Sloppy Seconds

A lot of people - both outside and inside the games industry - seem to forget that we're a PC blog. Which is understandable, as so do we on occasion, and Walker still finds any opportunity to post about Phoenix bloody Wright games.

So there's certain console stuff we occasionally feel a yen to mention here, but we can't really get away with it, unless we couch it in excuses and straw man arguments. Similarly, we'll get a tip-off about something neat or a press release about a promising game, and it's of no use to us. Doubly confusing are those games that logic would suggest will inevitably make their way to PC, but publisher paranoia (and Xbox-is-all mentality) precludes them from confirming it. GTA 4's an obvious example - clearly we were all playing it when it was released, and clearly too it'd turn up on PC before too long, but writing about it here seemed too much of a stretch. Plus, hey, the entire rest of the internet wouldn't shut up about it, perhaps making RPS something of a respite from Bellicmania.

There are others, most specifically - to our minds, anyway - Fable 2.

As far as I can establish, no-one's said the RPG sequel isn't coming to PC. We also get sent press releases about it from Microsoft unbidden, and occasional requests that we mention some cool feature/event associated with the game. Which could be their forgetting about our PCiness (we like to think we're so vivacious and colourful that we shatter folks' stereotypes of PC gaming. Though clearly it's actually because our content is so very random), or could be their subtly attempting to create some hype amongst a PC audience - your guess is as good as mine, and mine's probably wrong. Our counter-requests that they confirm a PC release if they want us to post about it didn't pay off, unfortunately. It's hugely frustrating - would it really damage its Xbox cred if people knew a PC release was happening? Similarly, where's the harm in putting us out of our misery and saying it's definitely not coming to PC? It's not faiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiir!

So really, we shouldn't talk about it - which sadly means we couldn't give Kieron's big preview feature for OXM its own pimp here - but that it will arrive on PC seems like a foregone conclusion. Fable 1 made it over - in an expanded form no less - and moreover I can't think of any big 360 exclusives that haven't crossed the divide after a little while. I'm sure an Angry will be along to correct me on that in painful detail before too long, but certainly we've had Gears of War, Mass Effect, Viva Pinata. We do tend to pick the best of the Xboxian fruit eventually.

Halo 3's the notable exception, and that too is a game a lot of people are presuming will see a PC release. That one I'm actually not so sure about - Halo 2's too little too late PC release suffered middling and occasionally hostile reviews and didn't appear to set the charts on fire. As well as that, Halo 3's extensive and impressive multiplayer tools - the editable replays and the level editor, that kind of thing - strike me as being a fearsomely big job to port over to PC, especially if the perceived audience isn't massive.

What else? Well, both Kieron and I have been reviewing Too Human (in fact once set to be a PC game, I believe, but it's changed much since its original announcement in 1999) for Other People of late, and teamed up for some of the co-op. Repeatedly, we lamented that it wasn't on PC, as there's a ton of stuff (good and bad) we'd absolutely love to discuss here. It's very much in the Diablo vein however, traditionally a PC thing, so again there's this reasonable chance it'll turn up here - and possibly sooner rather than later, as anyone wanting to release that kind of game would be insane to go head-to-head with Diablo III in the release schedules.

Gears of War 2 seems like a dead-cert, though Epic were recently lamenting its lower review scores on PC so I guess there's a chance they'll get all stroppy and spurn us. Resident Evil 5, presuming the whole racist scandal thing doesn't stop it from getting out the door, might turn up eventually - but let's hope it's a better port than the messy Resi 4 PC if so.

In terms of PS3, PC ports seem a lot less likely. While I know I have no hankering for a Resistance: Fall of Man or Heavenly Sword to foul our proud doorstep, it's telling that they haven't. Which rather suggests that Little Big Planet, the game I'm hoping will justify my drunken purchase of a PS3 last year (it's really good as a media streamer, thank God), won't ever walk this way. Which makes me sad, as its Spore-via-Garry's Mod ethos seems perfect for us PC-folk.

What else could/should make the leap betwixt console and PC, you lot?

And no, we're not even slightly considering going multi-format. That we're specifically PC remains very much our major strength (apart from our record-breaking ugliness.) It hasn't, doesn't and won't stop us from mentioning stuff that we think is peripherally relevant to PC, however.