The Evils of Console-centrism

[Hero]

Originally posted by burgundy
LOL, you know you're referring to me.

I don't have any interest in MMO-anything, which seems to be a major draw on PCs, and I'm just not interested in checking requirements, purchasing peripherals, downloading patches and sitting at my desk to play games when I can just pop a disc in my PS2 and be good to go.

I'm not denying that I may be missing out on some great games, but I don't have enough time or money for everything on consoles as it is, and I don't see the point in going through all the PC-related bullshit when I could be having just as much fun in my livingroom.

What he said. Not to mention my PC is old - running IE isn't as intensive as playing UT. If I had the money, maybe I would upgrade and get into PC gaming, but I don't. Plus, I spend entirely too much on games as it is.

[Regus]

Originally posted by Valgar

The one thing I NEVER understood is why the hell people bought Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 for Dreamcast and said how great they were. The PC version for BOTH GAMES are 10x better.

Okay, you're right about unreal, that sucked ass, but you're way off base about Quake 3.

Q3ADC came out at a time when several people out there, including a few on this very message board, lacked a PC that could successfully surf the internet, let along play a game as hardware intesive as Quake 3. Then from out of nowhere Raster comes along and shatters all our expectations, I was just hoping for a decent port, instead I got a hell of a lot more.

The first thing that strikes you about the game is it's graphics, they are incredible, and easily among the best the system has ever produced. The game looks orgasmic on a VGA monitor. Raster managed to condense everything they could from the PC version into the DC version, from textures to music, it's all accurately represented. Sure, a few levels were cut, but we also gained a few in the process. Some of which were actually pretty damn good (evil playground and blue monday being real stand outs). They also tweaked a few of the annoying things from the PC version, like adding a sky to to the space levels, making it a hell of a lot easier to add color to your name, and getting rid of the lame ass void deaths in the space levels. They also spiced up a lot of menus and such.

Then there was online play, the damn thing ran so smooth, it was wonderful. Sure you could only play against 3 other guys, but we made the best of it and had a blast. Then sega released the map pack which opened up the flood gates of user created servers, which even featured mods! That's right mods on a console. Grappling Hook, Instagib, Excessive, Homing Rockets, Teleportation Rails, Vacuum Grenades, Floating Rocket Mines, Last Man Standing. Yup, it was all there. You could even play against people on PCs, but broadband vs 56k was extremely cheap and shitty, but that's a story for another day.

The fact of the matter is that Q3ADC is one of the most user friendly games ever created. If you ever happen to come across a copy. Take a look on the back of box and look at all the stuff the game supports: VGA Box, Keyboard, Mouse (which was pretty much created for use with this game), Broadband Adapter, and the Panther XL, that's right, it even supported this thing:



Not to mention the fact that you had full reign over your controls, you could customize them any way you saw fit.

And in a final act of shear brilliance, Raster decided to leave in the command prompt! That's right, by pressing ` or f12 the console whould fall down and you could enter in console commands, many of which were identical to the pc version.


All in all Raster did a damn fine job faithfully bringing a game to an audience who would have never of played it otherwise.

[Frogacuda]

Originally posted by NeoZeedeater
Console gaming is filled with repetitive unimaginative garbage as well. That's why we pick out the gems.

Yeah, but there's like 10 genres on consoles and like 4 on the PC.

[MechDeus]

Sounds like some people have no interest in even trying before they do:

You only need to upgrade your PC every year or two, unless you insist on running everything at 1152+/60fps+. Remember, your console (aside from the DC) is running almost everything through the TV at 320x240, and often with modified and/or softened effects as it would with a PC counterpart. Now go run some games at 640x480 (considered quite ugly on the PC front) and turn down the effects and *WAH-LA!* you've generally got the speed of a console game at twice the resolution even on older machines. Also, upgrading your PC isn't nearly as expensive as many of you make it out to be. I just got a Radeon 9000 Pro with 128 RAM for $100 (actually a bit more expensive then it can be found if you want to search hard), and a new motherboard, 2000 Athlon processor, and 512 DDR RAM for $220 counting tax. That puppy comes with a built in sound card, so even if you don't have an old Sound Blaster 16 (yes, they still work perfectly fine unless you require 5.1 surround or some such) you're good to go. Use your old case, power supply, monitor, mouse, keyboard (get an adapter if your kb&m are that old) and it's like a whole new system. Actually, it is a new system, just displayed on an older monitor. All that, and I'm set to run games until late 2004/2005 (barring some sudden random increase in requirements unlike the normal rising progression). Last time I upgraded my processor was about two-three years ago, and even longer for my video card.

