Why buy consoles?
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This is true, which is why I'll list a few more recent examples.Chibz said:
Men of War [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm0N1xwSl34]:
Vastly different than an rts. You have well-developed ballistics calculations, physics, armor penetration, cover, no economy, and a singleplayer campaign that has built-in coop, plus two expansions. I would hardly call this a "Starcraft clone".
The Total War series:
More historically accurate with a greater emphasis on the reality of warfare without sacrificing fun and gameplay. Admittedly the series hasn't always been perfect, but for the most part they've been some of the most enjoyable games I've ever played, and are still one of a kind.
Rome [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMpIpqh75vI&feature=related]
Medieval 2 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p7S25_kv4I]
Shogun 2 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXw-Qlp8P3k]
Empire/Napoleon Total War [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM_NkPOtTeQ]
Mount and Blade: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MQtZE43ySY]
Admittedly not the prettiest game by today's standards, but a shining example of a successful indie game with innovative game design. Started by just two Turkish developers, the game's expanded from a small singleplayer game to a multiplayer game allowing for upwards of 200 players fighting it out in a siege.
And on-top of this, I can play almost all the same kind of games console players can play, with the addition of the vast expanse of mods that I can play, for free, that add just as much to a game as a full blown game: http://www.moddb.com/
Now save for Nintendo exclusives like Zelda, please explain to me why console exclusives [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_exclusives_%28seventh_generation%29] should attract my attention more than the PC exclusives I mentioned, and all the modding capabilities a PC has?
Fetch quests and grindfests? Why d'ya hate WoW again? And anyway, talk about missing the point, which was: I don't spew my subjectivity while having a conversation based on economics and availability of certain goods.Chibz said:
Once again, you didn't address any specific issues. The core mechanic has not been changed, unlike the atrocities that were Tiberium Twilight and SupCom2. They added tech trees, made some changes with the UI (like being able to set a rally point to a moving unit) and introduced new units. But they didn't reinvent the franchise - merely improved upon it.
And find me a bad review of this game. Hell, even the user score on Metacritic is 8.2.
I would rather ask a homeless person to give me an objective review of DA2 than those 'hardcore' gamers who gave it a 4.3 score on Metacritic. Or the idiots saying Portal 2 is a console port, is four-hours long and has Day 1 DLC.
Ever heard of Pokemon? A game who's tagline is 'Gotta catch 'em all'? The core theory being that the gamer has to grind for hours to catch hundreds of Pokemon? And in every installation, the number of Pokemons are increased exponentially?
Shouldn't Nintendo be ashamed of themselves for farming on gamers using that franchise? Or any game who's objective is pure grinding?
How long do you spend gaming? Considering you have five gaming platforms and consider them all to be worthy investments, I'm going to go assume quite a lot of time playing all the exclusives. Why can't anyone barge in and consider you an addict, since you've spent literally thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours on gaming?
No fun arguing with you, since you do all the work yourself of making yourself seem like a changeling. I've yet to decide whether you're a troll, or have abysmal comprehensive skills. Let me break down my previous statement for your fragile mind:
Rhetorically, HL is not a Doom clone, since the term Doom clone applies to FPS games of the early nineties, while HL was released at the late nineties (1998).
Technically/ Mechanically, HL is not a Doom clone, since it didn't use the id Tech engine, and actually had complete 3D meshes for its enemies instead of Doom's 2D sprites, while giving full control on the z-axis. You couldn't even play Doom 95 with a mouse, and had to use the keyboard entirely. Circle strafing with the default controls? I don't think so.
Narratively, HL is not a Doom clone since it revolutionized first person story-telling without the use of any cutscenes.
When I was talking about Steam, GoG, OnLive, Impulse, GG, Gametap, etc, I was talking about the digital distribution market. Where the PSN and XBL have complete monopoly. And no, I can't buy hard copies of games in my country because there are no Gamestop or Walmart chain stores and all you can find on retail are bootleg copies. If it wasn't for services like Steam, my friends and I would still be pirating games since a South-East Asian economy is not big enough to have retail stores that stock original copies. My XBox-owning friends still buy bootleg copies because of GoD's (huh, the irony...) outrageous prices, since getting an alternate original hard copy would mean adding shipping costs and import taxes, which is just beyond their means.
Forget us, just look at the Aussies. They pay over a $100 for their retail games, whereas the Steam sale of Portal 2 is only $45 at launch day.
What's tragic is your (like I mentioned before) abysmal comprehensive skills.
Why the hell do you think I was talking about Steam while tackling the issue of DRM if I didn't acknowledge it to be a DRM itself?
