I don't play on a PC so suck it!

[4li3n]

a thought.
if PC users are elitists. and console users are fanboys.
what are apple users?

See here:

Or:

Thankful every time they actually get a game for their platform.

I meant too complicated to install and un-install mods, with the un-installing part being the one that is the real problem (screw up the back-up files? too bad, clean install pls).

That's why God (or possibly coders) gave us custom installers and uninstallers for mods.

When i said too complicated i meant unnecessarily complicated (DoW2 needs the dev console to make mods work)...

I can do it just fine, but i'm wasting way too much time on it... and so is the modder, when he could be using that time to improve the mod itself.

And also why we always put our backup files in a seperate folder.

You'd think that would be enough... but sometimes you screw them up anyway somehow...

 

[Fanboy]

I do not understand these platform wars. I once put a PC-CD rom into an xbox and it seemed to like it. I played Crysis with a wii-mote, and it didn't mind at all. My N64 and PS2 share the same shelf under my tv, and they have never fought once. I don't have a ps3, but if I did, I would name it Dreamcast jr. and we would spend time together killing virtual people.

To answer your original question... PCs are special because it takes a special kind of person to operate one. If you aren't born with techneurons, the special brain cell required to safely operate a PC, you can ask a doctor to install artificial ones. It doesn't cost much (not nearly as much as those insanely expensive consoles anyway) and you will be just as capable of taking the standard PC user test as anyone. If you score a 72 or higher on the Standard PC exam, or "SPCX" as the cool kids say, you'll be ready to go for your full license in only a year, otherwise you'll have to wait an hour to take the test again. When the time is right, and the moon is full, the test will be delivered to you by mail (or you could have a licensed PC USER help you order your test through "email" for only half the shipping price). After completing all multiple choice questions, solving the sphynx's last riddle to reveal the location of the fabled mythril mousepad, and defeating Bill Gates at trampoline lazer tag, you will be fully licensed and ready to do some PC gaming, or "Pee seeing."

This is where it gets tricky...

 

[RadiusXd]

hey it's mazty!
it's been a long time.
i hope we can put our march behind us.
for computers, you monster.

*jk's on the monster bit*

 

[Neyon]

PC games have better graphics, better sound and will run much smoother if you have a half decent PC. You can create custom mods yourself or enjoy thousands (there are loads) of player made maps, skins, game modes etc. On PC multiplayer you can play on dedicated servers which will run smoother, be open 24/7, won't randomly drop you, have a higher player limit, be supported by admins and may have settings you like (such as looping your favorite map. I also find you get less whiny little kids on VOIP.

This is comming from a PC gamer at heart, but I game a lot on the PS3 (and occasionally the 360) too. However, I don't think I am being biased - to me so long as you have a decent PC there are no aspects of console gaming that are superior to PC gaming.

 

[4li3n]

yeh it is pretty lame it doesn't let you play levels offline, but i think its to stop people copying and republishing levels

Well you can always complain about it and ask they find a middle way where you can play them offline but not access the files with the editor unless you're on the right account or whatever...

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

a thought.
if PC users are elitists. and console users are fanboys.
what are apple users?

iDrones.

 

[GundamSentinel]

To me, nothing is special about it. I used to play PC, but when my PC became too crappy for the new releases I bought a PS2 and later PS3. I like both console and PC, neither is superior to the other. They're just a little different.

 

[RVzero]

Laptops, I like to take my PC with me.
Completely customizable controls in pretty much every game.
Multitasking, I like to watch videos and keep an eye on what my friends are talking about on IRC while playing games, all on the same machine.
It's a computer, you can do more than just play games.
A TON of free games (NOT talking about emulators/pirating here).

And so I don't sound like a PC elitist; because I'm not. I own majority of the consoles from NES to PS3, and I love all of them... except for the Xbox, because it's the only console I've had that completely broke on its own. :/

 

[thom_cat_]

'can't make or do this on a console...
Which is what I do, hence that being made by me. Both the map and the gametype

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

And also why we always put our backup files in a seperate folder.

