Ugh, I wanted to avoid doing this...
It's all a matter of questioning whether PC gaming is a worthwhile investment.
I respect your subjective opinions and the decisions you base upon them. What annoyed me was your arbitrary imposition:
I, Chibz, am saying that so few quality PC exclusives exist that it's not even worth talking about the idea of a PC exclusive.
Guess what? I think the Wii is a waste of investment, with its sub par hardware, constant remakes, shovelware and gimmicky games. The only thing good that came out of Nintendo was Earthbound. But do I rally around stating that as a fact and using it in objective arguments? Obviously there are people out there who find the Wii experience worth sinking their time and money into, so I don't spew my subjectivity while having a conversation based on economics and availability of certain goods.
While you have none, I've plenty of reasons to stay a PC gamer. I like my RTS and RTT titles. I like my mods. I like my small independent developers who don't have any place on the console market. I like my sims. I like my realistic manshoots with 64 player MP maps.
I tend to exagerrate. OK, Starcraft 2 wasn't as bad as I stated. But compared to starcraft 1 it's pretty bad. Even the hardcore starcraft fans in korea aren't buying into it.
Have you even played SC2? The gameplay is pretty much the same except for the addition of new units and full transformation to 3D. What's the reason for your dissent? Have you even played it considering you don't have a PC that's up-to-spec?
And haven't we already decided that hardcore fans of a franchise are not the best judges after the whole DA2 fiasco? Anyway, even the respectable folks at Gamasutra included SC2 in their GotY list. And it sold millions of copies, so it's not like hardly anyone's buying it.
I'm also saying that Starcraft 2 was designed by a company that has caused great harm to the gaming hobby/industry. Almost as much harm as Zynga. They're bad and they should feel bad.
Never explained why. Because they're successful? Shouldn't I say the Wii did a lot of damage to the gaming industry by devaluing games with their shovelware and making gimmicky motion sensor games a new trend?
Of course I don't. Because there's a market out there for games like these and I shouldn't impose my views on other people.
Half-life is a doom clone. Because "doom clone" is an archaic term for FPS. Anyone who says it isn't a "doom clone" doesn't know what they're saying.
No Chibz, you don't know what you're talking about. Let me quote the <url=http://doom.wikia.com/wiki/Entryway>Doom wiki on the definition of a Doom clone:
<quote=Doom Wiki>Doom clones are games that mimic Doom's gameplay. In other words, most early first-person shooters ? due to Doom's popularity, a huge number of such games appeared soon after its release. The term "Doom clone" was in fact the common term for first-person shooters until the late 1990s.
Among games often counted as Doom clones are those based on the Doom engine, such as Heretic and Hexen (see Games for more). Others include Rise of the Triad, Dark Forces and Duke Nukem 3D.
Half Life let you have control over the z-axis. It was released in 1998, which is the late nineties. It's a proper FPS, not a Doom clone. Once again, did you actually play either HL or Doom?
Another reason I game on console: To avoid having to buy off Steam.
Who asked you to?
One reason why Steam provides such great service is because there's competition on an open platform. There's D2D. There's GG. There's Impulse. There's GoG. Can't say the same for the PSN and XBL. In fact, MS regularly <url=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108588-Microsoft-Defends-Games-on-Demand-Pricing>bumfucks their customers with their monopoly.
And if digital distribution isn't your thing, there's always retail.
As for saying I dropped PC gaming? My wonderful references to viral diseases is a reference to PC gamings two major flaws. 1. DRM and 2. Super openess.
1.) Yeah, DRM's fucked up. But it's not unavoidable. If it's Steam, it's fine, since only one online check is necessary and there's no problem if the internet's out since I can play in offline mode. And if it's something from Ubisoft or requires GFWL, I just go download the cracked .exe, because fuck 'em.
2.) Dedicated servers. At 20 euros a month, a clan can easily handle it. And there are hacks and aimbots on the consoles as well.
The calling it ugly part is because it lacks games I want that my other real gaming systems can't play.
You have... serious issues with your choice of adjectives. And with the double negative, what did you actually mean? Games that neither exist on consoles nor on PCs... you want to play games that don't exist?
Maybe you're talking about your consoles' backward compatibility? Last I looked, the PC can run Genesis, NES, SNES, Saturn, Dreamcast, PS1, PS2, GameCube, Wii, GBA, NDS and PSP games through emulators. The only thing I miss are a couple of Japanese titles on the PS3.
Also I'm NOT going to update to Vista or 7. They're both terrible and can't run a substantial amount of games I want to play.
I'm tired of people spewing that bullshit. Vista was bad. But Window 7 was the best decision MS made this decade other than investing on the XBox. Win7 doesn't hog memory like Vista did (with Game Booster running, it takes up only about 300MB of RAM in the background of my PC as opposed to Vista's 1GB). It was a vast improvement over Vista and pushes 64-bit processing, which is the way of the future, and add in higher RAM allowances and a few nifty things like the slice tool and rotating background selection and you have a fairly good OS.
Give up on XP already - it's a decade old and it's infrastructure was never built to be secure on the internet, which is why it relied so heavily on antiviruses. Hell, Win7 is <url=http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10444561-245.html>more heavily secured than even Macs.
Halvar Flake, head of research and CEO of Zynamics: "General state of affairs: Vista/Win7 has more extensive countermeasures against attacks and a codebase with presumably fewer security issues.
Rich Mogull, CEO, Securosis: Microsoft has done more in terms of its inherent security features than Apple has in the operating system.
Charlie Miller, a principal analyst at consultancy Independent Security Evaluators: Technologically speaking, PCs are a little more secure than Macs. Macs have a larger attack surface out of the box (Flash, Java, support for a million file formats, etc.) and lack some anti-exploitation technologies found in PCs like full ASLR [Address Space Layout Randomization]. This means Macs have more vulnerabilities and it's easier to turn a vulnerability into an exploit on the platform.
Tyler Reguly, senior security research engineer, nCircle: If you believe the hype and the flashy commercials the answer would be Mac. But if you take a look at the two platforms, and the mindsets of the companies behind them then the PC wins hands down. If you compare Windows 7 to Snow Leopard, then the simple winner is Windows 7. Microsoft brought in teams of security professionals to look at their code and find problems leading to a more secure product while Apple is often criticized for ignoring issues.
And what games aren't you able to play on Win7? It has excellent backward compatibility and there's a thing called DOSBOX.