Jimquisition: The Beautiful Irony of PC Gaming

Vigormortis

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CManator said:
I'll admit to being misinformed about PC gaming and Jim has indeed enlightened me. It's probably because everybody I know who games on their PC is constantly upgrading and bragging about it, and those who have a low end PC don't really game with it.

Well guess i'll find out soon enough. A friend is giving me their old PC for free and I'll be seeing what I can do with it.

Still, I will most likely be primarily a console gamer. Frankly I don't see how a mouse and keyboard can possibly be preferable to a controller. (though i'm sure pc gamers feel the opposite)
Well, for me it's matter of what I'm playing.

For something like a fighting game, racing game, platformer, or some action/adventure games a controller is preferred. However, for things like real-time/turn-based strategy games, point-and-click adventure games (durr), and especially first-person games, keyboard and mouse are much preferred. Controllers are just inherently flawed for the latter genres. Especially RTS and first-person games.

So while I will tend to prefer a keyboard/mouse setup, there are still plenty of games/genres wherein I would rather use a controller.

Also, what kind of hardware is in this friends "old" gaming PC? Depending on what's in there now, you could put a small amount of cash into it and upgrade it enough to run a fair number of today's newest titles.
 

NiPah

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This is actually how I became a fan of Jim, that he's a fan of the smaller (and for lack of a better word) Anime styled games. He wrote several articles on some of NIS America's recent work like Hyperdimension Neptunia and AT Qoga, and now a small shout out to Recettear... Maybe that could be another video, about how all of the people say JRPGs are dieing even when titles like Agarest War and Disgaea are becoming hits.

I do thank god for you Jim, I also thank him for the fact that there is an actual anime titled "Cat Planet Cuties" coming out next year thanks to our friends at Funimation.
 

MonkeyPunch

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To be honest I'd stroke that sword if I had one like it.
Good show.

CManator said:
Still, I will most likely be primarily a console gamer. Frankly I don't see how a mouse and keyboard can possibly be preferable to a controller. (though i'm sure pc gamers feel the opposite)
This is an antiquated view of PC gaming and one I see all to often on message boards and I'm not sure why that is... Most PC gamers own a gamepad too or at least an alternate input method.

I play a ton of games with a Gamepad (and have done for aeons). Fighting games, driving games, platformers and such like are all played on gamepad (other games I can think of are: Assassins Creed series and Just Cause 2).
In fact a lot of bad ports almost require you to play with a gamepad due to shoddy/lazy conversion.

What's more is that the PC allows for a far larger choice of control methods than any console does. I personally have 2 360 pads, a Megadrive 6 button, a Six-axis and Madcatz arcade stick all for use on my PC :)

As said I find it strange that people always seem held back by the control method when the PC is known for being a peripheral monster so to speak, and compared to consoles allows for a much broader range of 3rd Party hardware manufacturers, so it would sort of figure you could control it how you pleased.
 

Tel_Windzan

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I agree to Jim's view that some of the PC games that I enjoy don't look that pretty. But I get the feeling that the topic could be branched out in saying you don't need to make a game that fully uses the graphics capabilities of a machine all the time. Sure you can make it available to those who want to use it but other people can make games with other graphics and just be as good. Variety is the spice of life, after all!
 

Vigormortis

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bombadilillo said:
You sir are wrong. PS3 plus gamefly = way cheaper then PC gaming. Unless I want to stick with flash games and gog. Then renting throws your whole argument out of the window. Game price goes from 10 more on console to aprox 45 less on console. Unless your the type of person who buys every game console is significantly cheaper in the long run
Well of course "renting" will be cheaper. If you plan to only play a game once. I, and most gamers, prefer to actually OWN our games and play them whenever we wish. This is something even consoles can't do. Most new consoles aren't backwards compatible with their last generational brethren. Yet with my PC, I could go play some Doom, Half-Life, Starcraft, or even the DOS based Zork right now on the same rig I play Crysis, Portal 2, Deus Ex: HR, and Starcraft 2 on. Can you play every Xbox game on your 360 or every PS1 game on your PS3? I thought not.

