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argurotoxosI was looking for reviews for either The Dark Mod or Thief 4 on YouTube and found this commentary on some Thief 4 gameplay by Woodsie at ThePCelitist. The video was interesting and articulate (though I was surprised Woodsie didn't say anything about XP points) and I've since watched a couple other videos, including the first two installments of The Case for PC. Woodsie and Shepard brought up some good points, but I didn't feel much of what they talked about lined up with my own reasons for being a PC gamer. And so, I present six reasons why I am a PC gamer (a.k.a., why I will probably never buy a console).
1. Most of the games I'm interested in playing are only available on the PC. The first two Thiefs, both System Shocks, all three S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, Unreal Tournament 2004, Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines -- all of these games were only released for the PC. I could name many, many more. There is a console version of the original Deus Ex, but I understand it's quite changed. On the flip side, I can't think of a single console-only title I'd really like to play.
2. Tied in to (1), fan mods and missions are very important to me. Many of my favourite gaming experiences have happened while playing Thief or Deus Ex fan missions. None of these fan missions, or total engine conversions like The Dark Mod [a Thief-inspired game using the Doom 3 engine], are available on consoles. Though I don't make fan missions myself, I have played around in DromEd [Thief's level editor] a bit. Texture and visual updates, such as John P's High Res Textures for Thief: Deadly Shadows or New Vision and HDTP for Deus Ex, and general patches like the multiple unofficial Bloodlines ones, are also, to my understanding, unavailable on consoles.
(Fan-created and shared material - be it art, fiction, videos, playlists, mods, cosplay, and so on - is key to me for most series. I can enjoy a show, or a game, on its own, but if it doesn't have an active fanbase, or if fan-created materials are discouraged by the creators, chances are I will quickly move into other fandoms. One of the sad trends of modern games has been a reluctance or refusal to release level editors, thus making fan mission creation very difficult.)
3. The PC is what I grew up with. Aside from a black-and-white Power Rangers Gameboy-type device, I never owned a console. I never played Mario, Zelda, or Sonic the Hedgehog. Instead, I was playing Myst, SimCopter, Tyrian, and Commander Keen. The PC has always been my gaming home and I still play DOS games through DOSBox.
4. Mouse and keyboard. I took a look at my control configurations for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, The Dark Mod, and Thief 2, and I use an average of 37 keys plus three mouse buttons for each game. In Thief 1/2, I use nine keys just for movement: 'w' for run forward, 's' for walk forward, 'x' for walk backward, 'space' to creep, 'q' for lean left, 'e' for lean right, 'k' to lean forward, 'f' to crouch, and 'shift' to jump. When you include things like multiple weapon selections, quick save/load, zoom in/out, and other inventory hotkeys, it's easy to take over most of the keyboard, and I like it that way. I feel I have quicker access to the things I want to get to [e.g., I can hit 'alt' for water arrows instead of scrolling through a weapon selector] and more fine-tuning over my movement and view. Most of the games I play also give the player great flexibility in creating their own control scheme; the first two Thiefs even allow you to save multiple control layouts.
5. It's impractical for me to own a console. In addition to (1), most consoles hook up to a TV, and I hardly ever watch TV unless it's for VHS tapes. I think I would be perfectly happy without either a TV or cable. All my other media watching is done on my computer, whether it be online steaming or DVDs. My computer is my one-stop machine: email, gaming, multimedia, internet, word processing, exchanging files with my MP3 player or cell phone, etc.
6. The PC makes it easy to interact with game files. I can edit screencaps or make them my desktop. If the game I'm playing doesn't have a built-in screencapture, I can run another program in the background. Same with audio or video capture. I can back up my saved games and user files, or make custom edits to the user ini. I can transfer my saved games easily to other computers or hard drives. I can explore the files within the game; e.g., I can extract the audio files and find dialogue I missed during the game itself. (I've done this with both Thief and Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines.) In short, I have a degree of transparency and flexibility with the games.
As my PCs are always several years behind the cutting edge, being able to play with the highest graphics setting has never been a priority for me. Since there's been very few recent games to pique my interest, this is rarely an issue. (I've been happy to finally play S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl on my current laptop, and may play the rest of the series [Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat] after, but there are very few post-2005 games on my recommendations list.) I acknowledge that gaming PCs have superior technology compared to consoles, and that gap does become an issue with how developers design games, but it's not one of my personal reasons for gaming on the PC. Neither is the ability to custom build my own machine.
(What type of games I look for and why I enjoy them is another post, but Briareos H's TTLG post on First-person exploration games tickled many of my gaming likes.)
