For myself at least, there seem to be very little variety in terms of PC games. Most of the ones I have played have been either FPS or the "point,click,watch" variety. Some of the air combat sims have bee very good. But on the whole there seems to be alot of the same ideas rolling around PC land.

If I were to use one game as a benchmark to compare the two platforms it would have to be Metal Gear Solid for the Sony PSX. I have yet to see a PC game that even comes close to it in terms of overall game play.

That's just because you lack the exposure to PC games to be able to make that assessment. There's more to PC gaming than FPS and point, click, watch. Metal Gear Solid failed to impress me in terms of story (convoluted as it was) and the gameplay wasn't really anything so revolutionary... Talk about point, click, watch... in MGS, you move your character for 5 minutes then you're forced to watch this horrible movie for 10. Anyway - that's just my opinion and my two roommates' opinions and my girlfriend's opinion and my neighbor's opinion. It's a very popular game and lots of people like it. The only things Consoles have over PCs are platformers and fighters... outside of that, it's pretty much the same types of games with PCs having an edge over consoles on First Person Shooters and games like Sims, Civilization, Whatever Tycoon, Sim City, Adventure games, and of course the point, click, watch games like Myst.

Nobody's telling you you have to play PC games... I play both Console and PC games and I prefer PC games. It seems that most people who prefer Console games have very limited experience with PC games. I could be wrong of course - it just seems that way. I prefer PC games just because my favorite type of game is the FPS and PCs obviously have the advantage here... Graphics are important to me because FPS games are immersive by nature and the better the graphics and resoultion, the more immersive the experience.

One reason why you might feel like FPS games are more or less all the PC has to offer is because it's the most popular genre for PC games and so lots of developers make these types of games. I'm just saying that there's lots more out there besides what you mentioned.

Has PC gaming gotten more expensive though, than say 8 years ago (circa 486)? I remember getting a 486 DX 50 with like 8 mb of ram for over a $1000 (I think it was more like $1500-2000 for it -- a Dell -- but I can't recall exactly). Nowadays there's more emphasis on video card and less on processor.

I remember that 486 beating the pants off of console gaming at that point, at least in my mind. The quality of games like Master of Orion, Sim City 2000, and Links 386 were sublime.

Then my next computer was a AMD 200. Didn't care for this one very much, it didn't do what I needed for 3D games like Quake 2. I had to get a Celeron 300A + TNT video card before it could handle something like Unreal. Nowadays seems like you can build a computer for less than $1000 that does games nicely. But like I said I only upgrade when computers have totally leapfrogged console gaming. I think Doom 3 maybe bring me back to the computer PC gaming world unless they can get it running good on a Xbox (not holding my breath though).

Gallant Pig: You can certainly get a pc for less than 1000 that will play games well. This is what I ordered through cyberpowerpc for about 730 bucks shipped recently:


AHANIX PLATINUM XP CASE W/DIGITAL THERMOMETER, 420 WATT PSU
NEW AMD XP-1800+ [1.53 GHZ QUANTISPEED] 266 FSB CPU C-MX104
SHUTTLE AK31 V3.1 KT266A DDR 4X AGP MB
512 MB PC2100 DDR PC266 MEMORY
AMD CERTIFIED CPU FAN, HEATSINK AND 3 EXTRA FANS
MAXTOR 40 GB 7200 RPM ATA 133 HARD DRIVE
GEFORCE 4 TI4200 128 MB DDR W/TV OUT
16x DVD ROM
CREATIVE LABS SB LIVE VALUE 5.1
SPEAKERS
PCI 56K V.90 FAX MODEM/W VOICE
1.44 MB FLOPPY DR.
KEYBOARD
MOUSE
PCI 32 BIT 10/100 NETWORK CARD
3 YEAR PARTS AND LABOR WARRANTY

That's more than enough to play current games and will probably hold its own for a while to come. PC stuff isn't as expensive as some people make it out to be.

But thats a 1.5XP, a Ge4 4200, DDR RAM, and a soundblaster. Thats not really high end.

It's not? It'll keep pace with any P4 system that costs twice that much. Fact is it'll play any game out there and it will be able to do so for the next 2 years. It's pointless to buy the highest high end PC unless you can afford to throw money away. I built my roommate a PC with a 1400+XP and DDR Ram and a GeForce 3 and it'll handle every game out now with all the settings maxed out. What more could you ask for? 110 frames per second instead of just 100? c'mon.

For $730 you could buy an Xbox, an extra controller and 10 games.

Your price for that PC doesn't include software.

PC games range in price from 19.99 - 39.99 on sale and 29.99 - 49.99 not on sale. Finding deals on PC games is 100x easier than finding a console title on sale. So - for $730 you could buy an Xbox, an extra controller and 10 Xbox games, but if you buy 30 games for both, (using an average Xbox game cost of 50 bucks and an average PC game cost of 30 bucks) you're looking at:

Xbox, 30 games, controller = $1730
PC, 30 games = $1630

For that $750 you can get an XBox and a Cube and enjoy christmas. A 4200 w/ a 1.5 might be sputtering a bit when Doom and the rest of the xmas PC titles hit. You know your XBox is gonna handle Unreal Tourney though. And thats only looking ahead to next quarter. PC gaming is just more expensive. No way around it.

