265: Punching the Baby Seal of PC Gaming

[Chuck Wendig]

Punching the Baby Seal of PC Gaming

You see that cute little baby seal? Chuck Wendig wants to punch that seal in the mouth because Crysis locked up on him. Again.

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[Samsont]

Oh nice I'm the first comment it's true man steam is very tempting I have the same problem as you.

 

[oranger]

yeah...a lot of issues with modern games locking up or just being shit tech has to do with either DRM or incomplete debugging, probably due to the production companies screeching like heroin-monkeys on the backs of the development companies.

 

[JaymesFogarty]

That's why I game on consoles. 1, to avoid using a keyboard and a mouse, (which is something I just cannot do.) And 2, which is to avoid all of the complication that comes at the cost of PC Gaming. If I have a game, I want to be able to pick it up, slot it in, and play. And with a PC, most of the time it is nowhere near as simple as that. I do agree though, that console gamers do suffer the added cost of games, and the limited choice and customisation.

 

[Inzomniack]

I like the theme of your story..... yes the Console / iPhone / non-PC is a fairly static device, allowing for fairly generic code for all of them that just works.


But.... where's your World of Warcraft / Starcraft 2 for Xbox / PS3 / iWank?

At the end of the day, you know you will always come back to your beloved PC

 

[HvD]

Not sure what you're doing wrong but I've played Crysis for hours at a time, never crashed once. Like Scrumpmonkey said "check your drivers and stop overclocking."

 

[Blue Musician]

So, you just hate PC gaming because of this?
Because some lock ups on some games, some that aren't that good? Because you couldn't run them properly?

I'd recommend you check a lot more of PC games before concluding that PC sucks, because there certainly there are some great ones in the platform.
Some that won't fail....

 

[Snork Maiden]

Incidentally Angry Birds used to crash (and sends me back to the desktop thing) about once a week on my Touch, and given that I only really played it on bus journeys and maybe before bed this probably equated to crashing about once every two hours - not great.

 

[Not-here-anymore]

No draconian DRM that demands I be online at all times and sacrifice a bleating goat

See, this is your problem. You're only sacrificing one goat. The machine god demands more! That baby seal you're thinking about punching? Sacrifice it instead! I think there's something about keeping your computer inside a pentagram at all times, with a water cooling system filled entirely with a virgin's blood, too.

I also have issues with PC gaming. I can't afford to upgrade a desktop on a regular basis (or even to buy one), so I'm stuck with a basic laptop that can't run COD 4, even at the lowest settings, without it jumping about more than the camera in a Bourne film.
The Steam sale, on the face of things, looked like it would fix this.
"Loads of slightly older games, at lower prices? Some of these should run on my wheezing construct of the ancients", I thought to myself. £20 of games, 4 days of download time, and a number of computer crashes that could best be represented in standard form later, and I have not one single game that will run on my PC without the aforementioned Cloverfield-level jerkiness. This is even after the specs supposedly match up, too.
I think I may be out of the PC gaming field until I find a couple of grand lying in the street for a decent gaming rig... Back to the xbox, I guess - there's definitely something to be said for the simplicity of gaming on consoles.

 

[chuckwendig]

I like the theme of your story..... yes the Console / iPhone / non-PC is a fairly static device, allowing for fairly generic code for all of them that just works.


But.... where's your World of Warcraft / Starcraft 2 for Xbox / PS3 / iWank?

At the end of the day, you know you will always come back to your beloved PC

The article is tongue-and-cheek (though some very real frustration lurks) -- but as the article states at the end, I will grudgingly come back to PC games. Civilization V, for instance, will draw me in. Moth to flame. Fly to bug zammer.

-- Chuck

 

[Evil the White]

I'm gonna be honest; I only get stuff like this with old games, because I'm running on Windows 7. And it's a pain because they should work, but they don't. Just about everything released before 2008 has problems. So I have the reverse of your problem: my PC loves all the new shiney stuff, but can't stand the classics. I was so angry when I spent £5 on Beyong Good and Evil, just to find that it wouldn't work... well, I could have punched a baby seal, if there had been one there.

