ShadowNate
Member
I'd include 1997 in that time frame.
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Software wise, has there ever been a better time to be gaming on PC?
PC Gaming just gets better and better by default, because (in theory) you can just play whatever has been released.
You might have problems with Discworld Noir or something like that, but in theory you can play whatever.
Add in better support from devs and publishers, amazing strides in emulation and preservation, and you have an incredible platform.
Wish it suited me more because between the Steam Controller and the variety of games, I'd be quite happy with a decent gaming rig.
You might have problems with Discworld Noir or something like that, but in theory you can play whatever.
Add in better support from devs and publishers, amazing strides in emulation and preservation, and you have an incredible platform.
Wish it suited me more because between the Steam Controller and the variety of games, I'd be quite happy with a decent gaming rig.
TyphoonStruggle
Member
The period in which we got Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft, Crysis, Half Life 2, Command and a Conquer Tiberium Sun, and playing Diablo 2, Starcraft UMS maps was pretty great.
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That's a plus. Would have to put a frame rate limiter on those low budget, low poly, blurry texture, non-voiced, boop boop sound effect games.
EverydayBeast
thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Consoles are close to being PCs
Myths
Member
Not by a long shot.
Dr.Morris79
Gold Member
Was just about to write the exact same thing. Those years on the pc blew me away, infact they're exactly why I started building and gaming on pc's.
cerealbuster
Member
I have plenty.
Also OP you can say the same thing after 1 year, or could say the same last year. Of course it will be software wise better in the future, because there will always be more software. And pc is 99% bc, so you will never worry of titles going away, because of no bc.
Guilty_AI
Member
That'll only be true when consoles become open platforms, which will probably be never if we leave it to the likes of Sony and Nintendo.
It's really tough to answer for me.
On one hand, I really struggle to find modern pc games that I'm interested in. As someone who loves RTS, third person RPGs and MMOs, nearly all games I've played in the last few years are fairly old games, or at best remasters of old games. Wow classic, AoE 2 HD, stronghold HD, etc.
In that space, it feels like there are barely any great modern games. At best some indie games, but they're often on such a disastrous visual level that I just can't enjoy them at all.
At the same time, hard to argue there are more pc releases than ever before, and many people seem to enjoy these, so I can't really o objectively claim modern games suck.
For me personally though - the stream of interesting new pc games is probably smaller than ever before.
On one hand, I really struggle to find modern pc games that I'm interested in. As someone who loves RTS, third person RPGs and MMOs, nearly all games I've played in the last few years are fairly old games, or at best remasters of old games. Wow classic, AoE 2 HD, stronghold HD, etc.
In that space, it feels like there are barely any great modern games. At best some indie games, but they're often on such a disastrous visual level that I just can't enjoy them at all.
At the same time, hard to argue there are more pc releases than ever before, and many people seem to enjoy these, so I can't really o objectively claim modern games suck.
For me personally though - the stream of interesting new pc games is probably smaller than ever before.
Hissing Sid
Member
I dunno man. Even though I’ve mainly been gaming on consoles for the past decade I still consider myself primarily a PC gamer who’s just been slumming it (Edit : slumming it as in vastly less genres available to play with a gamepad as opposed to a mouse and keyboard. Apologies if the comment came across as PC master race bollox, unintentional), lately with MS and Sony.
Shitty copy protection, the move to steam and PC games becoming glorified console ports with resolution sliders lead to me bowing out of the PC scene.
However, I still keep an old PC build around for my big box games and GOG collection (Only digital games I’ll buy and even then only when there’s a sale on).
Lately I’ve been spending the vast majority of my gaming time on my retro PC so it probably makes sense for me to go PC this time around. Sony’s first party stuff bores me to tears nowadays and Microsoft’s is virtually non existent so it’s not as though I’ll be missing out on much and the third party stuff will be on PC anyway.
Besides, if I get the console itch there’ll always be Nintendo there to scratch it.
So I guess I’ll be building a new rig. Excited!
As far as modern PC software goes nothing will ever match the golden age of Looking glass, Lucasarts, Bullfrog etc. There’s still fun to be had in the new shiny era of corporate gaming but the frontier gaming of the Wild West is long gone
Shitty copy protection, the move to steam and PC games becoming glorified console ports with resolution sliders lead to me bowing out of the PC scene.
However, I still keep an old PC build around for my big box games and GOG collection (Only digital games I’ll buy and even then only when there’s a sale on).
Lately I’ve been spending the vast majority of my gaming time on my retro PC so it probably makes sense for me to go PC this time around. Sony’s first party stuff bores me to tears nowadays and Microsoft’s is virtually non existent so it’s not as though I’ll be missing out on much and the third party stuff will be on PC anyway.