30 games? Why not 100? Then the numbers will be even better for PC gaming. Im not saying its not worth it to stay current but it is more expensive.

Plus - once again you guys are forgetting that PCs do alot more than play games... It's not like a microwave where all it does is cook food or a console where all it does is play games. So your investment is in a PC that also plays games... so in essence, you're buying a PC for work or school or internet surfing or to post inane comments on a message board and the fact that it plays games as well is a freebie.

You can buy a PC to surf the internet and do your homework or office work for around $300. It won't be able to play 3D games, but it can play many games that are not in 3D. The extra $430 is for the ability to play 3D games. So the freebie is actually $430 in which case you can get an Xbox, an extra controller, 4 Xbox games and a PC.

You can have your cake and eat it too, but it might taste better with icing (GeForce4 4600).

Fine, but if you get 10 games, it's cheaper to get a nice PC.

Also - where the hell are you getting a $300 PC? Refurbished e-machine? The cheapest Dell sells is 599 and that doesn't include shipping. HPs and Compaqs and Emachines can be had for maybe 400 or so, but 300 bucks won't buy you much of a computer at all. In any case - a cheapie computer will play lots of games at resolutions comprable to what Xbox puts out - plus the games library is much larger... you just won't be able to play the latest and greatest games like Doom 3. My roommate's computer with the 1400 XP and the GeForce 3 will be able to play Doom 3 by the way.

And that my friend is priceless!

Hmm...a PC with no software or an Xbox with 10 games and an extra controller. Yeah, I could see how that would be a difficult decision.

And party games, and racers, and survival horror, and action, and japanese rpgs, and puzzle games, and light gun games, and dance/rhythm games, and sports games, and shooters, and adventure games, ....
um yeah
You missed out a few genres there Trigger. Even the Xbox Morrowind is meant to play better than the PC version, so it's just a matter of time until the american rpg genre is covered I'm sure.

Seriously Trigger, you are showing a fair bit of PC bias in this thread. And remember, 1 PC biased person + 1 Console biased person does not make a right .

Chris

Although we won't know at what settings until it comes out. 1600x1200 with everything switched on? Or 640x480 with all fx disabled just to stop it from stuttering.

Chris

Are you the 1 Console biased person? I said that because those are the two obvious genres... I didn't forget about genres, I was just posting a few examples for each.

Anyway I'd take issue with the genres you list...

I'll give you Japanese rpgs, light gun games, sports games, and dance/rhythm games...

I'd say both are a debateable dead even on Racers and Survival Horror

PCs are all over consoles in Adventure games, puzzle games, Action and shooters.

I don't know what you mean by Morrowind being made to play better on the Xbox... you mean they made the PC version sucky on purpose? Anyway - mmorpgs and american rpgs aren't going the way of the console anytime soon.

In any case, I wouldn't say I have a PC bais so much as a genre bias - My first love is First Person Shooters (as I've said probably too many times), so I go where they are. I like both Consoles and PC gaming. It seems most of the people arguing against the PC simply don't play PC games much if at all. At least I play both.

You do realize a party game can easily be done by a LAN. how about WORMS? that is indeed a party game.
Puzzle game?!??!?! MYST
Light gun game?!??!?!? House of the dead is for PC aswell
Dance/rhythm?!?!?!?!? Dance dance Revolution
Sports game?!?!?! You must be living under a rock yo.
Shooters? You mean first person shooter? I laugh at you.
Adventure games!?!?!? Get your console loving blind arse out of the thread, or get some info before stating something that is wrong.

Trigger didn't miss anything, as you can see, all those are covered. Morrowind plays better on Xbox? Oh man, you are smoking something, pass it along. How could a game that is set in stone in one platform that's system stats are outdated to the new PC systems graphicly, game play, etc. It is 10x's better on PC.

if your going to be the console person, please get your info straight

by the way.. whats the point of seperating American RPG's and Jap RPG's? lets just stick it to RPG's

Not that I've read any of the thread , but Japanese RPGs and Western/PC RPGs are two quite different entities.

Yes, Japanese and Western RPGs are totally different genres.

I mean Morrowind and Final Fantasy couldn't be more different, so it's kind of silly to call them both RPGs.

Consoles have a big edge in Platformers, Japanese RPGs and Fighting games and a slight edge (more titles available) in survival horror, action RPGs (Zelda type games), light gun games, party games, etc.

PCs have a huge edge in FPS, RTS, MMORPG, Adventure games (monkey island e.g.), and western style RPGS.

Most other genres (i.e. racing and sports) are more or less dead even on PCs and consoles.

Both platforms have there merits, what someone prefers is simply going to vary by what type of games they like to play.

then there should be two different rpg's MMORPG and RPG's. simple as that.