Why I'm a Self-Loathing PC Gamer and Why Consoles Aren't Ruining PC Gaming

Despite my like for PC gaming, I absolutely hate the culture associated with it. I feel like PC gaming is diseased by a culture of piracy, snobbery and whining. After having used up my 360's 20 GB hard drive while also having the desire to make my own games, I entered a world that I couldn’t be part of for the past half a decade... and how I wish I stayed in my little console bubble. Not because PC gaming is horrible but because I can't stand the community.

For as many despicable bigoted thirteen-year-olds there are playing console games, PC gamers as a culture are about the whiniest, most ungrateful fucking assholes out there. The only difference is that they're forty-year-old men who act like thirteen-year-olds. On every single gaming site, scrolling down to the comments section feels like I'm sticking hot pointed needles into my eyes while watching Freddy Got Fingered.

For one thing, the endorsement and culture of piracy is completely amoral. While there are some games which aren't available on newer operating systems or have been unavailable for years on either a physical copy or a streaming service, pirating a newer title is completely without justification. The idea that a game isn’t worth paying for for whatever reason (lack of dedicated servers, DRM, etc) but then pirating it anyway because you still want it is just childish. It doesn't stick it to the man since torrent sites track the number of downloads, which means that you're yet another statistic regarding people who played the game, your “act of protest” to urge others to download the game isn’t helping to get the studio to change, it's taking money out of the hands of people who put heart and soul for two to four years into making a product to put them out of business so you won't ever get an improved sequel. If you think that the game is going to suck, post your reaction to pre-release gameplay footage or the demo on the forums. Constructive criticism is the way to ensure that developers make a better title.

Also, all this talk about how consoles are ruining PC games is utter horseshit. There are a list of complaints about what constitutes “consolitis” and almost all of them are unfounded. I'll go through each often brought up point just to criticize the faulty logic at play here.

1. Weapon Limits

First off, nobody liked having to hit the 9 key in shooters. It's unwieldy and takes away from being able to move from one area to the next. Also, this wasn't pioneered by Halo like a lot of people seem to claim. The two weapon limit actually debuted in Counter-Strike, one of the hardest of the most hardcore PC games ever developed that takes months of practice to just become decent at. Also, Half-Life grouped weapons into categories by the 1-5 keys to keep the game user-friendly. And weapon limits make each member of the team play a role, effectively making the game class-based yet fluid.

2. Streamlining

Whenever a game gets simplified, a lot of people tend to blame consoles. Even when the original game was also developed for consoles. For all the talk about how the Xbox ruined Dragon Age, it should be known that the original game was made for consoles and it sold well on both the PS3 and 360 versions. The changes to DA2 had nothing to do with the ability to put the game on a console since the dev team already proved that they could put Dragon Age on the platform. DA2's flaws had much more to do with redoing the entire engine during the game's short development cycle.

Also, have any PC gamers ever played Front Mission or Disgaea? Those are some seriously complex games made for consoles.

3. Low System Requirements

Apparently “caring about PC gamers” is somehow synonymous with making the game only run on the latest hardware. Clearly not knowing how to optimize DirectX 11 features that consoles can't use means that the developer put heart and soul into “optimizing” the game for the PC like Metro 2033 did. Clearly, developers should care about making games that force people to buy a $700 graphics card every single year as that respects the dignity of PC gamers.

Games that will actually run on your machine at 30 FPS or higher at 1080p with Direct X 11 on happen to be the goal of any good developer. A game that won't run on people's machines is a game that won't sell since it can't reach a large audience. And let's face it, buying a Radeon HD 6990 just to be able to run the $60 Battelfield 3 at max settings with 30 FPS is incredibly wasteful.

And if anyone wants to know what a bad game for the PC is, it's Assassin's Creed. The PC versions require some sick hardware to run, only allow DirectX 9 to be enabled and come out months later. They're total rush jobs for games that don’t even look all that great. And yet the console versions were still programmed on a PC. It's not a port from a console version, it's poorly optimizing the game for higher resolutions using existing PC content. Most games are developed concurrently for the PC and for consoles and actually optimize the game for a majority of PC users instead of only those with high end machines. Being able to max a game out at launch isn’t a bad thing, it's what every good developer should strive for.

So when the new generation of consoles come out, what will the current generation of PC gamers complain about? Clearly people who can’t shell out $2,000 every year for a new machine. I mean, think about how horrible the working class are. We should totally kill them all and live in a world without janitors, cab drivers, postal workers and cops. Only then will PC gaming not be held back.

Also, all games are developed on PCs using Visual Studio, Maya and other programs. Games aren't “Ported” to the PC, they're optimized to run on the PC. All console games are ported from PC to console. A poor PC version is inexcusable. And the term console port refers to a game ported to consoles.

