Rock, Paper, Shotgun

28/02/2011 at 21:00 Gundato says:

In my case, it is largely because I don’t want a really long HDMI cable (let alone the mouse/keyboard).

Plus, as much as people whinge about “this was consolified”, a lot of the games just seem to play “better” on a TV. I played Assassin’s Creed 2 on my PC and AC: Brotherhood on my PS3. All DRM aside, I had a much better experience with the latter (admittedly, gameplay may have been a factor). It just “felt” right.

I would posit that third-person games with lots of movement largely “feel” better on consoles/TV (at least, to me) due to the more movie-like experience. Whereas the more first-person atmospheric games tend to feel better on the smaller PC screen (often with headphones).

Could that be obtained on the PC? Probably, Steam might prove it. But until then, there is just that hard to describe feeling.

Plus, Symphony of the Night. A 300 dollar PS3 is totally worth it just for Symphony on the PSN. Everyone needs to play Symphony.

And, in less stupid news, the aforementioned media-server aspect of a PS3 is nice.

But either way, the dude was asking about why a TV. So if you use your PC on your TV or a console, I think we can all agree that a TV provides a different experience.

01/03/2011 at 03:30 Gundato says:

What makes consoles different?
I would argue, it is the mentality of the gamer.
PC gamers tend to favor “skill based” games like CoD and Instagib in Unreal Tournament (ie. twitch based gameplay). Ironically, we also favor the other extreme in that 4x games and (large scale) turn-based games thrive on the PC. And, of course, there are the hardcore sims that just don’t work on consoles. If you want to be pro-PC gaming, we like sophisticated movies that actually have plots and talented directors. If you want to be honest, we are like the art snobs who like to watch independent films.

Console games tend to favor the kind of game where you say “Holy crap. Dude, get over here and watch me kill this monster with a boat!”. That leads to a preference for “stylish” FPS games (say what you will about the Modern Warfares, it is kind of hard to not think the mass of quicktime events that was the ending of MW2 was pretty cool), platformers, and action games. Plus, there are the party games that just don’t work on the PC (oh yeah, everyone crowds around the keyboard. THAT ends well). For pro-console, we prefer movies that are fun to watch, as opposed to one guy saying “moist” over and over in a single room for three hours. If you want to be honest, we like explosions and Ahnold’s jiggling pectoral muscles.

PC Gaming (for the most part), just doesn’t evoke that same sensation. We tend to prefer the kind of gameplay feat that makes one say “Holy crap, I am awesome” (like winning a Trial of Possession against a bunch of clanners) as opposed to “Holy crap, mass of polygons is freaking awesome” (like beating Zeus to death with your bare hands). You could do both of those on a console or both on a PC, but you generally only find the former on PCs and the latter on consoles.

We get angry when control is taken away from us and we are forced to do a QTE on a PC game. Why? Because being hunched over and looking at a small screen (the “standard” PC gaming style) tends to lead to very focused and character driven games. But on a console, it isn’t that bad, since you tend to not get so heavily focused on the player character, and tend to appreciate the zany environment more. And you tend to have friends and family sitting around you who say “Holy crap, I never thought two old guys beating the crap out of each other on top of a submarine could be so awesome…”

One is not necessarily better than the other. And there are definitely cases where there is a pretty huge overlap (Just Cause 2 is a pretty good example. Same with Max Payne 1/2. Or the plethora of turn-based games on the consoles, for the other angle). But, at the end of the day, there are experiences on both platforms that just can’t be replicated/haven’t been replicated. Maybe this new thing from Steam will help, but only time will tell. That being said, I doubt it will fully bridge the gap. Because PC gamers still prefer their kinds of games, and it is almost always going to be easier to plug a PS3 or XBOX in and never deal with it again, as opposed to periodically having to run updates for Steam and Windows/Mac/whatever else Valve port Steam to.

But we digress, the main reason this massive reply stream started was because someone was asking why get a TV. And I think we can all agree that some things are better experienced on a larger screen while sitting on a couch.