.
We're probably not going to see Wheatley again, we might see GLaDOS, but we're definitely not going to see Cave Johnson. Who knows where Gordon will even be? I'll get to him in a bit, there's a lot to say.
Alright, rant over, Crash Bandicoot was here and he won, as expected. The only kind-of surprise to people not familiar with these things was Tommy losing to Wheatley and losing pretty hard. This was the guy people had once taken over Crono. GTA protagonists ain't shit on this site. During the big hiatus in between contests, people speculated if Michael, Franklin and Trevor from GTAV would be worth anything.
Short answer: No. Long answer: Let's just stick to nominating GTA games into Games Contests and keep the characters out. Because no. Especially not after this long.
Crash had a remake of his first three games on PS4, XBONE and, recently, Switch. It got a lot of great buzz and people even started speculating he would be in Smash for some reason. That's... OK. Sure. I also saw a long 4chan post yesterday detailing how Ashley is still in Smash despite being shown as an Assist Trophy and that Sakurai is just pulling one long con to punk us. Hell of a community Smash has.
We'll probably see Crash back this year, and maybe thanks to his resurgence in popularity we'll see him get a third win. He deserves better than Wheatley and Ulala.