A reader and PC owner details the areas where he thinks console games are superior to PC, including optimisation and value for money.
I’m a lifelong gamer, in fact some of my earliest memories are of sitting in front of the TV playing Dig Dug, Pitfall, and Combat on an old wooden Atari 2600. Since then, with the exception of a couple of dalliances with a Spectrum and Amiga, I’ve exclusively gamed on consoles, but all that changed in 2014. The year before I felt decidedly underwhelmed by Sony’s and Microsoft’s next gen offerings, though I did notice that the majority of games I wanted to play were coming to PC, so the decision was made, it was time to tick build a gaming rig off the old bucket list.
You may be expecting this feature to turn into another propaganda piece for the self-proclaimed elite but no, I’m here to blow the trumpet for the mighty console and explain where I feel it excels compared to PC gaming.
First up are launchers, Steam and Epic store are probably the highest profile examples but just to put this on the record, I don’t care which launcher I use, just as long as it’s reliable and I can play when I want. Saying this I currently have 10 installed, with almost all major publishers having their own. My issue with all these launchers is it splinters your friends list and unlike a console which you can press a couple of buttons and see who’s online and what they’re playing, on PC it’s nowhere near as user-friendly. To top this off because some launchers run on similar software you can’t have more than one open at once and it’s a problem that’s only getting worse.
Next up is probably the most used fallacy when describing PC gaming: the games are cheap. Yes, you can buy new releases for around the £25 mark, but not from the launcher crowd. Prices on those platforms are usually in line with consoles at £40-£55. The cheap deals are through third party sites like CD Keys, but they do run out of codes quicker.
I’m sure you are aware there isn’t a second-hand market on PC, this means games hold their value for longer. A perfect example of this is, a couple of years ago I wanted to try Dark Souls. Because of the games reputation I wasn’t sure it would be for me, so when I saw the game listed at £20 on Steam, an ageing game that could be picked up for peanuts on consoles, I was left waiting for it to go on sale.
Also, games on consoles are optimised to the nth degree, a lot of time and care is taken to ensure the game runs smoothly in all situations. Sure, they can suffer from slowdown in places but generally the work done gives a consistent performance. The same cannot said with PC, where the most common complaint gamers have is poorly optimised games, with the solution usually being to increase the recommended specification needed to run the game.
But what happens when extra teraflops don’t solve the problem? Take Batman: Arkham Knight, it was so broken the developer gave up trying to fix it and returned people’s money. This isn’t a isolated example either, a large amount of games need you to change certain settings on your computer to get them to run right. Recently Forza Horizon 4 wouldn’t load unless I shut down my GPU overclocking software, reducing the speed of my graphics card. The real icing on the cake is its usually gamers who find work arounds for these things, not the developers who relay the fixes after the fact.
The good, the bad and the ugly side of mods. I have nothing but awe and respect for the modders who spend countless hours creating modifications, then simply give them away. They’ve spent more time than some optimisers that’s for sure. I recently replayed GTA: Vice City at native 3440×1440 ultra-wide resolution at100fps with upgraded textures and improved controls, it was fantastic. The vanilla version ran below HD, had a 4.3 aspect ratio and was locked to 30fps.
What wasn’t so good is the trial and error way you go about installing them, I’d advise to only install one mod at a time, test the game then move onto the next, backing up as you go in case it all goes wrong. Including researching the mods themselves and installing the whole process took over 12 hours, partly because of several false positives from my anti-virus software. You feeling lucky punk?
So what’s ugly? Cheats are. GC recently ran a story on mods ruining GTA Online after Epic Games Store gave it away for free. Let me tell you the game was ruined by cheats long before then and has been terrible since it launched. It’s not just GTA either, almost all online games on PC have some issues, in contrast consoles have eradicated the problem this gen.
The last subject I’d like to mention is cost, obviously this is down to the individual and I was aiming for higher end 4K capable hardware, but since 2014 I’ve bought three CPUs: i5 4th gen, i7 4th gen and i7 7th gen; five GPUs: GTX 780 x2, GTX 980 Ti x2 and GTX 1080 Ti; two motherboards; 16GB DDR3 and 16GB DDR4 of RAM at considerable cost. All in the time that you’ve most likely had one console. Not only that but your console is getting better as my PC is getting worse, I’m having to turn down settings to get games to run smoothly and will have to continue doing so until the next inevitable upgrade.
I thought PC would be cost effective but I was wrong, very wrong. So why do I persevere? The truth is I don’t mind spending time installing mods and I strangely enjoy reading about new hardware, researching and fixing a troublesome game. Sometimes it can feel like a challenge in itself. I will always be a fan of consoles though, they are imagined, designed, and built for the sole purpose of playing games. To a gamer what could be better than that?
By reader Jamie L
(Not my name on)
Steam
Epic Store
Battle.net
Uplay
Origin
Rockstar Social Club
GOG Galaxy
Stadia
Bethesda launcher
Xbox Store
The reader’s feature does not necessary represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.
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