Besides, if I get the console itch there’ll always be Nintendo there to scratch it.
So I guess I’ll be building a new rig. Excited!
As far as modern PC software goes nothing will ever match the golden age of Looking glass, Lucasarts, Bullfrog etc. There’s still fun to be had in the new shiny era of corporate gaming but the frontier gaming of the Wild West is long gone
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Guilty_AI
Member
Will try to help a fellow player out. You might already know some but see if any of those interest you:
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PC gaming gets better every year.
I bought my first game in 1985, a text adventure, which I bought on floppy disk at a software store, and played on a ‘super powerful‘ IBM with an 8088 chip and a monochrome monitor.
Today I’m gaming on a 55 inch OLED panel with an RTX 2080 Ti - every game I buy is digital and there are literally hundreds of great games to choose from.
The recent Sony ‘exclusives‘ released to pc have definitely elevated the platform - Horizon Zero Dawn, in particular, is really exciting.
I bought my first game in 1985, a text adventure, which I bought on floppy disk at a software store, and played on a ‘super powerful‘ IBM with an 8088 chip and a monochrome monitor.
Today I’m gaming on a 55 inch OLED panel with an RTX 2080 Ti - every game I buy is digital and there are literally hundreds of great games to choose from.
The recent Sony ‘exclusives‘ released to pc have definitely elevated the platform - Horizon Zero Dawn, in particular, is really exciting.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
Not since I’ve been playing PC games starting in the early 90s. Seeing so many console oriented games come over and be done well on PC has been glorious, to be honest.
alabtrosMyster
Banned
PC doesn't have generations, so it only gets better and better, because the library just gets bigger and bigger... Plus you can emulate more and more consoles too (a reasonable PC can go all the way to the PS3 and Switch)!
sid2vicious
Banned
Yep, Mario is missing on pc... for now.
W
Whataborman
Unconfirmed Member
I'd argue that the 90s were a better era for PC gaming, just because most of what we consider genre-defining classics were released then.
REE Machine
Banned
PC doesnr really have any stellar exclusives any more like the golden age years ago when you had your half lifes, CS etc. PC gaming now is the ultimate port begging machine.
Stuart360
Member
PC has tons of exclusives, AA and Indie games that dont come to console. RTS games, which you may not like as a console gamer, but they are huge business on PC. 50-100 games release on Steam a day, literally. Sure a lot of them are shovelware, but its still fact.
PC gets all games, except Nintendo exclusives, and Sony exclusives, and its looking increasingly like thats coming to an end regarding Sony exclusives.
And its not just about the games, its the freedom PC brings, in terms of graphics settings, resolution and framerate, mods, trainers, their whole game library available to them regardless of age or hardware, controller or mouse and keyboard, the list goes on.
REE Machine
Banned
I mean AAA bangers like Gears, god of war, ghost of tsushima, the last of us, Mario, Zelda etc
Stuart360
Member
PC already gets Gears, and all Xbox first party games. Sony's games are coming too imo, they are not releasing 2 or 3 and then suddenly going to stop for some strange reason. PC gets every multiplatform AAA game as well.
No company 'owns' PC, and with game budgets being so high, thats why PC doesnt get the Crysis and Quakes anymore. It would be the same on console if Microsoft and Sony didnt own them either.
Amiga
Member
the whole era before the launch of the original XBox was better for the PC. It had tons of exclusive games that were impossible on consoles. back then only the cool kids had PCs that played Half-Life/Quake/Lucas Arts&Sierra adventure games/Diablo/Ultima.I was just browsing the Steam best-sellers list, and noticed what an impressive variety of games which are available on the platform, including many types of games that you wouldn't have seen a few years back. While the arguments for getting a PC frequently revolve around the "power" issue, as with consoles it is the games that are the most important factor. Here are a couple of screenshots from the top 50:
You can see that there are a good selection of traditional PC games (some of which are now making their way to consoles):
- Civilisation 6
- Euro Truck Simulator 2 (not my cup of tea, but seems really popular)
- Age of Empires
- Divinity: Original Sin 2
- Three Kingdoms: Total War
Formerly Playstation Exclusives:
- Death Stranding
- Horizon Zero Dawn
- Detroit Become Human
Formerly Xbox Exclusives:
- Halo
- Sea of Thieves
The type of Japanese made games which were absent from the platform for a long while:
- Persona 4 Golden
- Sekiro: Heroes Die Twice
While it could be argued that the PC is lacking some of the wow-like marquee game games of the past (with many games being made with an eventual console port in mind), stuff like Half Life: Alyx is still pushing the boundaries. For some of the games (notably the Playstation stuff) PC gamers will still have to wait a while for a port, but Xbox games at least is pretty much day and date now. Apart from Nintendo, is there anything else really missing?
