Company

[TimeLord]

I prefer the feel of a nice controller in my hands over an awkward keyboard and mouse where I have a million button maps to remember.

Yes I know I can get a 360 controller for the PC. I still don't care though. Also my computer is crap, I quite happy to not spend £500+ for a new one to then buy a £40 game to go with it. I'll just use my perfectly functional 360.

Also I like my shiny tray. I'm using it right now!

 

[Lizardon]

You should only play pc games if you place experience above comfort.
Why?
pc
1:cramped over your keyboard. (better experience)

Console
2:sitting on a comfortable couch with your controller in your hand's.(better comfort)

The choice depends on how you like your gaming.

I'd argue that comfort has more to do with your environment then the gaming platform. I play on my computer while laying on my bed, the the monitor and keyboard on a bedside table. You could just as easily set up a PC to be used while sitting on a couch. And I've seen come people play on consoles while sitting on a pretty poor excuse for a couch. It really comes down to what you find comfortable.

I'm getting ME3 on PC. None of my friends play Mass Effect so multi-player isn't an issue, all my saves are on my PC, I prefer keyboard and mouse to a controller, and most importantly I don't own a PS3 or 360.

 

[Jbowdown]

It may be inferior hardware, but it is much more fun to play on my 103" mega-fallus television.

In this day and age, it's simply a fallacy to believe that you can't play a PC game on a big screen TV with an Xbox 360 controller. Many graphics cards these days include a HDMI port for passing 1080p video and HD Audio to your TV or Receiver. Also, almost every game I've played that has been created in the last 5 years for the PC natively supports the Xbox 360 controller (this is especially true of the multi-platform AAA games). Combine it with in-game or Steam chat and my overall experience on PC far trumps my Xbox, which has been collecting digital cobwebs on the gaming side.

 

[Sandytimeman]

Don't do it Erin! Remember that creepy origin monitor! THAT IS INSIDE THE PC VERSION! JUST DON'T BUY THE GAME!!!!

 

[Panayjon]

PC hooked up to TV + Wireless keyboard and mouse. Or even a X-Box controller hooked up to the PC. Comfy gaming can be achieved with the PC VERY easily nowadays. You don't have to be slouched over a desk. (If Tycho from Penny Arcade can figure it out, so can you)

I understand this isn't the norm but its such an elegant solution that every time one of these threads show up I wander in just to say this kind of thing. I should probably make some copy+pasta.

I also realize this is kind of a 'new' innovation but Windows 7 will find your drivers for you so long as you're hooked up to the net. I haven't had to actually put a driver disc into my PC since I upgraded to 7.

The only real drawback is you need a certain amount of computer literacy to make things work when they break down; troubleshooting forums aren't helpful if it never occurs to the layman to go there (or if the problem is so complex you need to be a real enthusiast). As usual the PC=Car analogy is apt; you don't need to be a gear head but you should at least know how to change a tire or your engine oil.

Edit: lol, other people beat me to it as I was typing... though something I would like to remark on is that if you have a functional console but not the money for a better PC, its fine. The "Glorious PC Master Race" thing is a joke. Don't take it too hard. One could easily argue that because of consoles games aren't as great as they could be, but at the same time due to the constraints of consoles it forces devs to think more about efficient quality content.

 

[franksands]

"What he cares about is that when he puts the disk in his Xbox or PS3, it works. A simple demand that, even with the added robustness of Steam and its ilk, PC gaming often fails to offer."

That's what killed PC gaming for me. I don't want to buy a new computer every 6 months, or a new graphics card that cost the same as a new computer, just to play what I want. When I was buying PC games I would have the hassle of reading the dreaded requirements: does my graphic card supports bumpmapping level 324563 and quadruple anti-alising? It was just horrible.

Today I play happily on my Xbox 360, and buy some casual games on the PC.

 

[Tireseas_v1legacy]

It may be inferior hardware, but it is much more fun to play on my 103" mega-fallus television.