You'd think that would be enough... but sometimes you screw them up anyway somehow...

In a seperate folder on a seperate hotswap harddrive that you keep in a safe except for adding or copying backup files along with the CDs you've burn extra copies to...

Oh wait... that's how I keep my porn protected. Default files? fuck'em.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

The best thing I've found about PC is that the community (not in game, but on forums) are usually so much frendlier. When I came to build my first PC a few years back I signed up to a few PC gaming sites and with the help of about 20 users I got a list of nice parts for their lowest prices. I built my PC with a little more help from said users and a while back when it died they helped me troubleshoot it. Now here I am one of those people on the forums who helps people decide what to throw in their machines.

Come to ask help for your 360 or PS3 and you're told to just get the other, more superior console. If you come asking for help with a Wii? Well you're just laughed out of the thread. There's no unity in the console crowd. They're too busy fighting with themselves most of the time and threads like 'My Xbox red ringed! Should I...' will be flooded with PS3 owners telling them they should get a PS3. Likewise someone who complains about their PS3 will be told to go and get a 360 instead.

I'll now list the benefits of building and gaming on a PC:

- Turn the ***** into a Media Centre. I've got two 1TB hard drives. One has a 200Gb partition for the usual crap and the rest of the disk is near enough games. The other has almost every DVD in my collection and a few Blu-rays. My house is networked so the little box downstairs can stream any of our movies to our TV at any time. Bye bye DVDs.

- Learning a new skillset. I admit when I came to building my first PC I was well versed with MS Office and that was it. It took about two ir three weeks of research and with help from the internet I learned what components did what; what all the confusing little numbers mean and how to look for compatible components.

- Save cash. It'll cost about £400 - 500 (let's say about $500 - $600) to build your first PC. A big investment. But then the point is you will have a nice PC that can do more than jut game. Games themselves are about $/£10 cheaper than console games, this isn't even taking into account Steam special offers. It won't take long before you redeem the excess you put into your PC; as opposed to buying a console.

There are plenty more and you're probably sick of reading them over and over, so I tried to put a couple unique ones in. I have a PS3, PC and a Wii with a decent library for each. I'm not exclusively a PC gamer. PC = Best online interaction. PS3 = Best offline play. Wii = Best party games.

EDIT And just to dispel the myth here, PC gaming is nowhere near as expensive as people say. You won't need to upgrade for a couple year; even still you can make it an easier affair by keeping an eye of sellers and buy when the prices are low. My current PC cost £525. I kept the RAM from my old PC, bought some cheaper RAM for it and then sold my old PC to my mate who just wants to play L4D and CS.

 

[4li3n]

Laptops, I like to take my PC with me.

I personally know 2 people that had gaming laptops and the heat broke them... and you could have gotten a better tower with the same money, or even a bit less.

And also why we always put our backup files in a seperate folder.

You'd think that would be enough... but sometimes you screw them up anyway somehow...

In a seperate folder on a seperate hotswap harddrive that you keep in a safe except for adding or copying backup files along with the CDs you've burn extra copies to...

Oh wait... that's how I keep my porn protected. Default files? fuck'em.

But that's my point, having to treat mods like i do porn is just to complicated (and sticky).

 

[4li3n]

'can't make or do this on a console...
Which is what I do, hence that being made by me. Both the map and the gametype

Oh yeah, this was what made listening to all the "PC gaming is Dead" that much funnier... ALL YOUR GAMES ARE MADE ON A PC console fanboys...

But my personal fav was about how this gen will be superior to any PC for more then 6 months... when most of the tech comes from nVidia, ATI, Intel etc...

 

[Spitfire]

ive have a bunch of friends who play PC and they think that consoles are worse and so im like screw that but i also see that there are alot of reviewers who also use pc and im just wonadering... whats so special about PC?

For one, the keyboard and mouse are a better control interface. There's an entire catalog of PC games that currently couldn't be played on any console, because of the limitations that gamepads have. For instance, what's the last RTS, or FPS-RPG you've played? The few games in those genres that are available on consoles, have been greatly simplified, and don't offer the same experience as their PC counterparts.