For me, it would be nice if Xbox could expand their support to include the BC games from the OG Xbox and 360. Nintendo stuff, including the Switch now, can be emulated pretty well, but not everybody wants to go through the hassle of doing that. I personally wouldn't want to bet any money on Nintendo stuff officially coming within the next decade.
So, for those with better knowledge of the PC than me, has there ever been a time when there were a greater range of PC and console games available for the platform than today?
It was the 1st Xbox that started to significantly blur the line with consoles. And Sony followed up by making the PS3 more adaptive to PC games. the line got blurred even more with both MS and Sony using x86 for PS4/XB1. and with next gen CPU upgrades there will be almost no technical separation between consoles and PC. anything can be scaled to all platforms. the only difference would be publishing policy and console platform rejection of mouse and keyboard, and limitations to modding on consoles.
REE Machine
Banned
And i also said their own, thats why i said pc is the biggest port begging machine of AAA games since the golden age ended
FloatingIslands
Member
Content wise, yes, absolutely.
But the experience could be better in certain areas.
For example, the other day I bought Need For Speed (2015) and Burnout Paradise Remastered.
I need to disable keyboard to be able to play with a controller in Need For Speed.
Burnout Paradise kept crashing because it wanted to use the integrated graphics instead of the gtx 1060. Now it only crashes after I win any type of competition (still don't know why).
I know, those games are from shitty EA, but still it's a problem in PC that doesn't happen in consoles.
But the experience could be better in certain areas.
For example, the other day I bought Need For Speed (2015) and Burnout Paradise Remastered.
I need to disable keyboard to be able to play with a controller in Need For Speed.
Burnout Paradise kept crashing because it wanted to use the integrated graphics instead of the gtx 1060. Now it only crashes after I win any type of competition (still don't know why).
I know, those games are from shitty EA, but still it's a problem in PC that doesn't happen in consoles.
RedVIper
Banned
What the fuck are you talking about.
CS is still on PC, and it's one of the biggest games out there.
League of legends is one of the biggest games in the world, PC exclusive.
It's not even comparable, these game have userbases that dwarf any console exclusive.
Not to mention exclusives like factorio, disco elysium (Which ironically there's been "port begging" for consoles), the entire total war series, all the vr games that are exclusive to pc, any strategy games (crusader kings, stellaris, etc), all the great indies that are actually pushing innovation in the gameplay department, etc...
jadefire66
Member
1996-2004 is the golden age of PC gaming. Things will never be as good as back then.
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LazyParrot
Member
Backwards compatibility is essentially infinite on PC, so the best time to game on PC has always been the present.
Laptop1991
Member
For me it was 95 to 2005, from my first PC, playing Doom, and all the great games inbetween, also buying graphics cards like Matrox and Voodoo's to play them on, onto Fear 1 on PC, the last real great PC only game at the time, i loved that game,
Yeah Crysis came out in 2007, i had a 8800 GTX back then, and if you put any kind of AA on, i was lucky to get 20fps, it was said it was one of the games for future tech, which mean't it didn't play that well at the time lol.
Yeah Crysis came out in 2007, i had a 8800 GTX back then, and if you put any kind of AA on, i was lucky to get 20fps, it was said it was one of the games for future tech, which mean't it didn't play that well at the time lol.
Belmonte
Member
The golden age was the 90s, like many said. Today is pretty good though. The cost is lower, many indies and AA arrive first on PC when they are not exclusives.
But in practice, since you can play whatever classic game you want on PC, today will always be better than yesterday. Not only can I play The Witcher 3 and Dark Souls but Morrowind, Jagged Alliance and Warcraft 3 also.
But in practice, since you can play whatever classic game you want on PC, today will always be better than yesterday. Not only can I play The Witcher 3 and Dark Souls but Morrowind, Jagged Alliance and Warcraft 3 also.
PC has more exclusives than all 3 consoles put together. PC gaming is stronger and better than ever.
Yeah, I get the golden age of the late 90s and early 2000s but folks please be realistic and also state that during those days;
You had to upgrade more often
Games were buggier and hard to troubleshoot
Japanese and other console style games were non existent on the platform
Controller support was crap
I'll take modern PC gaming over that any day even if I miss arena shooters. Besides you can still play the old classics just fine.
Yeah, I get the golden age of the late 90s and early 2000s but folks please be realistic and also state that during those days;
You had to upgrade more often
Games were buggier and hard to troubleshoot
Japanese and other console style games were non existent on the platform
Controller support was crap
I'll take modern PC gaming over that any day even if I miss arena shooters. Besides you can still play the old classics just fine.
