50 Shenmue -v - Pokemon Black/White 79

SHENMUE MOTHERFUCKERS!

No but seriously, everyone should vote for Shenmue. Pokemon Black & White? Pfft, whatever, just another in an endless stream of Pokemon games. I dig them, but they get old pretty quick and I wouldn't consider Black & White to even be the best in the series.

Shenmue, on the other hand, revolutionized gaming. It all but invented and popularized the concept of the "open-world" in gaming where you weren't forced to go on mission after mission or forced to follow a specific pattern, but were able to go out and explore a city for as long as you wanted while NPC's went about their own business every day. Without Shenmue, it's hard to ever see Grand Theft Auto 3 taking that concept and running with it to billions of sales. Unique weather patterns, interactive games within the game, AI for thousands of NPCs, man I could keep listing all of the things that Shenmue innovated and it wouldn't be enough.

Plus it was fucking FUN as hell with a great story. What more could you possibly ask for? I seriously consider buying a Dreamcast off EBay atleast once a year just to get this game and play it again. Vote for it damnit.

 

I've never heard of Shenmue so I'm just going to have to go off what X and Lee said.

I'm voting for Black here though. I know that alot of the later Pokemon games get a bad rap due to being the fourth or fifth in the series (yet people will still vote in Final Fantasy 9, damn hypocrites), but the fifth gen. Pokemon games are by far the most polished games in the series and most fun story to play through. I'm currently playing through Soulsilver and Pokemon Emerald while still playing in Pokemon Black and it makes the quality over the earlier games shine through that much more.

Shenmue is the more influencial game and will probably win here anyways, but I say don't write off Black and White as nothing.

 

So we have a dead video game franchise on a dead video game system vs. the best selling handheld game franchise of all time.

Shenmue certainly wasn't the first to feature an open world, the original GTA was released two years prior to Shenmue, and open world games had been on the map since the early 90's. I'm not saying Shenmue didn't have an impact; but I am saying that Pokemon has had more of an impact, proof being that Black/White, the newest in the Pokemon franchise is perhaps more popular today then it was back in the Poke craze of 98'.

 

Game vs Game, Franchise vs Franchise, Japanese vs Japanese... It doesn't make a difference in this battle. Pokemon White/Black takes the cake, it's the perfect example of a game that's accessible to everyone, new fans and old, everyone is always taken care of when playing Pokemon.

Shenmue is nothing more than an obsolete stepping stone in the video game world, whereas Pokemon WHITE/BLACK is as relevant and successful as ever.

 

Shenmue is one game, that I can't honestly say that I know if I liked a little, loved, or hated. I logged major hours running around the city and the dock doing odds and ends things like buying toys out of machines, but as far as actual enjoyment, I think that I had very little in it. I mean, it was a great game, but as far as fun? It wasn't that fun to me. I didn't get to fight as much as I wanted, I never really got to do too much other than repetative work. It just seemed like more chores then fun. The story was great, and it made me want to keep playing, but after a while, and after driving the forklift into the wall during a race for the upteenth time, it seemed like I enjoyed it less and less.

Pokemon black/white added some aspects to the pokemon pot (I havn't finished it yet because I don't have enough time to run around trying to catch and train them like I used to) and even though it's generally the same game as it's always been, some aspects of it stand out.

Shenmue was ground breaking, but pokemon b/w keeps the great pokemon games fresh enough to make you want to give it a try. And with 100 extra little monster thingies to have dog fights with, it gets my vote here.