Consoles are destroying the PC-games. Sad but true. Games now days are all about graphics. No gameplay, no realism. Just graphics. And all these console-to-pc ports….STOP

No true FPS is very smart in the irst place and so is virtually impossible to dumb down it’s the first person RPG’s we need to worry about, ala Bioshock, anyone who tried to play deus ex on the PS2 will know that that was a terrible game after being hamstrung by the console, people are more elitist about PC games simply because there is less concessions made to that platform/platform holder than any other.

“Why exactly does the fact that I play games on a television rather than a computer monitor instantly transmute me into a blundering buffoon with no ‘refined tastes’ in gaming?”

A fair point, but I think the reason we PC Gamers have that perspective is that the majority of console games are big budget, generic, shallow, good looking and multiply at a ridiculously rapid rate.
The thing about investors with a lot of cash is that they want returns, they don’t want to invest millions on a “new innovative idea” only to have it slip away.
Large, wealthy companies like EA pump out game after game after game, all of them mediocre at best when it comes to gameplay mechanics or immersion.
And unfortunately for consoles the more ‘out of the box’ ie. creative thinking which is shunned by those with deep pockets tends to be directed at PC titles.
Money however isn’t the only issue, the PC allows more interface and interaction with the game, it allows higher resolution, less loading screens, larger game worlds, easier and more efficient control (Mouse vs stick) and the ability to mod, change files and screenshot. Also uploading stats, managing savegames, easy access to patches and later additions all contribute to the advantages PCs have over consoles.
Its not that console gaming is dumb, its that pcs allow more versatility and depth, the games are more creative and innovative and the communities consist mostly of coherent intellectuals like yourself.
PC Gamers have a more intimate understanding of their system, in most cases we put it together ourselves. The games we buy come from a more diverse range of genres, this means we can personalise our collection and appropriately optimise our system for common requirements. Because more effort has been attributed to the personalisation the gamer gets more satisfaction from the games he/she plays.

Console gamers tend to play shallow games for shorter periods of time.
PC gamers play deep, immersive games, get addicted and sometimes play for days/weeks/months on end.

My own observations show that the majority of console gamers most certainly are ‘blundering baffoons with no refined tastes in gaming’.
Those that aren’t simply have never discovered PC or don’t have the time sufficient to really enjoy a game anyway.

Imo its the ‘Obama vs Mccain’(Hate to have to reference American politics) issue again.
Elitist vs Shallow
Well I as an ‘uppity computer nerd’ honestly think that games ported from PC to console are ‘dumbed down’ in a very real way.
I think console gamers in general prefer a more shallow, pick up and play attitude for casual gaming. Anyone serious about gaming is severely limited by the console. It all comes down to taste and what you want from your gaming experience.

A brief entertaining interlude to your life? Something to do while you wait? Go console.
An immersive, interactive experience? Personalisation, depth and innovation? Go PC.

… the refresh/FPS gets limited to 60htz so our shiny, 100/120 htz monitors have a fit …

WTF?? you’re still using a CRT? Now that’s hardcoar!!!

but I agree with you, FPS games on consoles don’t match up to PC equivalents.

Well, this is my favourite pet peeve for the gaming community. Hey look, I played Half-Life 2 on the Xbox first time around. It was still a beautifully polished game with a wonderful narrative. My malformed console gamer head could even fully comprehend it! Heck, headshots on Combine were just as easy!

It makes me quite annoyed at how often I see this whole ridiculous argument repeated. Why exactly does the fact that I play games on a television rather than a computer monitor instantly transmute me into a blundering buffoon with no ‘refined tastes’ in gaming? Well, I can’t quite figure it out myself, but from the number of times I see the ‘X game is popular because console gamers don’t know what gaming’s about’, it must be true.

I’m happy that most people that posted here aren’t talking like that, but there are still a disappointing number who are. For those in the latter group, please consider this: Next time you have to mod the hell out of a PC-exclusive title to get it to be enjoyable, please take the time to consider that maybe dumbed-down games aren’t only caused by console gamers.

Why do I say this? Well, it’s simply because there is a depth controls lend to a game. If the controls do not offer your freedom of movement in a specific game and stifle how quickly you can move, turn, etc. there is going to be a problem. The reason you don’t see rocket juming on the console version, which is an integral part of TF lineage of games, is simply because it’s too hard to look down, jump, shoot ( or detonate if your nade jumping), look up again to see where your going and use the other analog stick to control your direction. The mouse and keyboard streamline all of these movements. Due to my opinion that it is harder to perform a rocket jump on a console, I think the console version does not have gameplay which is as deep as the PC.

I do not think it is a thing that has to do with how dumb the game is but more how well can a console cater to fast paced, multi-buttoned controls.

Must have been a pretty exclusive rat-race if you ask me. :) I’ll get by with that kind of money for two PC cycles (7-8 years total).

I would drop $2,500 every year to build a top of the line machine from scratch so I could get the most from the new games that were coming out.

Then, one day, I realized that I was getting too old to keep spending money keeping up with the PC game rat-race. And that I actually sort of enjoyed being able to relax after a hard week at the office, hunched over a keyboard in front of a monitor writing code. It was nice to kick back on a sofa and play a game on a 60″ 1080p screen with a top of the line audio system in the comfort of my living room, instead of hunched over in front of an expensive machine I spent most of a day building with a 30″ moitor a few inches in front of my face.

Yes, it took me a LONG time to get used to console controllers. Many times I wanted to give up on playing a game, because I just couldn’t maintain the precision or response time that two decades of WASD+MOUSE built up in me. But eventually, it clicked.

I’m quite happy with consoles. I have all the current gen consoles and over a 100 combined games and whenever I want to kick back, I just pull one off the shelf and relax. And when I tried to play Unreal Tourney III on PS3? Well, for once in my life, I found that I didn’t feel the console version of an FPS was at all a lessar experience than I’d be getting on the PC.

I do wish that console games were longer. $65 for a game that’s 8 to 30 hours is ridiculous. I do wish some of them were more in depth. Especially the RPGs. I wish there were some solid MMORPGs on the consoles. I wish that, aside from Halo and COD, I could really play a game endlessly and have a huge community around it and a lot of content left to explore rather than a bunch of meaningless “game score achievement whoring”.

But I’m sure things will continue to evolve. I only see things going upward from here. And i’m happy to be out of the PC-game rat-race that I’d grown up in.

Unified ammo, quest pointers, glowing loot, you name it. It’s all there to see, not much discussion to be had. All the rest is up to your own opinion. Do you like to be challenged in anything else than your index fingers or not? This distinction separates those who say “Consoles are not dumb!” from the ones going, “Sigh, another Halo clone”.

It’s a bad choice of words though. Noone likes to be called dumb and people will defend their standpoint no matter what because of this. Silly but true.

I think conceptual throw-aways is not as grievous as technical mistakes, such as level shrinkage in DX2 and some major issues that came from the engine. DX2 definitely caught a lot more flak for those two things than anything else.

By the way, have you guys tried to get into the system shock 1 interface? That was way to complex for its own good. The inventory management in SS2 was great in that it restricted how much you could carry, but not because playing tetris with your weapons was that fun.