pc vs consoles

[greenmedic88]

There is no answer to this beyond personal preferences. I've yet to hear anything from any player to prove otherwise.

I've played consoles for as long as they were being made (pre-Atari 2600), but I also play PC and Mac games. I can configure and build my own hardware rigs, and I'm not a budget PC gamer, so it's easily the most expensive platform.

It boils down to the games or types of games a player likes, with some platforms being better geared for certain types of games.

RTS, MMORPG, FPS; all better suited for PCs and favor a keyboard/mouse control scheme.

TPS, action, platformer; generally favor a stick/pad layout.

Even then, it's still personal preference: TV/living room, or monitor/office-bed room.

Any PC can be moved to the living room to game, but unless you're also using the living room large screen display for general computing, it's not convenient to move that PC back and forth. Either way it's awkward. Use a special chair or table with a laptop or mouse pad/keyboard stand? Or are you going to put the keyboard on your lap and move the mouse on the couch? Wireless mouse and keyboard or are you sitting within 5 feet of your big screen display? Realistically, PCs simply work better at the desk.

Controller preference: if weaned on a keyboard and mouse, you probably can't play well with a controller and probably dislike consoles as a result.

Tried a FragFX controller for the PS3 and it didn't make a significant difference without re-learning the controls. If you can't play FPS games with a game pad; you're probably better off playing them on PCs.

Tried playing Tomb Raider Anniversary on PC with a mouse and keyboard which was a laughable experience. Game pad (360 compatible game +) was necessary.

Keyboard only provides digital (on/off) input only, which typically means one or two speeds: walk/move and alt/run. WASD movement input means either stepped right angle movement, or 45 degree WD, WA, SA, SD movement at best. Not ideal for many games.

If you have used a keyboard most of your gaming life, you won't notice, but if you've extensively used analog input, WASD input seems positively quaint by comparison.

Mouse aiming always beats right analog stick aiming; period.

Not all PC games support pads, or the specific pad you own since the closest thing to game pad standardization on Windows is the Xbox360 controller, which does NOT work with all games.

In the past six months, I switched from an 9600GT to a HD4870 to a HD4870x2 (which cost about as much as two consoles), which makes GPU intensive games run smoothly at high resolutions, but... even a liquid cooled Quad or Dual Core CPU OCed to 5Ghz with a pair of 4870x2s running in quad GPU Crossfire config won't run any of the console specific games that I've enjoyed this generation.

So either I fabricate a claim that if it's not on PC, it's not worth playing, or I acknowledge that even the best PC I can build at any price still can't play a very lengthy list of the games I've enjoyed immensely. For a lot less. Again, not talking budget builds, but builds with video cards that alone, cost more than any console.

Cross platform (PC/console), I've pretty much switched to PC versions, since with a decent build, they simply look and run better in addition to being cheaper due to proprietary console licensing fees.

Unfortunately, these games don't cover the whole field for me since my tastes are extremely diversified, which is why I play on six formats (seven with the Mac) to varying degrees.