Cade said:
The extra money for upgrading PC's is often the biggest stumbling block for a would be PC gamer. To build from scratch and get it's graphics quality to 360/PS3 level you'd be spending at least the amount for the high end PS3. You just can't look at it as only a gaming machine though, you're getting something that does everything the consoles do plus all the little watered down extras they keep introducing except they're fully featured parts of it. It's really more of an investment for the future than a gaming machine and that's what will always set them apart no matter how much the new consoles add PC-like features.
Not quite so. As a person who spends the majority of his time either gaming on on his PC, but never both together (unless you count ROMs, which I actually stopped playing after my USB controller stopped working though I hadn't noticed till now), I can tell you that things needed for a good computer aren't necessarily things needed for a good gaming computer.
Right now my processor is an AMD Athlon 2400+, I've got 512MB of RAM, shared video, standard audio card, a DVD burner, a 40GB HD that came with it (5400RPM-- it sucks) and a 250GB HD I just bought. For what I normally use it for--surfing, playing the occasional ROM, and watching anime, Toku and cartoons--those stats work just fine, and my computer never ever crashes and the most I ever have to worry about is updating a codec or two.
If I wanted to play video games, I'd need a better audio card, a better video card, I'd have to completely redo the way I have my HDs set up, and actually, since this case sucks ass, I would probably just be better off buying brand new computer parts and putting a new computer together. That would be costly as all heck.
Oh yeah, I'm a huge fan of the NIS games as well as the Ogre Battle series and Final Fantasy Tactics (PS1). If I ever manage to stop playing Disgaea, I've got Phantom Brave waiting and I'm sure I'll pick up Disgaea 2 when it's released. I'd honestly rather be playing those games on a PC though and I'm not just saying that to be pro-PC either. The control pad is perfectly useable for them, but I think it'd be much smoother with a mouse.
Disgaea's got nothing on Phantom Brave in the area of customization, but FFT really isn't all that customizable, which is probably why its my favorite strat game ever. :thumbs: (Fire Emblem aside.) And honestly, using the mouse has always just seemed clumsy to me. But that's probably because I've not played PC games enough.
Well, characters in a lot of non-customizable RPG's end up being mute. Look at Cloud. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It's still possible to have a character who interacts with the story if you create him, look at games like KOTOR and Neverwinter Nights.
Alex is the same. But the thing is, those are isolated cases. We all know there's always an exception to the rule. Technically, the Hero of Suikoden V talks, but they never bothered to
give him a voice. So in the middle of an FMV (ancient term I know), with all this talking going on, it looks weird as crap for them to ask your character something and you get to pick an answer but never hear him speak. Plus, since you name him yourself, they can never refer to him by name, so even when you see the name in the text, the voice skips right over it.
Yeah, I am using the FF games as representative of the J-RPG's, but it's somewhat valid since the majority of J-RPG's are attempts to copy their design anyway.
They do? Which?
There's plenty of exceptions and some happen to be games I really like such as Shadowhearts and Skies of Arcadia. Final Fantasy games in particular I don't care for. I haven't enjoyed one since FFVI and I've played most of them since and never bothered finishing them because I got so bored.
I'm a fan of VII, but if you wanna go old-school, I think V is better than VI. VIII was stupid and X like I said was crap. VII and IX appeared to have a lot going for them, but I never finished them since there were better games around.
FFXII looks cool, but that's mostly because I like the team behind it. Believe me, I've played a lot of J-RPG's and few hold my interest until the end. The Xeno series bored me to tears and I haven't bothered with Suikoden since the 2nd one, though I hear 3 is the pinnacle of the series. Lunar was just aggravating with the battles, but fairly enjoyable.
Personal preference again. American RPGs can't even get me to buy them, much less play them, so there you go. As far as Xenosaga....well, I'd gotten a good deal into it and then said immediately upon getting Suiko V because I was tired of the movies. Suikoden's games....3 is hardly the best (1 has that) I think have the most originality to them usually. And with the exception of four, they're all quality games. And V looks to be the first RPG ever where I play a prince and actually *believe* I'm a prince! Normally, I don't buy the whole royal family thing since they get to do whatever they want (when we all know that no absolute rule is truly absolute), but the way they've set up V has really sucked me in. As for Lunar....to me the first game IS RPGs. Period. :laugh:
:laugh: I thought the same thing. I was gonna subscribe to PSO-BB, but after spending hundreds of hours on the Gamecube version and learning PSU would be out this year I passed on it. Hopefully the PSU versions are cross-compatible between systems so we can rock the universe!
:laugh: Sounds like a plan to me! :thumbs: (Now all's I need is broadband....)
DiscoInferno said:
Related to this are mods. When you buy certain PC games, what you actually get can turn out to worth so much more because of all the mods, models, skins, tweaks, etc. that the fan community releases. Just look at Half-Life. Counterstrike, one of the (if not the) most popular online game was originally a free modification made and released by talented fans. When you buy a PC game, what you get in the box won't always be all you'll get (unless it's a console port). Remember Super Mario Sunshine? Remember those packless 'void' levels? If the came out on the PC, it probably would've shipped with a level and you'd be able to create/download hours of extra content at no extra cost.
Now get me wrong, I like console gaming. I have a PS2 and a Gamecube and I'm sure I'll get a Wii but when I want a new game (as I did earlier today), I tend to look in the PC games section since I know I'll almost always be getting more for my money. The extra 'work' needed is generally worth it since, once installed and once I'm using my PC, it's actually more convinient (to simply double-click an icon) and is usually a lot quicker. Also, my PC hasn't been upgraded performance wise in three years but games like Oblivion, Doom 3 and F.E.A.R. run fine and look good. Quake 4 is the only game I've had any real problems with recently.
I think the fact that console games only get one shot and cannot be milked as well as PC games but are still played as often as them says something. PC games get to release as crap and then you come out with three or four patches to fix all the major problems and then BOOM! You've got yourself a good game. If a console game fucks up, then it dies. A slow, painful death as people trash it in mag after mag, site after site, and then finally just forget about it except when someone's run out of articles to do for a magazine years later and decides to do a "Worst Games" section.
