Who's the gamers? I need advice.

[Mikernaut2]

The one thing to consider is most developers are making games more geared towards the consoles these days. Which is sad, The PC market just isnt as strong currently and Marketing pushs the Developers to focus on making games for the consoles.
Playing first person shooters with a controller is alot less responsive then the mouse and keyboard and frustrates me personally.

Call of Duty 3 just came out and I was surprised to see no PC version of it. so I'll have to pick up the 360 version now and fight with the controller to aim.

Graphically I would say the 360 is on pare with PC graphics, but theres always going to be the possiblity if you have a pimped out machine it will look better.

Just picked up Gears of War yesterday and it is beautiful graphically, really amazing when you think back to days of youth spent infront of a atari/nintendo etc.

[Mikernaut2]

minor point but still valid here, you can always resell console games/systems where you cant really resell your PC games.

[nateb]

Just picked up Gears of War yesterday and it is beautiful graphically, really amazing when you think back to days of youth spent infront of a atari/nintendo etc.

GoW is gawd damn amazing.

-Nate

[hammer84]

I was a die hard PC gamer. I have always liked PC gaming better than console. I really like the mouse keyboard controller.

But alas I gave in to the console world. I will say it is easier to keep up to date, and there are far fewer bugs.

I'm going to buy a 360 as soon as my basement is finished and I get my HD TV doen there !!!!!

[ApeDosMil]

Xbox 360 ruined pc gaming. Oblivion was dumbed down for Xbox 360, Cod2 was dumbed down, Cod3 is only made for 360.

[ABSOLUT CHARVEL]

GoW is gawd damn amazing.

-Nate

GOW now has justified getting a 360.


*disclaimer: Absolut owns stock in MS.

[St.James]

Well, I gave in and bought the Xbox 360 and Splinter Cell DA...

Hooked it up and it looked like total ass on my TV. The letters on the game were so small it was impossible to read from 4' away. So I hooked it up to my computer and it looks much better.

I guess I'm gonna have to go drop $3k on a killer TV now!

[LouSiffer]

Console gaming is where its at today. The reasoning is that when you build games for a console, you know exactly what its capabilities are and what it can/can not do.

When they build games for PC's, they usually have to dumb them down so it runs on a wide variety of PC's and the PC's capabilities. It sucks for power PC users ,but, it makes since....I wouldn't want to have to be forced to upgrade every 6-12 months just to play a new game. -Lou

[Newc]

The trouble with PC games is that new hardware is always coming out, and the race to keep up is expensive for the consumer, whereas the developers only look at how much better their games can be on the new hardware.

With consoles, developers start with a rough idea of what the system can really do, and then dig deeper and deeper into it until they've maxed out the system, which can last for 5 years. Compare that with the 2-3 years of current mid-line PC hardware.

The original Xbox still had a few tricks up its sleeve, as many developers found out after 3 years of developing for it, and the 360 will be the same way. The original Splinter Cell had dynamic lighting and shadows and realistic fabric (although it was not used on the character meshes, only on background elements such as drapes and such). The lighting effects were only used sparingly - a light shining through a fan blade, etc.

I have both Oblivion 360 and PC versions, and on my PC, it looks like crap. I have to run it at the lowest resolution possible because my card is so old. On the 360, it looks great (HDTV). However, I don't see how it was dumbed down for the 360. You have the same controls and same options (other than machine-specific options to tailor it to run on various hardware configs). The only thing I found missing was the Console option and the Construction Set.

You don't need to spend $3K on a killer TV - a decent HD-ready can be had for about half that, unless you absolutely have to have the slimline plasma/LCD whatever. I use a 28" and it looks great (though I'm only 5 feet from it at most).

Also keep in mind the 360 games coming out this year and most of next year were not developed from the ground up on/for the 360 - most of them started off as Xbox, PC, or PS2 games that were ported to the 360 during development. Since no one had a full grasp of the machine's limits, it's not going to look as great as if they had waited 3 years. It's like suggesting that Iron Maiden's debut should sound as refined and polished as Powerslave - they simply did not have the years of experience at the time.