So, no. My argument is not "thrown out the window". It only appears that way because you only play your games for a short time then move on to the next, popular title. Besides, what if you want to play a game again? Can you just go get the disc and pop it in your console? Oop! No you can't. You have to "buy" it again. Just to be able to play it once more. Seems to me that, in the long run, that'd be more expensive then owning the games on a PC. ;)
 

bootz

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So my computer which I spent $300 on runs witcher 2 at ultra with the dual graphic card thing disabled.

I spent the same for my ps3.

I like pc gaming not for the graphics but for the fact I can handle larger areas and more polygons and objects between loading areas.
 

bombadilillo

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Vigormortis said:
bombadilillo said:
You sir are wrong. PS3 plus gamefly = way cheaper then PC gaming. Unless I want to stick with flash games and gog. Then renting throws your whole argument out of the window. Game price goes from 10 more on console to aprox 45 less on console. Unless your the type of person who buys every game console is significantly cheaper in the long run
Well of course "renting" will be cheaper. If you plan to only play a game once. I, and most gamers, prefer to actually OWN our games and play them whenever we wish. This is something even consoles can't do. Most new consoles aren't backwards compatible with their last generational brethren. Yet with my PC, I could go play some Doom, Half-Life, Starcraft, or even the DOS based Zork right now on the same rig I play Crysis, Portal 2, Deus Ex: HR, and Starcraft 2 on. Can you play every Xbox game on your 360 or every PS1 game on your PS3? I thought not.

So, no. My argument is not "thrown out the window". It only appears that way because you only play your games for a short time then move on to the next, popular title. Besides, what if you want to play a game again? Can you just go get the disc and pop it in your console? Oop! No you can't. You have to "buy" it again. Just to be able to play it once more. Seems to me that, in the long run, that'd be more expensive then owning the games on a PC. ;)
So your arguement about price gets blown away and you pretend that wasnt the point at all??

Funny because you post was entirely about price, nice try but changing the subject does not work. You know what I have? I got a n64 and NES all hooked up to a crt in my garage, so yeah, I CAN play all those old games too. So You can argue convenience, but I still don't have to buy SMB 3 again. ;)

The point stands, you pay 50$ a new release that I can rent for dirt cheep. So in the long, short and medium runs, console is cheaper. Try and refute that without wondering off on tangents.
 

AJey

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what was the point of this episode?! People with half the brain realize that PC gaming is not about graphics only! Who the hell says it is?! There are many reasons to pick PC. Some of them were mentioned, for some reason he missed the main one - keyboard and mouse! Now is the FPS era, and mouse is perfect for that. Granted consoles try and add some balance, but between controller + autoaim and mouse, the later will always win! Also take hothey MMO's. Keyboard is the way to go here. Simply put, keyboard and mouse give way more to the game then controller (game control wise). Another point he fails to mention, is that we cant talk only about good games. Sure, most games dont require high graphics. But there are many bad or decent games that people want to try which do require best graphics cards. Another point - PC helps developers push the envelope. Devs who make games for consoles are limited, while PC devs can try and make game look more and more realistic! And there are many more good points that make PC they way to go! Extremely sloppy episode!
 

DirgeNovak

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Vigormortis said:
Can you play [...] every PS1 game on your PS3? I thought not.
Yes you can. You should have gone with PS2 in your example... :p

OT: Good points, but I still prefer consoles, more specifically the PS3, because its exclusives are fucking awesome. And my shitty laptop can play most of the games he mentioned in the video, so I'm only missing out on games that do require a massive rig. And they mostly don't interest me.
 

Abedeus

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Scrumpmonkey said:
I never thought i would say this but; Thank GOD for Jim. Great episode although i would like to add something;

Dear public;

please don't buy a computer from PC world or the like £1000 and expect to run most games. They use shite parts and more often than not don't even have low-end dedicated GPUs. Find something with a core 2 or above, put a 1/2 decent GPU in it and make sure you have plenty of RAM and for under £400 you can run 90% of modern games.