In this day and age, it's simply a fallacy to believe that you can't play a PC game on a big screen TV with an Xbox 360 controller. Many graphics cards these days include a HDMI port for passing 1080p video and HD Audio to your TV or Receiver. Also, almost every game I've played that has been created in the last 5 years for the PC natively supports the Xbox 360 controller (this is especially true of the multi-platform AAA games). Combine it with in-game or Steam chat and my overall experience on PC far trumps my Xbox, which has been collecting digital cobwebs on the gaming side.

So you can play ME3 online without Origin?

 

[Deathfish15]

Power to you, the PC is far superior to that of console games. the only difference in them that makes consoles evenly slightly advantaged is that the game can be sold/traded later when you've played it so many times that you're sick of it.

 

[scorptatious]

I'm trying to get myself into PC gaming, but unfortunately, my laptop makes it so that games like TF2 has really bad frame rate most of the time. And considering that I don't have a paying job at the moment, I can't afford a new computer or graphics card or whatever I need to make the game perform better. Plants vs. Zombies runs perfectly at least.

So until then, I'm perfectly happy with my PS3 and 360. The latter being the console I'm going to play Mass Effect 3 on.

 

[Panayjon]

"What he cares about is that when he puts the disk in his Xbox or PS3, it works. A simple demand that, even with the added robustness of Steam and its ilk, PC gaming often fails to offer."

That's what killed PC gaming for me. I don't want to buy a new computer every 6 months, or a new graphics card that cost the same as a new computer, just to play what I want. When I was buying PC games I would have the hassle of reading the dreaded requirements: does my graphic card supports bumpmapping level 324563 and quadruple anti-alising? It was just horrible.

Today I play happily on my Xbox 360, and buy some casual games on the PC.

You do realize that such hyperbole is just going to infuriate the PC people into frothing bouts of nerd rage right? I'm not saying that you won't want/need to upgrade your PC more often than consoles but those are measured in years and its not like you need to buy a whole new computer each time.

Also, system requirements aren't confusing if you just stop to think about it (though I understand the jargon is intimidating). The only thing which should possibly trip you up is the model of your processor and video card, both of which are easily found by going to your control panel. Example:

Starcraft II
Windows® XP/Windows Vista®/Windows® 7 (Updated with the latest Service Packs) with DirectX® 9.0c
2.6 GHz Pentium® IV or equivalent AMD Athlon® processor
128 MB PCIe NVIDIA® GeForce® 6600 GT or ATI Radeon® 9800 PRO video card or better
12 GB available HD space
1 GB RAM (1.5 GB required for Windows Vista®/Windows® 7 users)
DVD-ROM drive
Broadband Internet connection
1024X720 minimum display resolution

 

[lacktheknack]

It may be inferior hardware, but it is much more fun to play on my 103" mega-fallus television.

Hook up your computer to your TV with a gamepad.

(world explodes)

 

[geizr]

Sounds like you've run into a basic truth that most technically oriented folks on the web just cannot ever understand: tech specs != quality experience. Either you work for the machine(constant fixes, updates, upgrades, tweaks, researching parts, etc.), or the machine works for you(turn it on, do what you want done, move on with your life). Your choice.

Compare the experience: 65" big screen TV, 5.1 theater surround(120+ watts/channel of clean, clear sound, not mufflely, excessively-emphasized-bass computer-speaker sound), a plush, comfortable couch, and several friends over; or, be crouched over a 21" computer screen in a dark corner of the room fucking with the latest driver issue trying to get your game run. Yes, once you get the PC running, the graphics are awesome, but the overall experience is anemic compared to a console. Of course, one could just move the PC into the living/entertainment-room and hook everything to the home-theater setup, but that is not always a straightforward process, and you have to deal with clutter of this big klunky box and cables all over the place, plus a table or tray on which to set the mouse and keyboard so you can comfortably get to them.

 

[Jbowdown]

It may be inferior hardware, but it is much more fun to play on my 103" mega-fallus television.