As for those sick of computers because of working with them, I'm sorry. I can't help you there.

For those sick of patches: Yes, some developers abuse them; doesn't mean they aren't good. Patches fix problems with the game that couldn't have been spotted by a small group of testers, or even by anyone besides an obsessive player that turns it into a massive abusable.

For instance, Tribes 2 (or the first, can't remember) had some gimpy problems involving weight initially. If you had heavy armor, you moved slower then light armor and weighed more. But if you slid down slopes you moved faster if you weighed more. So, flying from slope to slope in heavy armor meant that you moved about twice as fast as someone in light armor. How much sense does that make? Could that be fixed on console? Not before, although they have started with Unreal Championship, and I'm sure you all remember the complaints on this board when the developers wanted to fix something. Oh, heaven forbid that problems in a game should be left there when the ability to fix them is at hand. I'm sure everyone that bought GGXX would be eager to pay full price for GGXX # Reload, despite the fact that what's been done is little more then what constitues a typical patch in the PC world.

Oh, and did I mention how much I've been enjoying Tribunal lately?

I'm not saying solely sticking with consoles is bad (although it can be) and that no valid points were brought up (many were). I just think that a lot of what was posted was inaccurate and blown out of proportion, not to mention some things just weren't thought of. Now, what did I miss?

[NeoZeedeater]

4 genres on PC?

FPS
RPG
Platform(Third-person action)
Action/RPG
Graphic Adventure
Action/Adventure
Sports
Space Sim/Mech Sim/Flight Sim etc.
(yes they are all called sims but they aren't the same genre at all)
Shooter
Fighting
(PC games do have an import scene and they do get arcade ports)
Puzzle
Racing
Strategy

It isn't a whole lot different than consoles in terms of the number of genres.

[Yoshi]

NZE, it is amazing how close to home this thread hit, as I was a walking example of which you speak until six or so months ago. To all the console-exclusive gamers on this board, you really are missing a lot. I wouldn't have believed it either, but it is true. Granted, I have been doing about three years worth of catch up, which helps the volume, but there are some fantastic PC games and developers. Notice that one specific PC developer (who happens to be working on a PS2 game right now) even made it into the vaunted group in my sig image.

[Diff-chan]

Originally posted by burgundy
LOL, you know you're referring to me.

I don't have any interest in MMO-anything, which seems to be a major draw on PCs, and I'm just not interested in checking requirements, purchasing peripherals, downloading patches and sitting at my desk to play games when I can just pop a disc in my PS2 and be good to go.

01. Neither do I. I played Ultima Online for six months, and EverQuest for about four.

02. You really dont have to do that much anymore asl ong as your PC is decent. 99% of games just need a solid keyboard and a good mouse. Updates can be done inside the game's interface 90% of the time. Its not that much of a hassle.

03. As for upgrading, I got a 1.4ghz box in January of 2001, and the only thing Ive done is add extra RAM. It runs most games just fine nowadays. It will need an upgrade soon, but even then you can be frugal - RAM is hella cheap nowadays, and you can get a damn good videocard for $99.99, less if you scour a bit. And if I were to do that, my PC is fine for at least another year. You dont need to spend $800 every six months to upgrade, unless you need to play games in 1600x1200, which, of course, you probably don't (especially if you play PS2 ).

04. A lot of PC games are well just plain better. I started playing Battlefield 1942 last week, its killer. It plays like a multiplayer Herzog Zwei or something. Find me a console game that you can do that with... NO WAIT! YOU CANT! THEY DONT EXIST! Nothing on Xbox Live is as good as CounterStrike, which is unfortunate, because CounterStrike (and TFC)+ XBL would probably be the best game ever created.

[Eightbitbreaks]

My PC is really shitty. It can't handle new games. I still really like PC games though. I usually browse for old adventure which are pretty cheap and extremely challenging and fun.

I do think that PC has less variety of games, but as long as it has tons of adventure games I'm happy. Plus Battlefield 1942 kicks ass.

[johnk_]

i've found a few shooters on PC lately that are sweet..

[Rumpy]

Mech, Yoshi and diff hit the nail on the head. PC gaming isn't as scary as some make it sound. You'd be surprised at how many games run great at 640x480 if you had to. Hell, I play most of my games at 800x600. Runs like a dream and looks better than a TV screen.