My point was it's nowhere nearly as intrusive as GFWL or anything Ubisoft shits out. Hell, when I startup my PC, I usually cancel Steamworks from connecting to the servers and play in offline mode, until and unless my drivers need updating or if I want to scroll through the games on sale.
Steam is not perfect (in fact, I have it uninstalled right now so that I can repartition my HD and reinstall it in a drive with greater space). But it's a great platform that maintains my game library, lets me connect with my friends and the rest of the community, gives me the best deals, introduces genuinely good indie games, and gives me games for free (Alien Swarm, Portal, UT2007).
I also don't have to pay $80 a year to play MP.
You mentioned beforehand that the PC is not worth investing in... and now you're complaining that you can't run games on your shitty PC? For fuck's sake, try harder. I still haven't changed my ATi Radeon HD4350 which I bought new for $54 back in 2008 (so it was low-end even back then), and I still played all the new games out last year (with anti-aliasing turned off), ranging from ME2 to New Vegas.
First off, 70% of the platforms I listed are dead platforms, and it's not like I can get old console games like I get old PC games, i.e. going to GoG, dropping off $9.99 and getting Planescape: Torment. Care to explain what should I do to play Herzog Zwei or Seiken Densetsu other than downloading emulators and roms?
As for the PS1 and PS2 games, I borrow the original hard copies from my friends and run them on emulators. I don't bother torrenting them (shitty, shitty internet) and don't even make copies by converting them to ISOs (wastes HD space). As for the DS, the only reason I won't buy the 3DS is because I can't. It wasn't released in my country, and importing it with the shipping cost and import tax would make the price inflate exponentially. Same goes for the cartridges. Hell, I remember a teacher buying a jailbroken $199 iPhone 3GS for $1400+ due to the the same reasons. The only reason I can even afford to build a gaming PC is because the government gives special concessions for PC parts to encourage infrastructure development.
While we're on it, I believe you buy used games (saw you vehemently oppose a guy when he compared used sales to piracy). Guess what, you're costing console manufacturers money. Sony, for example, sold the PS3 at a loss, and tried to recoup the losses through the title sales (which is why game prices spiked to $60). When you're buying used games, none of your money is going back to the console manufacturer and developers, which is why they are unable to recoup the loss sustained from selling you the hardware. Gamestop alone raked in $2 billion last year in used game sales, none of which went to the video game developers, their multiplayer server maintenance or to the console manufacturers in the form of royalties.
Used game sales and piracy are pretty much the same thing from the perspective of devs. While they treat us like thieves with DRM, they treat you guys like thieves with Project Ten Dollar.
I'm not here judging your ethics. I'm simply pointing out the desperation people are driven to when the situation is dire.
I just pointed out how Win 7 is a pretty decent OS - lower memory usage, higher RAM allowance, advanced 64-bit processing, DX11 support, heavy security, etc. And how did you respond? A vague 'batshit backward stuff' comment. Way to making yourself look like a big baby.
Once again, you're not mentioning anything specific. Care to say what you can't run? Personally, everything I got off GoG works seamlessly, and DOSBOX works just fine (Incredible Machine 2 is... incredible). Only while playing Worms: Armageddon I've to turn off the explorer.exe, and Homeworld 2 had a few issues that the internet forums sorted out.
Pretty much exclusively RTS'. That's all the PC is for. Playing an RTS it seems.Ender910 said:
Most mods are just a more socially accepted form of cheating. I have no interest in hearing about them.
First of all, just because the platform itself is dead doesn't make it any less piracy. Hi! I'm called the wii virtual console. Have we met?Raiyan 1.0 said:
Project ten dollar makes a LOT of sense. It is just a (relatively small) reward for buying the game new instead of used.
And yes. The PC isn't worth investing in for the feeble list of exclusives it has. Not to mention all the games I WANT but simply aren't available on it. At this point I've so abandoned the PC as a system that it doesn't even make sense for me to update my PC much anymore. It can run games from the golden age of PC gaming. So why care?
Also guess it sucks to live in ghettoland where your economy is so nonexistent that you simply have to buy from Valve's rip-off store. Care to explain how your country's rather awful economy is a flaw of consoles?
Also, "Doom Clone" IS an archaic term for FPS. It was mostly used in the 90's. Your link itself says that.
You even highlighted the relevant part. You know, the part that proves you wrong.
The term "Doom clone" was in fact the common term for first-person shooters until the late 1990s.
It's an archaic term. It's no longer in common use, but. You know what? It's not even worth responding to you, since you obviously fail at basic English comprehension.
