I have been itching to write a blog post about something over the past few days. A post that could communicate how I feel about the world of PC Gaming and why I believe it is such a magical and unique thing. This blog post is the third attempt to scratch that itch, with the two previous posts being scrapped because I did not like the direction they were taking. I started gaming on PC 2 years ago and believe it is about time I sat down and shared my thoughts on a few subjects.
Creativity
The first game I really spent a lot of time with was Halo 3. It was the first time I ever saw user created content in a game and there was a lot of it, all created with the simple tools that forge mode provided. I played games of tag, platformed my way across shark infested water and raced my friends around giant floating rollercoasters. The amount of content was astonishing and the variation even more astonishing. A while later another game was created that took the idea of user generated content and put it as the forefront of the game. Little big planet, again I was amazed by some of the content created for it and the tools that were provided.
PC Gaming is the home of creativity and innovation. My adventure into PC Gaming started with an act of creation. Building the computer, an easy but rewarding task that gives you something that you can really call your own. It is something you have made and you can add to it and modify it at your pleasing. I have always been interested in programming so I quickly found myself making mods for Minecraft including a weapons mod that added a meat tenderizer that turned mobs into a block of meat and a sword that could be charged up with diamonds and strike lightning at your foes as well as some less serious weapons which you can find here: http://www.minecraftforum.n... . I moved on from my brief modding career to create my own game which is a work in progress multiplayer FPS cube based arena game or something like that. If you want to give it a try and have a friend to play with then you can play it here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/129... but be warned it is an early WIP and the only class that works is Mage.
Those are some of the things I have created in my spare time but modding and hobbyist game development is not rare there are a lot of really promising projects like the recently popular mod DayZ. I believe that modding is an extremely important part of the gaming community and one of the main reason a lot of people like me stay exclusive to PC and do not own a console. There is so much content already created and if you don’t like it then create some of your own.
Digital Distribution
Digital distribution has taken over the PC market with most game sales being digital. I have talked a lot in the past about why I believe games will be 100% digital in the future on all platforms so I will only list a few main points.
1)Better for the environment.
2)Free to produce.
3)Unlimited shelf space. (Longer sales life)
4)Bigger profit percentage.
Owning your hardware
I believe that this is another important part of PC gaming, you actually own the hardware you buy and can do anything you want with it (as long as you do not break the law of course) instead of being bound to an agreement with a company and risking legal action or a system ban if you modify anything. I am a big believer in open systems and it is what makes the Ouya console stand out to me as something I may pick up. I like being able to tinker with things and find out how everything works.
Variety in games and exclusives
Strategy, MMO are very lacking on every other platform and happen to be two of my favourite genres. Every genre can be found on the platform. There is a huge collection of old and new games, for example I recently played Fallout 2 a very old game, backwards compatibility is less of an issue. I can play titles from decades ago. Experimental games like Toribash and flash games like happy wheels. Everything is accounted for from casual to esports (another thing that is very popular within the PC community). There are AAA games with huge budgets and games made by a solo developer who wants to share what he has created. The amount of awesome things you can find on a website like IndieDB really shows of the huge amount of variety and creativity primarily found in independent PC titles. The PC has more exclusives than any other platform. Some upcoming games include Guild Wars 2 an amazing evolution to the MMO genre. Planetside 2, a MMOFPS that supports thousands of players fighting over a huge map at the same time. DayZ, the standalone version of the popular mod for ARMA 2. Natural Selection 2, a blend of the RTS and FPS genre and many more. I only listed these games because they all do something innovative which is often a huge part of PC exclusives.
Those are the main reasons I game on PC. I hope you enjoyed the article and I would love to hear what platform you game on and why without starting a flame war. Now that I have scratched my blog writing itch I am going to go back and play some more war of the roses. Thanks for reading.
Image of my game, Cube Medieval.
One of the weapons in my mod.
The friendly folks over at Razer recently sent us their full size Kishi Ultra mobile gaming controller, and this thing didn't disappoint.
VGChartz's Mark Nielsen: "Upon finally finishing Devil May Cry 5 recently - after it spent several years on my “I’ll play that soon” list - I considered giving it a fittingly-named Late Look article. However, considering that this was indeed the final piece I was missing in the DMC puzzle, I decided to instead take this opportunity to take a look back at the entirety of this genre-defining series and rank the entries. What also made this a particularly tempting notion was that while most high-profile series have developed fairly evenly over time, with a few bumps on the road, the history of Devil May Cry has, at least in my eyes, been an absolute roller coaster, with everything from total disasters to action game gold."
Me leaving it out should be telling of my thoughts on it. Better than 2 as a DMC game.
Still a good game though.
3,1,4,5 to me, never played 2. 5 gameplay is amazing but level design was really disappointing to me, just a bunch of plain arenas, the story felt like a worse written rehash of the 3rd and the charater models looked weird ( specially the ladies ). Another problem with 5 was that there was not enough content for 3 charaters so I could never really familiarize with any of them
2.
Dmc.
4.
5.
1.
3.
God DMC2 was an awful game.
And in case this isn't obvious it goes worst to best
Order changes depending on your focus. I tend to focus on gameplay/fun factor, so...
5, 3, 1, 4, 2.
I really didn't like 4 but commend Dante's weapon diversity. The retreading of old ground was pretty unacceptable to me.
But even then... Still more enjoyable than 2 for me
TSA go hands on with the beta for Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road, but how is the game transitioning to the post-stylus era?
PC is great for all of the above that you listed.
I though the PS3 would expand to be more like a PC because of it's flexibility, but in actuality that's to be determined by the developers. Until Sony starts to court PC and PC MMO developers, especially when MMO and strategy games could use Move more like a mouse (well, more so because Dust 514 and Valve are big steps in that direction), PC gaming will always be welcome at my house.
Until now I've gamed on all formats except PC.
But the emergence of DayZ has finally prompted me to source the parts required to make my own (budget) gaming rig. The components arrived yeserday, so I'm like a kid at Xmas waiting for the weekend.
PC games like Dayz and Minecraft offer experiences not available on current gen consoles. Persistent world servers, a supportive modding community, and the sheer size and scope of such titles can't be emulated anywhere else.
yup although PC exlusives are few and far between, when they do come out they are usually great games like for example the upcoming planetside 2, also Hawken aswell and guild wars 2!
I game on all platform but the past few months, PC has ruled my gaming time.
About a week ago, I built my very first gaming PC (before that, I had a friends that I'd bought off him a few years back). That was satisfying itself but it's just an incredibly open platform. I bought a ton of games in the Steam sale and have begun capturing and editing my gameplay hopefully for future reviews.
I still love my consoles but PC has taken over for me.
I always thought the console hardware was yours to do with as you please. I mean, if I were to remove sony's system software and write my own,(as much of a pain as that would be) I'd expect sony would not have ground to take legal action. Obviously this is just my assumtion.