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August is nearly upon us, which means it's time to vote for the next TR theme.

Joysticks Recommended

This is for all games which are best controlled with a joystick, though it is not a requirement. Flight sims, mech sims, six degrees of freedom games, they're all fair game.

Recommended titles: Wing Commander, X-Wing, MechWarrior, Descent

Birds are Jerks

This category is for hard platformers. How do you know if you're playing a hard platformer? Well, one giveaway is a tendency to put flying enemies guarding bottomless pits; hence the title. This category is most open to interpretation; I look forward to people putting forth their own favorites.

Recommended titles: Castlevania, Ninja Gaiden

Pre-Quake FPS

Quake marks the turning point of the FPS genre going full 3D. This is for everything that came before. And I'm using "pre-Quake" as a design philosophy, rather than a temporal unit. Hallmarks are the mixture of 3D environments with sprite enemies and a general deemphasis on the Z axis.

Recommended titles: Catacomb 3-D, Rise of the Triad, System Shock

Rhythm Games

All things requiring you to do stuff in time to music. Maybe it's pushing buttons, maybe it's dancing, maybe it's pretending to be a DJ.

Recommended titles: Parappa the Rapper, DDR, IIDX

Ugggghhh...birds are the WORST! (Except Pidge. He’s cool.)

Other than Castlevania and Ninja Gaiden, in what games are birds jerks?

That's a good question. I'm assuming there are other platformers that like to dick you over in that fashion, I just don't play enough to be sure. And it's not just 2D; 3D platformers that like to do that to you are fair game.

Found a list involving flying enemies: https://www.destructoid.com/stories/the ... 0340.phtml

Wizards and Warriors, maybe? And it's not just birds as enemies, right, but ones that are exceptionally frustrating?

I don't know about that Destructoid list because it has Medusa heads from Castlevania but not the birds. The Medusa heads and the bats have a set flying pattern and aren't nearly as annoying as the birds which can fly randomly.

I'm extremely hoping that rhythm games wins; it's one of my favorite genres and I'll take any excuse to talk about them I can get! I've definitely been slacking in IIDX but this would also be a good opportunity to finally try to get Cool grades in Parappa the Rapper and Um Jammer Lammy.

bird

Ziggy587 wrote:I don't know about that Destructoid list because it has Medusa heads from Castlevania but not the birds. The Medusa heads and the bats have a set flying pattern and aren't nearly as annoying as the birds which can fly randomly.

Don't get too caught up on literal meanings; it's the sentiment that matters.