This is a grossly misinformed and false statement, at least with regards to PC Game modding. What I refer to as "modding" are what are typically called "Total Conversions", which is a modification of a game that changes and adds content to a game to produce an entirely different design in aesthetics, theme, story, and gameplay. From a technical standpoint, it's not all that different from a game being made on the Unreal 3 engine, only a mod/tc is made for non-profit. It's freeform art.Chibz said:
I agree that strategy games and mmorpg's are pretty much the only unique "genres" to the PC now. And I don't think that games of that sort will necessarily be enough to warrant a purchase of a gaming computer. However, if they do appeal to a gamer, then a PC makes a fine purchase for those games as well as most of the other kind of games out on the market.Chibz said:
My only goal here was to point out that PC gaming, while maybe not ideal for everyone, is just as capable (if not more) to provide a great deal of gaming entertainment goodness.
Actually, TC mods are by far the minority. And for the most part they aren't the mods that people will download. Most people download extra quests/items, new NPCs. Heck, TC mods are even on the decline.Ender910 said:
You CAN still game on PC, but PC gaming is no longer the "IDEAL" gaming experience. Effectively, the roles have flipped.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/109378-Bethesda-Wants-Skyrim-Mods-on-Consoles
Some day, console players may be able to run mods
Some day, console players may be able to run mods
Here we go. Let's break this down for the slow kids in the class.Raiyan 1.0 said:
There's the article of the sentence. The term "Doom Clone".
Here's the sentence revamped for you. "Doom clone is what we used to call FPS' until the late '90's"
Also, The wii & DS/3DS ARE backwards compatable. I can play games back to the NES era on my Wii. Ocarina of Time (which is getting a remake) is also on it. Same with every mario, zelda and metroid game made. The 3DS will have backward compatability to the portable zelda/mario games. You're just WRONG.
Ignored for illiteracy.
Yes, but it seems REALLY awkward to use my TE SF4 arcade stick on my PC, and besides, the range of fighters on PC is TERRIBLE. the only one worth getting has a better version on consoles anyway, SUPER street fighter 4. and not to mention all the Arcade edition DLC the console version is getting when Arcade Street Fighter 4 comes outSabiancym said:
Yeah, I've noticed the same thing in recent years. Partly I think as graphical detail and complexity has increased it's become more and more difficult for amateur designers to pull off a successful modding projects. I think modding "inflation" might be a factor too, Source and HL2 being a prime example of that.Chibz said:
I think that depends partly on what's considered ideal, but for the most part I agree. Ten years ago it was simple enough to pick up almost any game and to just dive right in, either multiplayer or singleplayer. For the last couple of years though, at least for me, it's become a painstaking process to get specific games or mods working the way I want them. I always attributed this to me getting old and having less time though.Chibz said:
What I'm referring to is the fact that games are designed for console first now (IE: Oblivion, Fallout 3/New Vegas) THEN ported to PC.Ender910 said:
I'm not even joking here but I have not met a single person IRL who HONESTLY prefers the (default) PC controls for any of the games I listed over the controls on xbox 360.
The mouse might give a lot more accuracy, but an analog stick is far better for movement than the keyboard.
It's also all about what system the developers had in mind to play it on. Oldschool shoot 'em' ups and fighting games were infinitely better on arcade for example. Because that's what it was designed for.
I'll do anything for you. Once again...Chibz said:
<quote=Doom Wiki>
The term "Doom clone" was in fact the common term for first-person shooters until the late 1990s.
until - Up to the time of, before
So, reconstructing:
'The term "Doom clone" was in fact the common term for first-person shooters before the late nineties.'
Half Life was released in 1998, which is indisputably in the late nineties, so it doesn't fall under the categorization of a "Doom clone", for which it would have had to be released in the early nineties. What part of that is so hard to understand?
You can now go wear your dunce cap (for being ignorant about the great technological leaps of the mid-nineties) and sit under your bridge, Chibz.
Ignoring pages 2 to 13.
It depends what you want. I've got a PS3 and a good gaming PC, I spend almost all my gaming time on my PC. When I was at uni and shared a house with 4 other gamers the N64 (yes I am that old) was fantastic and I wouldn't have swapped it for the best PC in the world.
In terms of cost you have to consider how much use you get out of something, not just the basic cost. So yes my PC cost more than my PS3 but in terms of money spent to time using it ratio my PC works out massively cheaper
It depends what you want. I've got a PS3 and a good gaming PC, I spend almost all my gaming time on my PC. When I was at uni and shared a house with 4 other gamers the N64 (yes I am that old) was fantastic and I wouldn't have swapped it for the best PC in the world.