Regards; The Entire Fucking Internet





Seriously folks, many PCs have been miss-sold to the the point you CAN'T play most games on them either because they don't have a dedicated GPU in them or much of the time the PSU is not stable enough to even support higher-end one in some really expensive home PCs. 500w is really your butter-zone. A little knowlege will save you a lot of pain.
Frankly, I'm upgrading my CPU, motherboard AND RAM at the same time somewhere this year. Already have Radeon 5770 HD so it's more than enough for now.

Phenom II X4 Quad 840, compatible motherboard and 8 GB RAM will cost me about.... 700 PLN, which is around $250. Toss in GPU for $100, some hard drive, DVD/BR (you need only DVD, frankly), an HDD for $50 and you're set.
 

Swifteye

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Matthew94 said:
Swifteye said:
Hm. Well as someone who has tried getting into PC gaming I have some issues with your statements Mr. sterling. For one thing when you say people can play most pc games what kind of games are you referring to? Anyone can play the endless sea of flash games but actual games that you buy welllll. Okay. So I have a new windows 7 computer right? Okay I didn't build it myself it was a gift from my father so it's new and I keep it running well. Okay then lets go and play Spore that game came out a year or so ago and I actually liked it. Won't really run on my windows 7. Okay. Lets play dragon age instead. It works! For a day. After a whole day of playing my computer needs to empty out all the cache and restart just to get rid of the lag the game gives me and this is even with special software just to run video games better.

Ya know that doom game you were talking about? I hate doom and all shooting games especially during that era but ya know what I did play back then? Point and click adventure games like pajama sam and cluefinders. and I can't really play those things on my windows 7 either. Luckily I have an old vista laptop that can play those games but still. New hardware sometimes has some serious roadblocks for old software. That said I can get privateer and some old games to run on my system but it's a shot in the dark to do so.

One of these days i'm going to buy a computer piece by piece and get all the specs checked out and even build it with my own two hands. That computer will get me into PC gaming no problem and pretty much any game new or old would run well and all these problems would go away. But so far that Computer has been estimated to be about 770 dollars. Kind of more expensive than say buying a PS3 getting a littlebig planet combo deal that bundles an extra controller. and then just getting a 50 dollar gift card for psn and going to town. You have some nice points but it still doesn't negate the fact that PCs are a variable system and nothing is quite concrete as it is when you get a console.
Do you even have a dedicated GPU?
Hmm. I might not. I should know this but I can't think of what that is.
 

CManator

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Vigormortis said:
CManator said:
I'll admit to being misinformed about PC gaming and Jim has indeed enlightened me. It's probably because everybody I know who games on their PC is constantly upgrading and bragging about it, and those who have a low end PC don't really game with it.

Well guess i'll find out soon enough. A friend is giving me their old PC for free and I'll be seeing what I can do with it.

Still, I will most likely be primarily a console gamer. Frankly I don't see how a mouse and keyboard can possibly be preferable to a controller. (though i'm sure pc gamers feel the opposite)
Well, for me it's matter of what I'm playing.

For something like a fighting game, racing game, platformer, or some action/adventure games a controller is preferred. However, for things like real-time/turn-based strategy games, point-and-click adventure games (durr), and especially first-person games, keyboard and mouse are much preferred. Controllers are just inherently flawed for the latter genres. Especially RTS and first-person games.

So while I will tend to prefer a keyboard/mouse setup, there are still plenty of games/genres wherein I would rather use a controller.

Also, what kind of hardware is in this friends "old" gaming PC? Depending on what's in there now, you could put a small amount of cash into it and upgrade it enough to run a fair number of today's newest titles.
Ok i can understand RTS and P&C, but FPS just baffles me. I don't play fps much anyway but it's beyond me how the left and right sticks are flawed for it of how m&k are better suited. Maybe I just lack imagination.

As for the hardware, no idea. Due to never owning my own pc, i'm pretty computarded. I can run programs and internets well enough, but specs are foreign to me. I may have to get a friend to explain this stuff to me afte I get it. I pretty much overheard my friend talking about giving their pc away and jumped at the offer. It'll be nice to join the 21st century lol
 

Prof. Monkeypox

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Actually, I thought Amnesia* (and Portal 2) were very good looking.
*Except when Amnesia tried to show actual humans onscreen.

Because they both had very good visual design, which made the most of their mid-level graphics engine.

