Posted October 30, 2010
Yes, I understand the theory behind what you're saying and all that, but the fact remains the PC and console versions of Dragon Age played EXTREMELY different. Just because what you're saying is almost always true doesn't negate the times when it isn't, and in the case of Dragon Age they really did feel like two completely different games, and I'm telling you this as someone who actually played both.
I mean... really, I know what you're saying but it just didn't apply to Dragon Age. You're picking pretty much the worst possible game to make this example with. Mass Effect, sure. Oblivion, go ahead. Gothic 4, knock yourself out. But it doesn't apply to Dragon Age, where the mechanics and interface are COMPLETELY different between the two platforms and universally considered better on the PC to the point where the console version might as well be a different game.
And in case you don't actually know what the difference is, I'll sum it up in a single comparison: the PC version plays like Baldur's Gate, the console version plays like KotOR. And when you play it, it's REALLY obvious that the game was designed for an isometric view and mouse controls rather than the over-the-shoulder view and awkward finger gymnastics of trying to get the console version to do what you want.
My arguement is that PC gaming is alive and well and has the usual good game to bad game ratio it has always had - gaming is just a bigger market then it used to be.
Dragon Age is an awesome PC style game - even comes with a great toolset to make more games with. It's been out a little over a year and Dragon Age 2 is coming out in Jan. I can see *why* they made the attempt to focus DA2 with that console feel - DA:O sitll has years and years of use left in it. Judging from NWN 1 and 2, the DA:O community will be around for at *least* 8 years.
Also the PC haven't just been the bastion of good RPG games, it is the place where games like Call of Duty, the Battlefield Series, and other franchises started. The gameplay in those games have not changed very much on the transtion to consoles. In fact, outside of Modern Warefare 2, PC gamers tend to be treated better then their console counterparts. The games tend to be cheaper, the DLC tends to be cheaper (Which, to be quite honest, I've seen expansion packs for PC games with less in them then many pieces of DLC.) and quite often level editors and the like are given to us.
Let's not forget the Indie game scene. How many cool independent games have come out in the last 5 years? Many of them have made an apperance on consoles, true, but many times it is only after having the game released on PC's to wide acclaim, most of the time for *free.*
I'll be honest, Sometimes i think PC gamers sound like spoiled elitist snobs. We have one of the most robust and active open platforms ever, a platform that always seems to be *dead* yet never really dies, and we whine about how gaming used to be? Despite all evidence to the contrary that games with those types of sensibilities we pine for still exist.
I love good old games, or else I woudln't be on this site. But we shouldn't use our love for older games to ferment disdain for anything new. So what, a sequel to a game didn't live up to your memories of the previous one? Welcome to to life. That has been happening as long as gaming has been out (and movies, and books, and music...) Heck I bet the people that Loved Oedipus Rex hated Oedipus at Colonus. They probably went to the forums of Athens and were like "OMG it sukz LOL!" when describing it.
The thing is games like Dragon Age origins and Fallout 3 have brought in more people to the fold. They have asked "What do you mean by "LIke Baldur's Gate?" or "Fallout 3? What are the first two like?" This has lead to sites like this getting people to play the older games. So don't begrudge the sequels just because they may not live up to what you want them to be. At the very least they will get people thinking about the games that spawned them.
And you hate how things are going? Look on the internet - I'm sure you can find someone, some where, making an old school type game that you'll love.
LIke this: Click here
That is what is really cool about the PC platform. It's open and anyone, at any time, can start up making games and release it. So if you hate how games are going? Make one yourself like you want it to be. I'm sure it'll find an audience if it is good enough.
These tons of consolized remakes and sequels to old classics don't help anyone but the people making money off them. Sure a small subsection of the fans of these games may look back and find they enjoy the older games, but most will think they're garbage simply because they're old, or because they're top down, isometric, and turn based instead of a first person shooter. Hell, the new "XCOM" doesn't even have a superfluous connection to the world of the old games. It's a first person shooter set in the fifties where you play an FBI agent fighting carnivorous blobs of oil. Even sequels of old FPSes are getting dumbed down. The guy who's n charge of the new Deus Ex has specifically stated that he hated the original. When game makers see how popular their consolized, dumbed down, generic "reimaginings" of old games are, you can kiss goodbye to any chance of a real sequel.
PC gaming used to be respected by the industry. Now it is not. Now the only mainstream game makers that even make PC games anymore are Valve, ActiBlizzard and apparently Bioware made one (1) recently before going back to developing console games. Sure we've got tons of independent developers and a few small non-indies from Europe... but in the US the mainstream market has basically decided that PC gaming could be dead for all they care. That is not like it used to be.
You think PC gamers are spoiled elitist snobs, and they probably think you're anti-intellectual and deluded. It's not about old versus new for the hell of it, as much as you'd like to think that. It's about being a respected part of the industry and getting lots of good mainstream games versus being treated like nothing and being given a bunch of half assed ports.
Now we have a system that's quite suitable for the game corporations. The indies develop new creative ideas on the PC and work out the kinks. Then once they have proven popular mainstream devs can rip them off in a console game and be lauded as inspired and creative while anyone who calls them on it is dismissed as a conspiracy theorist because "OMG Wolfenstien 3D was first person, CoD Black OPS is first person, CoD Black Ops is a rip off of Wolf 3D!!!" except of course if a console gamer was making that statement he'd use Halo or Maybe Goldeneye in place of Wolf3D.
I don't know where I gave you the notion, but I don't care about old school dungeon crawlers. Those are one of the few genres that were on both consoles and PCs in the past but have recently started to vanish, and I never liked them to begin with.
Post edited October 30, 2010 by Shoelip
