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PC Gaming
The PC is always being written off as a gaming platform. Expensive, unreliable, buggy and complicated, PCs have never compared well to Consoles when it came to playing games. But while the shop shelves display row after row of identical console games that are the same as the ones you already own, the PC gamer is frequently presented with something a little different, even a bit of variety. From the simple but addictive Linerider through popular on-line games such as Runescape (for the kids) and World of Warcraft (for mum and dad) to new genres, the PC gamer has more choice. Many popular PC games are modified by fans to provide even more variety and improved gameplay and again are generally free. PC games are less expensive to buy than games for consoles and on-line versions are frequently subscription free with 2 or 3 times the number of participants that you would get on-line with a console.
So, if you want to play games on a PC what should you be looking for. Well, first of all forget “integrated graphics”. This will be fine for Football Manager 2007, but no good for Half Life 2. Also, only buy a gaming laptop if you really have to. This could be an option in a few years time if external graphics cards ever take off, but for now you’ll have to spend a lot of money for a laptop with a good graphics card that will only drain your battery in 45 minutes and melt your keyboard. So think desktop, with a separate graphics card with its own memory, not shared with the system memory. Generally speaking, the more money you spend the better, preferably at least £60 (8600GT territory). Two important considerations are also noise and cooling. The graphics card will probably be the hottest component in a PC and all the hot air that it creates needs to be drawn out of the PC. You may need to install an additional cooling fan and all of those fans will generate noise. If you want to use the same card in 3 years time you’ll need to spend more than £110 and get serious (with an ATI HD4850). This sort of power is more than that provided by a PS3. Check out Tom’s hardware guide for their graphic card reviews and advice.
Think software, not hardware
If the kids haven’t made their minds up yet, remember, it’s not the hardware that’s important, it’s the software. Most 10 year old girls knew this – when they all wanted Nintendogs© they had never heard of the PSP. They weren’t comparing handheld consoles, they just wanted the console that ran their favourite game. So choose a console based on which games you want to play. If there are none that you fancy then don’t buy one, yet.
Console History ....
Playstation – newcomer to the scene in 1994 defeats the complacent competition and conquers the market becoming a bye-word for the 1990’s – the Playstation generation.
PS2 – Marketing muscle triumphs over much improved, arguably superior, competition. Over-hyping and under-delivering, Sony still managed to make this the undisputed king of consoles.
Gamecube – Tended to be overlooked in the UK, unless you were under 12 years old.
Xbox – Microsoft’s first effort, designed in a hurry, brought on-line functionality to the console community. Shame it was so ugly but at least it had Halo.
Xbox360 – Microsoft is learning fast. Again brought to market in a hurry which hurt reliability but the latest internally modified versions now on sale should improve this. They need to!
Wii – Nintendo haven’t the resources to develop a super-console and compete directly with MicroSony so they’ve had to think laterally. The controller makes your arm sore and the novelty may wear off after a while. Nintendo’s cautious attitude to production capacity means that demand is still outstripping supply.
PS3 – Sony loses the plot. Out-manoeuvred and out-thought by the competition the PS3 may go down in history as the product that broke Sony, with a little help from the iPod.
and finally
Games produced for consoles generally improve technically during the life-span of a console. They may not be better games as such, but the console programmers become more experienced about how to get the best from the hardware. With PCs, however, there is no standard or stable platform, so developers are always aiming their games at PCs equipped with high-end graphics cards on which their games will look the best. Unless you upgrade your graphics card or PC, you’ll be forced to run newer games at ever decreasing speeds or resolutions. Ultimately, on an older PC the latest games won’t run at all. Alternatively, on a new PC your older games will look great.
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