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Bragr
Banned
That PC players still sit and play stuff like CS, League, and WOW says a lot. That's games from 2-3 generations ago. Userbases do not mean quality. Top budget games these days are either console exclusives or multi-platform, but back then you had huge top-tier PC only games, I mean WoW and CS is games from that era. Total War is actually a good example, to make those games profitable they revamp the basics and re-skin it, while I like those games it's still very much a safe strategy to make a profit. If that was 2000-ish, they would take the time and money and completely rebuild the games and move them forward.
Guilty_AI
Member
You do realize these games still get a lot of updates and support right?
RedVIper
Banned
Really funny how PC games that have lasted trough generations are subpar quality, because having staying power somehow doesn't mean "good". But having high budget automatically makes console games better.
Have you looked at 99% of console exclusives? They are virtually the same. This described most console exclusives, and somehow you're using it to attack pc gaming because there;s one title that's doing it.
ZywyPL
Banned
Well you have to say, about 5-10 years ago games on PC sold like shit, AAA blockbusters had serious trouble reaching a mere 100k while they were reaching a couple of millions on consoles in no time. But I guess because how weak the current-gen consoles are many people decided to go back to PC gaming, developers noticed, started to make proper ports again, and as a result even more people started to play on PCs again. Apparently so much more that even the console manufacturers are releasing their exclusives on PC as well.
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Bolivar687
Banned
I would put genre-defining games that came out in the 1998-2003 era (Diablo II, C&C RA2 + Generals, Counter-Strike) to be pound for pound better than anything coming out today. You can play a lot of these games now, but their communities aren't as active as they were back then.
But it's certainly far and away the healthiest platform today. On that best-sellers list, you not only see the biggest AAA multiplatform games and even console exclusives but also niche titles which the consoles have been moving away from.
But it's certainly far and away the healthiest platform today. On that best-sellers list, you not only see the biggest AAA multiplatform games and even console exclusives but also niche titles which the consoles have been moving away from.
Guilty_AI
Member
True. Now comparing the reception Death Stranding had on the ps4 with the reception it is now having on PC does highlight a difference in mentality and expectations of the public in each platform. I also notice a lot of games that sell incredibly well despite not having a lot in the way of marketing like a console exclusives usually do.
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Bragr
Banned
What's your point, all games do these days.
lastmessiah
Member
My most played game is Insurgency: Sandstorm and I don't think that is even on consoles right now, if it ever will be.
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Guilty_AI
Member
If the game's good and the developers are constantly delivering new content, why would people stop playing them?
Euro Truck Simulator 2 for example is always getting map expansions since its release on 2012. If people like the concept there is no reason to stop playing it. It has nothing to do with not having other games, some players just really enjoy those.
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Bragr
Banned
I did not say it was subpar quality, nor did I say that big-budget makes it better. In fact, I'm not saying PC gaming is poor, that's just what you think I'm saying. I play tons of PC games and love Anno, Total War and all the great PC exclusives. But if you look at the last generation of console games versus PC games, a large batch of the best games are not found on PC. Having to defend PC gaming by 20-year-old games is absurd. It's not about budget, it's about developers, and out of the top 10 studios, several of them aren't on PC.
Most console exclusives are the same? what are you talking about, do you even own a console? this year alone, you have Ghost of Tsushima, Dreams, Animal Crossing, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Nioh 2, and that's just the ones I remember.
Cosmonal
Neo Member
The 90s was the unsurpassed golden age of PC gaming in my opinion. Games like Bioshock from Origin, the beautiful and original adventures by Sierra and Lucas Arts, the simulations from Microprose... Oh man, let's not remember Doom, Wolf 3D and the likes... Ultima Underworld... The list goes on with top tier gaming always there.
Bragr
Banned
Some people are satisfied playing the same stuff over and over, and if you are playing the same thing for 20 years, cool, nothing wrong with that. But obviously if you enjoy games you want to try the best stuff out there, playing League with new updates or Euro Truck with a new map is not gonna do much for you.
synchronicity
Member
PC is a gamer's paradise.
RedVIper
Banned
You mean a large batch of the games with high budget.
High budgets and good graphics don't make games good.
These games aren't static, wow and lol have changed a lot over the years.
Clearly it is, because you rank studios with higher budgets as "better" than ones with smaller budgets.
REE Machine
Banned
CS isnt exclusive anymore because its multiplatform and that was also the golden age of gaming when PC has exclusives, give me some to compare with the list i gave above with what sony and nintendo are offering