Another thing is mods. Mods can greatly increase the lifespan of a game, and they're the reason why some decade old PC games still have devoted fanbases, like Morrowind, or Warcraft III.

Lastly, it's convenient. I can use a PC to perform a wide range of tasks, beside gaming, so why would I want a gaming-exclusive console? Personally, there are few titles that interest me on consoles, and the ones that do are single-player ventures with little to no replay value, and that alone don't justify the purchase of said console.

 

[tahrey]

I bought it used (1/2 months old) for around 3/4th of the original price. The key to using "medium" settings is to compromise.
I use lower resolution than my native, i usually turn off the shadows or keep them at minimum and turn off AA, as these are the most FPS-hogging settings for me.

Other than that, anything runs fine, e.g. Bulletstorm and Mass Effect 2 on medium settings.
For the reference, I've got a dual core 2.0, 256mb nvidia quadro nvs 320m but running on 8700GT drivers, as it's mostly the same card, and a crappy 5400 HDD (I suppose a 7200rpm would make it much snappier).

Hang on, maybe I misread you. Did you say it was a laptop or a desktop? I figured laptop for some reason, but that doesn't sound like stuff you'd even get in one, let alone for anything like the price you quoted. I can believe it still being able to play contemporary titles as you can probably still find machines with a similar specification right down at the ultrabudget end of the market.
(I mean... my specs vs yours: 1.73 single core (and architecture level at least one, probably two steps down from the "Core"-branded chips), 512mb and 40mb 5400? 4200?rpm disc at time of purchase, and i915 graphics. It's a different planet)

You'd MAYBE have squeaked that in a desktop, if the original owner had forgone the monitor, got a good price, and been generous/vague about what they were knocking off when passing it on to you. In a laptop... no chance. $2000+ alienware maybe, if at all.

BTW 5400 vs 7200 hard disk really doesn't matter unless you get bored very easily by loading times and have a properly high-speed interface, or you're hurting for RAM. I have put a high-speed replacement disc in mine, but that's because I work with a lot of large files and so need something with high continual throughput and slightly quicker random seek times.
I'm surprised that running at less than native resolution makes any difference though, I thought most modern cards had sufficient shaderage to make output rez pretty much irrelevant; it's all the T&L, poly/normal counts, SFX etc that make the massively parallel GPUs work hard. Heck, even I see only the barest difference in FPS between 800x600 and 1024x768 (which is the native rez of the built in screen), almost a 2/3rds increase in pixel area.

So, if I got that wrong, my apologies

 

[CCountZero]

Who buys 18 games a month?! I can't even afford one game a month!

Typo. Meant to say per year of course

 

[Jonabob87]

Who buys 18 games a month?! I can't even afford one game a month!

Typo. Meant to say per year of course

I was starting to wonder if I was really THAT poor in comparison to the norm

 

[Sephael]

It's a laptop actually, HP 8710p, and my apologies its 4years old right now I suppose the GFX card was insanely good for the times when it was released, which is why its still holding up quite well.

 

[k-ossuburb]

Sleep mode says "Hi!"


And it's funny that as a PC gamer i find the "Press Start" screen to annoy me as too much time wasted... i guess turning on the PC while i do something else around the house is just second nature already.

Yeah, I said it was my personal preference, and sorry, I'm one of those people who likes to "save energy", so sleep mode seems a little wasteful for me. I don't even leave my TV on standby, nor do I leave the tap running when I brush my teeth. I know it's probably not making much of a difference, but it's a force of habit.

 

[SageRuffin]

I grew up with consoles, and all my favorite games are on consoles. I can't use or decipher a keyboard interface worth a damn.

Hell, I can barely type correctly. I can't tell you how many typos I cranked out just from creating this sentence. D:

PCs are powerful, don't get me wrong. I've got a custom built one that I've upgraded myself (new video card, extra tb hard drive, liquid cooling, and larger-watt power supply). Set me back a couple hundred dollars of course, but it does everything I need it to and then some.

PCs have their strengths of course, but I'm more than happy with consoles. Thank you.