Also: That E.Y.E. game looks pretty badass- I want to try it out now...
 

Jennacide

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I have to agree with just about everything here. Sure, it can nice having the visually superior version, but I favor PC gaming for different reasons. First being glorious indie games. Console gamers only recently got to taste Cave Story and Spelunky, and will likely never try such nice little gems as Desktop Dungeons and VVVVVV. The second, and probably bigger, is user generated content. Having a shitload of fresh maps to play on TF2, new quests to go do in Oblivion or new environments/additions like weather in New Vegas, I just can't get that with consoles. Well, mostly. LBP did an awesome job at this, unfortunately it's about the only one. Infamous 2's UGC isn't bad, but also isn't as striking as anything made for Oblivion. Sure, we get garbage UGC too, but the good pieces always outweigh the bad. For every generic Sephiroth sword+outfit, we get stuff like Nevada Skies in New Vegas.
 

MonkeyPunch

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Vigormortis said:
bombadilillo said:
You sir are wrong. PS3 plus gamefly = way cheaper then PC gaming. Unless I want to stick with flash games and gog. Then renting throws your whole argument out of the window. Game price goes from 10 more on console to aprox 45 less on console. Unless your the type of person who buys every game console is significantly cheaper in the long run
Well of course "renting" will be cheaper. If you plan to only play a game once. I, and most gamers, prefer to actually OWN our games and play them whenever we wish. This is something even consoles can't do. Most new consoles aren't backwards compatible with their last generational brethren. Yet with my PC, I could go play some Doom, Half-Life, Starcraft, or even the DOS based Zork right now on the same rig I play Crysis, Portal 2, Deus Ex: HR, and Starcraft 2 on. Can you play every Xbox game on your 360 or every PS1 game on your PS3? I thought not.

So, no. My argument is not "thrown out the window". It only appears that way because you only play your games for a short time then move on to the next, popular title. Besides, what if you want to play a game again? Can you just go get the disc and pop it in your console? Oop! No you can't. You have to "buy" it again. Just to be able to play it once more. Seems to me that, in the long run, that'd be more expensive then owning the games on a PC. ;)
Indeed.
Apple and Oranges.
Secondly, three words: Steam Summer Sale. BF:BC2 and all the expansion packs for 15?. And that's just one example of the ridiculous prices you could get stuff for during the summer sale.
So right there during the sales (which happen all year round too, but admittedly intermittently) buying games through Steam will be cheaper than renting a console game. Plus you then have the perk of being able to play games where ever you want. For ever.

Also when I look at games available for PC and Consoles the PC versions tend to be a fair bit cheaper.
Example: SSFIV AE PC: 30 euros
ALL Costumes - 14 euro (I know console owners were quite annoyed at this as PC owners get all costumes for 15$ where as console owners pay roughly 17$ per costume pack)
So in a nutshell just there, PC version of AE plus all costumes is cheaper than buying the console version)
 

nickpy

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Although I agree with the general principle that gaming (in all it's guises) should not be just about the graphics, I have to say that chuggy framerates or poor textures really do annoy me. It's one of my main gripes with my PS3 (which don't get me wrong is a great machine) but it's absolutely terrible at shadow generation, and I always, always notice it.

Yes, you can play almost all good computer games on a computer that costs around $500-700, but you'll never get the best that the game can offer. That's probably one of PC Gaming's real beauties - it's scalable. Yes, you can run it on a PC that costs the same as a PS3, but then you'll only get PS3 level graphics. But if you do want something more special and are prepared to pay for it (as I am, I must admit), then you can do so. The difference I saw in my upgrade from an HD5650 -> HD6850 was astounding, and I don't regret it one bit.

Also, the Keyboard & Mouse control scheme is just so much better suited to certain genres, just as the Dualshock is better suited to others.

I don't think either the PC or Console inherently better, but I see them as both offering different things, and my personal preferences forces me to lean heavily in the PC direction.
 

The Artificially Prolonged

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Jul 15, 2008
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Too true Jim. I was suprised how cheaply building a decent gaming pc can be done. Now that I have a good pc to play games on, I barely used my ps3 since and have become a prodomintely pc gamer thanks to gog.com and steam sales.