In terms of cost you have to consider how much use you get out of something, not just the basic cost. So yes my PC cost more than my PS3 but in terms of money spent to time using it ratio my PC works out massively cheaper
Everyone who says consoles are cheaper is forgetting the cost of an HD TV. Thats as much as a new gaming rig, peripherals cost as much as the console and the cost is the same. The difference is PC games are cheaper which EASILY covers the cost of the odd upgrade (aka $150 video card) every 2-3 years.
Also upgrading a PC is very easy, you just need to learn which part is which. It can easily be learned online the rest is just putting the square plug in the square hole. If it fits you did it right. You think plugging in a console is easy? There are people I know who refuse to try because its to "hard"
Also you needed a High end computer to play crysis on MAX graphics. My 2 year old $1000 "at the time of purchase" rig did it on low no problem, and it still looked great. That same computer which im still using after some upgrades is currently worth about $400 and can play most games on high.
Checking for system requirements isn't a big deal when you have a gaming rig, cause its WAY in advance of most games anyways. Once your computer starts chugging and smoking you buy a new video card and your good to go until you feel like buying a new computer.
Also upgrading a PC is very easy, you just need to learn which part is which. It can easily be learned online the rest is just putting the square plug in the square hole. If it fits you did it right. You think plugging in a console is easy? There are people I know who refuse to try because its to "hard"
Also you needed a High end computer to play crysis on MAX graphics. My 2 year old $1000 "at the time of purchase" rig did it on low no problem, and it still looked great. That same computer which im still using after some upgrades is currently worth about $400 and can play most games on high.
Checking for system requirements isn't a big deal when you have a gaming rig, cause its WAY in advance of most games anyways. Once your computer starts chugging and smoking you buy a new video card and your good to go until you feel like buying a new computer.
How is steam a rip off? I bought Mass Effect 1 & 2 for $15. Thats $7.50 a piece for a relativly new AAA game. Thats only one example, its easy to get games 70% off regular price which is 80%-90% what you pay for a console game. The only people who could possibly get ripped off are the developers.Chibz said:
EDIT: It seems this thread as slowed down quite a bit
I'm gonna be honest, you raise almost every good point against owning a console.
For me, I've always liked consoles more. I'm not sure why. I have a computer that's about 4 years old, but it can run Crysis full specs (which is still a damn amazing feat for a computer of it's age, especially considering I paid $900 AUD for it), yet I still find myself playing my PS3 more than anything.
For the PS3, I just love the exclusives, the controller and the online. It's great having free online for everything, since I'm already paying for the internet to the ISP. I do really love the controller, and since I have really good spacial awareness in games, I feel like I can adapt to new controller setups faster. I love the exclusives, I still play Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time, as well as Red Dead, Uncharted 2 and as embarrassing as it is, I do really love GT5. I know it's got a million things wrong with it, but I just love being able to own, modify and drive EVERY SINGLE CAR I'VE EVER WANTED IN MY LIFE. Hell, I found a '76 Lancia Stratos rally car the other day! I've gotta point out that that car was my most favorite matchbox ever as a kid.
Anyway, I'm getting off topic. I guess I just love consoles because of everything they offer. Especially the multiplayer. Honestly, talking to some random over a headset has got nothing on sitting next to three friends and trying furiously to win whilst trash-talking and having fun.
For me, I've always liked consoles more. I'm not sure why. I have a computer that's about 4 years old, but it can run Crysis full specs (which is still a damn amazing feat for a computer of it's age, especially considering I paid $900 AUD for it), yet I still find myself playing my PS3 more than anything.
For the PS3, I just love the exclusives, the controller and the online. It's great having free online for everything, since I'm already paying for the internet to the ISP. I do really love the controller, and since I have really good spacial awareness in games, I feel like I can adapt to new controller setups faster. I love the exclusives, I still play Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time, as well as Red Dead, Uncharted 2 and as embarrassing as it is, I do really love GT5. I know it's got a million things wrong with it, but I just love being able to own, modify and drive EVERY SINGLE CAR I'VE EVER WANTED IN MY LIFE. Hell, I found a '76 Lancia Stratos rally car the other day! I've gotta point out that that car was my most favorite matchbox ever as a kid.
Anyway, I'm getting off topic. I guess I just love consoles because of everything they offer. Especially the multiplayer. Honestly, talking to some random over a headset has got nothing on sitting next to three friends and trying furiously to win whilst trash-talking and having fun.
I suppose thats a valid concern, however considering that valve has its fingers in both the AAA and indie game pools not to mention their huge fanbase, I doubt they will go out of business anytime in the foreseeable future. I'm pretty sure theres also some sort of backup in case they do go out of business.Chibz said:
I do love holding the game in my hands though, theres just something special about it. Its just not worth the price difference.