4. Not Pushing Hardware

Gamers have been loving the AMD Bulldozer for a year now... and it won't launch for another two weeks. Basically, loving tech that hasn’t even hit the market yet, when the recommended requirements don’t even list an i7or Phenom II. Also, if you have a recent processor, you don’t need to overclock it since anything over 60 FPS can't be perceived by the human eye and films run at 35 FPS. Overclocking a 2600 or 260K and not bringing it back to stock after a half-hour of gaming is just a good way to break your PC.

Basically, most people into gaming are going to buy one of four graphics cards. In order of power, the Nvidia GTX 550 ti, the AMD Radeon HD 6790, the AMD Radeon HD 6870 and the Nvidia GTX 560 ti. When the 560 ti can play Crysis 2 and Metro 2033 with DirectX 11 on, you don't need to have a more powerful card.

Hearing EA say that Battlefield 3 won't run at 1920X1080 at max settings somehow makes PC gamers salivate and want to buy the game knowing that they won't be able to play it at launch. I guess that I'm crazy for liking games to get decent performance on my machine since purchasing games that I know that I can't play is about as fun as hammering crooked, rusty nails into my scrotum.

Battlefield 3's insane system requirements aren't a product of the devs creating a great PC version, they're the product of EA listening to whiny PC gamers who want to see their brand new GTX 590 only be able to play a game at medium settings. Odds are, in another two years, you won't be playing Battlefield 3 again just to max it as you'll have moved onto other, newer titles.

And making fun of people's system specs on Youtube walkthroughs when the game runs just fine isn't cool. Nobody cares about your e-penis size and trashing people for not buying three GTX 580s and a 2500W power supply just makes you seem like an arrogant, rich prick. Also, the almost two-year-old Radeon HD 5870 is still better than most cards on the market today.

PC gaming wasn’t always about graphics anyway, Fallout and Baldur's Gate were butt-ugly compared to Quake 2 back in the day and yet they're two of the greatest games that I've ever played in my life. Look at the upcoming Dead State; the graphics look absolutely horrid despite the game being a PC exclusive. Then again, that's probably why the graphics suck, since there is no console version available and things have to be toned down to find a wider audience. The same goes for Nuclear Dawn which has some very modest system requirements.

5. The lack of PC exclusives

The reason why games are multiplatform is because they need to reach a wide audience. Games are incredibly expensive to develop and not getting a return investment can close a studio which happened very often back in the late 1990s. In an age where many developers have been in the business for twenty years and need to save for their retirement and thus need stable employment, making multiplatform games is very, very good idea. Any games that are exclusive to consoles are as such because the developer is owned by the manufacturer.

Also, there would be more developers willing to go indie and develop cheaper games for the PC if not for piracy. Basically, if you design games, you're either making AAA games or iPhone apps. Starting a studio and making a low budget 100 hour RPG is a thing of the past since most PC gamers won't pay for a single player game developed by a company that doesn’t have the budget to sue anyone. Until ISPs start blocking American users from reaching torrent sites, this problem will persist. What it'll take is piracy reaching an unheard of level before companies start actually attacking torrent sites.

Earlier this year, the biggest porn torrent site was knocked offline in a cyber attack and with no legal ground to stand on as they were providing illegal content, the site owners had no chance of winning a court case as they were committing a far more serious crime. When game revenue starts dropping at the same rate, expect more mainstream torrent sites to be knocked offline in similar attacks, only then will the problem get better but until then, PC gaming won't be a priority to most developers.

6. Matchmaking

First off, console games can allow players to run their own servers. Anyone who says otherwise hasn't played the new Mortal Kombat. The real issue is that games are more fun when players possess similar skill levels. Matchmaking is a great idea that prevents one or two players from dominating everyone else. Dedicated servers are good to have but a decent game should have both options available on all platforms.

Just because a feature originated with a console game doesn't make it bad. Halo 2 had some great multiplayer and matchmaking won't go away since most gamers like it with only an irrational minority objecting.

That sums up why I absolutely hate PC gamers. I have both a PC and a 360 and I enjoy using both since games are great regardless of platform. In short, stop whining, suck it up and accept that certain games are awesome and that many of the features you blame consoles for can be blamed more on design decisions than console hardware. Consoles could handle Oblivion which has an insane draw distance, the problem is optimization which is damn hard to do. Now please, start making legitimate criticisms that devs can actually listen to without killing their company.

Review of Deus Ex: Human Revolution

As somebody who holds the first two Deus Ex games in the highest regard as to what gaming is capable of as a medium and believe that the first game is the greatest piece of coding ever put to disc, I was incredibly nervous and apprehensive about what Deus Ex: Human Revolution would become. While it's natural to be apprehensive about reviewing such an ambitious undertaking, the game should be judged based on its own merits instead of by its legacy. If every game were held to the same standard of Deus Ex, then practically every game ever made would get abysmal scores and let's face it, there is no way that Deus Ex: Invisible War is anywhere near as bad as the dime-a-dozen Shovelware beat-em-up platformers on the Wii. So judged purely as a stealth shooter, is Human Revolution worth your $60? The answer is yes.