1. Most of the games I'm interested in playing are only available on the PC. The first two Thiefs, both System Shocks, all three S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, Unreal Tournament 2004, Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines -- all of these games were only released for the PC. I could name many, many more. There is a console version of the original Deus Ex, but I understand it's quite changed. On the flip side, I can't think of a single console-only title I'd really like to play.
2. Tied in to (1), fan mods and missions are very important to me. Many of my favourite gaming experiences have happened while playing Thief or Deus Ex fan missions. None of these fan missions, or total engine conversions like The Dark Mod [a Thief-inspired game using the Doom 3 engine], are available on consoles. Though I don't make fan missions myself, I have played around in DromEd [Thief's level editor] a bit. Texture and visual updates, such as John P's High Res Textures for Thief: Deadly Shadows or New Vision and HDTP for Deus Ex, and general patches like the multiple unofficial Bloodlines ones, are also, to my understanding, unavailable on consoles.
(Fan-created and shared material - be it art, fiction, videos, playlists, mods, cosplay, and so on - is key to me for most series. I can enjoy a show, or a game, on its own, but if it doesn't have an active fanbase, or if fan-created materials are discouraged by the creators, chances are I will quickly move into other fandoms. One of the sad trends of modern games has been a reluctance or refusal to release level editors, thus making fan mission creation very difficult.)
3. The PC is what I grew up with. Aside from a black-and-white Power Rangers Gameboy-type device, I never owned a console. I never played Mario, Zelda, or Sonic the Hedgehog. Instead, I was playing Myst, SimCopter, Tyrian, and Commander Keen. The PC has always been my gaming home and I still play DOS games through DOSBox.
4. Mouse and keyboard. I took a look at my control configurations for S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, The Dark Mod, and Thief 2, and I use an average of 37 keys plus three mouse buttons for each game. In Thief 1/2, I use nine keys just for movement: 'w' for run forward, 's' for walk forward, 'x' for walk backward, 'space' to creep, 'q' for lean left, 'e' for lean right, 'k' to lean forward, 'f' to crouch, and 'shift' to jump. When you include things like multiple weapon selections, quick save/load, zoom in/out, and other inventory hotkeys, it's easy to take over most of the keyboard, and I like it that way. I feel I have quicker access to the things I want to get to [e.g., I can hit 'alt' for water arrows instead of scrolling through a weapon selector] and more fine-tuning over my movement and view. Most of the games I play also give the player great flexibility in creating their own control scheme; the first two Thiefs even allow you to save multiple control layouts.
5. It's impractical for me to own a console. In addition to (1), most consoles hook up to a TV, and I hardly ever watch TV unless it's for VHS tapes. I think I would be perfectly happy without either a TV or cable. All my other media watching is done on my computer, whether it be online steaming or DVDs. My computer is my one-stop machine: email, gaming, multimedia, internet, word processing, exchanging files with my MP3 player or cell phone, etc.
6. The PC makes it easy to interact with game files. I can edit screencaps or make them my desktop. If the game I'm playing doesn't have a built-in screencapture, I can run another program in the background. Same with audio or video capture. I can back up my saved games and user files, or make custom edits to the user ini. I can transfer my saved games easily to other computers or hard drives. I can explore the files within the game; e.g., I can extract the audio files and find dialogue I missed during the game itself. (I've done this with both Thief and Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines.) In short, I have a degree of transparency and flexibility with the games.
As my PCs are always several years behind the cutting edge, being able to play with the highest graphics setting has never been a priority for me. Since there's been very few recent games to pique my interest, this is rarely an issue. (I've been happy to finally play S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl on my current laptop, and may play the rest of the series [Clear Sky and Call of Pripyat] after, but there are very few post-2005 games on my recommendations list.) I acknowledge that gaming PCs have superior technology compared to consoles, and that gap does become an issue with how developers design games, but it's not one of my personal reasons for gaming on the PC. Neither is the ability to custom build my own machine.
(What type of games I look for and why I enjoy them is another post, but Briareos H's TTLG post on First-person exploration games tickled many of my gaming likes.)
(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-18 00:14 (UTC)More generally speaking: I always enjoy your posts on gaming and certain games in particular. And your mention of Commander Keen made me feel nostalgic, haha. (I also played Cosmo a lot, and Eye of The Beholder II.)
(no subject)
Date: 2013-08-21 18:33 (UTC)I loved Commander Keen. How Keen would stare at you, then sit down and read if you didn't move for a minute; the Dopefish that goes 'swim-swim-hungry'; that Keen is definitely a Commander and not a Captain. The odd thing is that I only really played the fourth game ("Secret of the Oracle"), but I played it over and over and over . . .
If you're talking about this Cosmo, I also played it, and even dressed up like Cosmo when I was younger!