 

[DTWolfwood]

hahaha XD good read man!

I wouldnt wish your troubles on my enemies.

But seeing that i've maybe had 1 game crash on me this pass year without me actually doing something (alt-tabbing, etc.), and considering i've had 2 lock ups on my PS3 (Red Dead Redemption and SSF4) in the same amount of time. My experience is oddly on the Opposite end XD

O PC gamers, stick with nVidia chipsets <.< ATI is totally on the fritz! new display drivers for ATI cards in the radeon 5xxx series blow chunks! I never had that problem with nVidia cards!

Man responsible for the Omega Drivers, PLEASE COME BACK ; ;

 

[chuckwendig]

Oh, and for the record, my PC's a year old and is not overclocked.

I've played PC games for a long, long time, and this has been a persistent issue across the board, regardless of the PC, regardless of the brand.

I'll always come back to PC gaming, but it doesn't change the fact that getting games to run properly can feel as productive as smashing one's own face into the desk.

These days, with technology being where it's at, I expect minimal tinkering. Or, if it requires significant tinkering, then I want good quality customer service -- another thing lacking across the PC gaming "platform."

-- Chuck

 

[Hiphophippo]

It's worth noting that at least two of the games mention run on game's for windows live. And we all know how that works.

At any rate, sorry you experiences have been less than stellar. I don't really have the same problem with games that you seem to, and we can either chalk that up to luck on my part of the games play. If it's not working out for you, it's in your best interest not to play it. Go enjoy your console games. Nothing wrong with them. My preference of PC gaming has zero effect on you. Have fun out there.

 

[uppitycracker]

Wow, I had a really hard time reading that. Anti-PC gaming statements like this sure are infuriating. People talk about how the PC market is dying (which couldn't be farther from the truth), and here we have so-called writers basically talking down on the whole experience, when it's most likely due to user error? I mean, a number of factors can cause the problems you've explained. And most of them usually have to do with ignorance on the users part.

It's funny, because all of those games listed, I have had zero issues with. Crysis especially. What am I doing differently? Honestly, probably not much. Just simple things, such as keeping my PC free of dust, making sure I don't bottleneck my system with one amazing part and one ancient one (which I'd almost be willing to bet one of these two things is yer problem), ect.

Honestly, it's ignorant posting like this that I thought I was avoiding by reading the escapist. It amazes me that this was even published. Shit like this is only going to give the wrong perception of PC gamers to people who don't know better, and a market that is already struggling in the console age doesn't need crap like this tainting it's image. In short, and I'm sure I speak for all PC gamers when I say this: Fuck PC gaming? No, sir, fuck you.

 

[chuckwendig]

hahaha XD good read man!

I wouldnt wish your troubles on my enemies.

But seeing that i've maybe had 1 game crash on me this pass year without me actually doing something (alt-tabbing, etc.), and considering i've had 2 lock ups on my PS3 (Red Dead Redemption and SSF4) in the same amount of time. My experience is oddly on the Opposite end XD

O PC gamers, stick with nVidia chipsets <.< ATI is totally on the fritz! new display drivers for ATI cards in the radeon 5xxx series blow chunks! I never had that problem with nVidia cards!

Man responsible for the Omega Drivers, PLEASE COME BACK ; ;

Heh, thanks.

Yeah, I've got ATI, and it is a hell-basket. I updated my drivers and I get this MOM.Implementation and CLI.Implementation error set. Then I'm forced to wonder, "What did ATI just say about my Mom?"

Then I punch another baby seal and feel better. For a while. A little while.

-- Chuck

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

Oh nice I'm the first comment it's true man steam is very tempting I have the same problem as you.

The forum rules look down upon "First post" claims...

I loved this article to death, and it's why I don't get into steam. My console has never, ever failed me. I can game as hard as I want on it, and it doens't let me down