PastorOfMuppets
Banned
The last time I played a console game was NHL Powerplay '96 - which was $CDN 94 after taxes in 1996 money, for the Sega Saturn way back in 1997.
Since then, I've been a PC gamer. I managed to go the last 15 years without touching another console, handheld and even resisted any temptation to play games on a cellphone. Over the last 15 years, I would say there's only been a couple of games that made me wish I had a console. The Madden games - actually sports games in general, Red Dead Redemption, Shadows of the Colossus, the Uncharted series and Final Fantasy VII. This honestly is not out of any sense of elitism but just circumstance. In college I had a roommate who still had a tube TV and rocked out our VHS to watch movies (this was in 2006-2010) and I never got around to getting a TV after I graduated and moved out on my own. None of my girlfriends have been into video games either. The way my life turned out, there's was never a point in time where I NEEDED a TV but I've always needed a computer to do stuff on so I always got a powerful gaming rig to explore my gaming habits.
Well I was home for the holidays this year and my brother had recently gotten a PS3 and just bought Red Dead Redemption. This isn't really going to be a review of RDR since I haven't spent that much time playing it this week but it's more of a review of the current generation console experience from the POV of a guy who's been in the dark on console gaming since the 32 bit days. My parents also have a PC - albeit an underpowered one, hooked up to the TV so I was able to compare it to Steam's big picture mode.
Couple of initial observations:
- Holy shit, they install games on consoles now?! I remember when putting in a disc and and turning on the system was one of the advantages that console gaming had over PC gaming.
- Load times were terrible across all the disc based games I played. RDR, Tekken 6, UFC Undisputed 3, Modern Warfare 2 and Resistance 3. Hearing the system chug while loading a menu screen seems ridiculous to me.
- This is probably only because I've been M+KB guy for the last 15 years but a using a controller to play an FPS is so crippling.
- The whole thing about gaming on the couch is great though. However, I was able to get a game running in Steam's big picture mode much easier than on a PS3. Windows 8's metro interface is surprisingly usable for HTPC.
- Even sitting far away, graphics and framerates are noticeably crappier on a console compared to the same game for the PC. I can't see why people double dip when it comes to multiplatform releases if they have a sufficiently powered PC. The experience is so much worse.
So all that said the exclusives I was able to play are games I would probably shell out money on a console just to play. RDR is an amazing game, sitting down to play a fighting game like Tekken while talking mad shit to my brother is an experienced I sorely missed. I had a blast with UFC undisputed being a huge MMA fan. The one thing I was still wondering about console gaming was that were there enough unique experiences to justify owning one. Back in the 32 bit days, there was a huge difference between PC's and consoles and over the years, it has seemed that the PC has become more and more of the HD platform for video games since all the big releases are multiplatform nowadays.
Since then, I've been a PC gamer. I managed to go the last 15 years without touching another console, handheld and even resisted any temptation to play games on a cellphone. Over the last 15 years, I would say there's only been a couple of games that made me wish I had a console. The Madden games - actually sports games in general, Red Dead Redemption, Shadows of the Colossus, the Uncharted series and Final Fantasy VII. This honestly is not out of any sense of elitism but just circumstance. In college I had a roommate who still had a tube TV and rocked out our VHS to watch movies (this was in 2006-2010) and I never got around to getting a TV after I graduated and moved out on my own. None of my girlfriends have been into video games either. The way my life turned out, there's was never a point in time where I NEEDED a TV but I've always needed a computer to do stuff on so I always got a powerful gaming rig to explore my gaming habits.
Well I was home for the holidays this year and my brother had recently gotten a PS3 and just bought Red Dead Redemption. This isn't really going to be a review of RDR since I haven't spent that much time playing it this week but it's more of a review of the current generation console experience from the POV of a guy who's been in the dark on console gaming since the 32 bit days. My parents also have a PC - albeit an underpowered one, hooked up to the TV so I was able to compare it to Steam's big picture mode.
Couple of initial observations:
- Holy shit, they install games on consoles now?! I remember when putting in a disc and and turning on the system was one of the advantages that console gaming had over PC gaming.
- Load times were terrible across all the disc based games I played. RDR, Tekken 6, UFC Undisputed 3, Modern Warfare 2 and Resistance 3. Hearing the system chug while loading a menu screen seems ridiculous to me.
- This is probably only because I've been M+KB guy for the last 15 years but a using a controller to play an FPS is so crippling.
- The whole thing about gaming on the couch is great though. However, I was able to get a game running in Steam's big picture mode much easier than on a PS3. Windows 8's metro interface is surprisingly usable for HTPC.
- Even sitting far away, graphics and framerates are noticeably crappier on a console compared to the same game for the PC. I can't see why people double dip when it comes to multiplatform releases if they have a sufficiently powered PC. The experience is so much worse.
So all that said the exclusives I was able to play are games I would probably shell out money on a console just to play. RDR is an amazing game, sitting down to play a fighting game like Tekken while talking mad shit to my brother is an experienced I sorely missed. I had a blast with UFC undisputed being a huge MMA fan. The one thing I was still wondering about console gaming was that were there enough unique experiences to justify owning one. Back in the 32 bit days, there was a huge difference between PC's and consoles and over the years, it has seemed that the PC has become more and more of the HD platform for video games since all the big releases are multiplatform nowadays.