Now I'm well aware ahead of time that the majority opinion is going to be leaning towards Alyosha, due to how nice he is and his high level of output. That's completely fine, it's your opinion of course, and let me preface this by saying that I think Alyosha is a fantastic member of the community.
But, in my honest opinion, being TASer of the year is about more then just obsoleting a large amount of old movies. While I can recognize that Alyosha was doing a task that should have been done a while ago, I don't feel this sort of goal should translate into TASer of the year, which i'll explain.
TASing is basically an art form, and the best way for this to be represented is with it being entertaining. If I'm completely, totally honest, quite a few runs Alyosha has done really aren't that entertaining, for example Arumana no Kiseki or Quattro Adventure: Boomerang Kid.
This mainly derives as a result of many runs from the 2004/2005 era being basic NES games, with an occasional SNES game. As a result, as Alyosha redoes these runs for a new age, he's basically bringing forth what was good in an old age, 10 years ago, into a new age.
That's not to say that all his runs are boring. Quite the contrary, there's quite a few good ones, Umihara Kawase and Kabuki: Quantum Fighter being some good ones.
So who do I think should be TASer of the year, considering my opposition of Alyosha? This has to be someone who is notable for not only being as good of a forum member as Alyosha, but also having a more entertaining pool of movies.
The answer's obvious, don't you think?
Samsara.
Yeah, a year ago that sentence would be quite the laugh, but this is not a year ago. A lot has changed since then, the biggest of which is Samsara. Gone are the days when she would basically troll a topic. Now, she's easily one of the most proactive members of the site, completely cleaning up her act to be a respectable member.
Of course personality isn't everything, and in the runs department Samsara has an incredible range. I mean, except for perhaps Riddle of the Sphinx, Samsara has shown an ability to choose a multitude of games from a wide variety of consoles, and has made an entertaining run out of all of them.
Earnest Evans with its crazy flinging about, Coca Cola Kid with its sonic speed, and Splatterhouse showing how to make autoscrollers great.
So that's the reason I'm nominating her instead.
(P.S. I am well aware Samsara and Alyosha collaborated to do the first Umihara. For the sake of argument I excluded it)
effort on the first draft means less effort on any draft thereafter
- some loser