In this day and age, it's simply a fallacy to believe that you can't play a PC game on a big screen TV with an Xbox 360 controller. Many graphics cards these days include a HDMI port for passing 1080p video and HD Audio to your TV or Receiver. Also, almost every game I've played that has been created in the last 5 years for the PC natively supports the Xbox 360 controller (this is especially true of the multi-platform AAA games). Combine it with in-game or Steam chat and my overall experience on PC far trumps my Xbox, which has been collecting digital cobwebs on the gaming side.

So you can play ME3 online without Origin?

I don't support Origin, nor do I play military shooters (early Medal of Honor and Call of Duty games left a bitter taste in my mouth). Although Sci-Fi Shooters I'm fine with!

When I think back on my early experiences in PC gaming some of the hoops I had to jump through to get some of my games to run created real-life experiences in command-line execution, editing system files (I'm looking at you autoexec.bat!), and simple programming. Without the trial-and-error of getting my multiple diskette installation of DOOM to run on my 486SX with 4MB of RAM was a true challenge. Those types of things as a young teenager shaped me into the technician I am today.

 

[tetron]

This is portrayed all wrong. The xbox player is the one paying money so he can play online with others. I don't need to buy friendship like those xbox threeslutty players.

 

[Waaghpowa]

People are actually going to play multi player? All I got from the demo is waves of enemies on a tiny map occasionally with some special enemies then you get extracted. Didn't seem very exciting to me. Also, not that it matters to me, but most of my friends don't play multi player games, so I never have this issue.

 

[LazyAza]

I've always been perplexed by the steriotype that PC gaming is really hard to get in to because its apparently still as unreliable now as it was in the 1990s. Load of crap that is, the worst problems I've had with my pc in the past few years is some lag that eventually got patched and some bad nvidia drives that made blood in a single game green instead of red.

Consoles have the exact same, if not more issues than pcs in my experience. My PC has never frozen from overheating but both my 360 and PS3 have done so many times. My first 360 red ringed and my first ps3s bluray drive died. Meanwhile I upgrade my pc every few years and it just gets better and more reliable.

 

[ElPatron]

I've more or less stopped using consoles.

On top of lots of patches, hardware issues, console updates, and stupidly overpriced hard drives, they've become essentially crappy PC's. Well, they've kind of always been that, but at least they've always worked just fine. Not so much the case anymore.

If I'm going to have to put up with the bullshit of PC gaming, I may as well do it on the PC itself where I can get some benefits from all the hassles.

This. People say I am crazy and give me funny looks when I say you have as much hassle maintaining a console.

I absolutely loathe PS3 updates. 360 updates are an annoyance. PC issues are a mild inconvenience now.

That's what killed PC gaming for me. I don't want to buy a new computer every 6 months, or a new graphics card that cost the same as a new computer, just to play what I want.

Mine is 3 years old. I am still not going to shell out any money for it because it simply runs everything I threw at it.

If you are buying a computer every 6 months, it's because you are spending money in overpriced parts that get outdated quickly.

If you play the "you're a computer nerd, I don't have time for those things" take note that I have no frigging clue about hardware specs.
I fired up google, and typed in some words, checked prices and performance reviews.

When I was buying PC games I would have the hassle of reading the dreaded requirements: does my graphic card supports bumpmapping level 324563 and quadruple anti-alising? It was just horrible.

Dreaded requirements? Most games today still run on hardware that is 2 years old.

Quadruple anti aliasing? One of the biggest advantages of a PC is that you can JUST CHANGE TO LOWER AA OR JUST TURN IT OFF COMPLETELY.

In most games AA won't make a difference, and it's not like all console games feature high AA levels.

 

[V8 Ninja]

The thing I've noticed when it comes to PC gaming is that if you try to chase a prettier-looking console experience, you're more likely to be disappointed in the end. It usually comes down to the fact that PC gaming and console gaming are different experiences; PC gaming generally focuses more on long play sessions while console gaming focuses on significantly shorter ones. Expecting a player to sit down at the game's helm for three hours or 15 minutes can really change what details are focused on in game development.

 

[DeadlyYellow]

It would be a trying decision for me....

If my computer didn't need a major hardware upgrade.

And it wasn't an EA game.