The first thing that anybody new to the game will realize is that it's impossible to run and gun. Adam Jenson simply can't take much damage while most enemies take a crazy amount of punishment. Cover, stealth and headshots are absolutely needed if playing on any difficulty above easy. This isn’t Quake and it doesn’t try to be. It’s a far smarter game that forces players to come up with a plan of attack before executing it and level geometry is every bit as important as twitch aiming skills.

And yet while DXHR forces players to play intelligently, there is still a wide variety in terms of playstyles. Do you hack the robots and get them to clear out a room for you, do you snipe enemies, ambush them up close or simply sneak past? The choices are seriously that open ended and there are always at least two different ways to solve any problem and almost always a non-lethal option layered atop both. Many games promise depth, but very few actually deliver any below the surface. Deus Ex: Human Revolution actually follows through where so many titles fail... and the urban exploration is far deeper than what most studios would even dream of attempting with massive areas and very little loading between them and two to three sidequests to be found in each hub that are squired by going to out of the way areas and thinking outside the box.

Without Alexander Brandon doing the music, I was fearful of what might have happened to the soundtrack, thankfully Micheal McCann manages to make a score that not only remixes much of the music from the original Deus Ex, but also brings forth some brand new tracks that are more subtle than Brandon's work but work surprisingly well in context. Some music is used throughout the game as a motif but it's a forgivable flaw given the high quality of the sound in general.

The graphics are usually excellent to the point where I frequently tried to interact with static objects that were meant to just be ambiance but looked like I could interact with them. Environments all have a strong sense of atmosphere accomplished through light filters, architecture and a certain grittiness to them, even in places that are cleaner and more colorful. Sadly, there are a handful of characters in the game with unfinished, blurry textures who look like they could have been in the original game which detracts from a game with some impressive and varied art design.

As far as customization goes, Adam Jensen is a simper model than JC or Alex Denton which keeps the lore in place but without streamlining the process too much. The actual level ups for acquiring new abilities are a hybrid of the way that the first two games handled leveling up. Much like in Invisible War, there are points to spend but at the same time, the player does accumulate experience points that can be spent to upgrade Adam's abilities. Unfortunately, upgrading energy cells is a waste since only one cell can auto-recharge and melee attacks cost one cell each, effectively preventing the player from creating a melee character and putting the emphasis on the various upgradable guns and there aren't as many active abilities as there were in the original.

And of course, the story touches on some incredibly complex themes like the power of transnational corporations, what makes somebody human, media bias, etc. The fact that these themes are present puts the story miles ahead of pretty much every game on the market. The only problem that I have with the story is the low profile of the villains. They simply don't get enough screen time to have any sort of personality nor do their motivations appear until the end of the game. I didn't really feel any connection to who I was fighting, even after knowing identifying them as they just seemed to play the role of vestigial boss fights thrown in for the sake of variety. It’s a shame since the boss characters in the original game all had distinct personalities and in a way, the player was supposed to feel remorseful for having to kill two of them, now bosses are just cannon fodder.

My biggest gripe with the game happens to relate to the system that I played it on. For whatever reason, I always play Deus Ex on the worst platform available. Between the extra load screens inserted into the PS2 version of the original and the PC version's horrible frame rate in Invisible war, I really can't ever seem to pick the right platform to play a Deus Ex game on. The difficulty of the game normally wouldn't be an issue except for the fact that the 360 version suffers from some unforgivably long load times. Granted, the problem can be solved by installing the game to the 360's hard drive but it's still noticeable. If the PC or PS3 version isn't available, then a hard drive larger than the 20GB standard will dramatically improve the enjoyment of this game due to the sheer amount of player deaths, notably during boss fights where one-hit kills are the norm and even then, sometimes a single shot from a pistol on normal difficulty can do 73% damage which is just insane.

Still, easily remedied loading gripes and an inability to play a melee character aside, Deus Ex: Human Revolution is one of the smartest, deepest and most rewarding games produced in years. What's even more amazing is that this was the first title produced by Eidos Montreal and yet it's managed to redeem Square-Enix's name as one of the best RPG developers in the world after several years of high-profile flops. No game will probably ever top the original Deus Ex in terms of quality but after eight years of waiting for a sequel, Human Revolution is a great return to a great franchise.

Pros: Excellent art direction, a genuinely deep story that doesn’t talk down to players, the ability to play the game in different ways, good soundtrack, fun weapons, immersive world, sidequests that actually have depth to them, rewards you for exploring

Cons: No melee options that don’t use up energy, shallow villains that lack characterization and backstory, lack of active abilities, low health even on normal difficulty, long load times on the Xbox 360 that at times caused me to spend more time watching the load screen than I was playing the game.

8.7