Quote:Top 10 Ways to Know You're a PC Snob
A handy guide to discovering the PC elitist within you.
By Li C. Kuo | April 16, 2007

The PC Gamer Snob, every gamer knows one, you may even be one yourself. They consider the PC to be the end-all be-all of gaming and will scoff at the idea of dirtying their hands on any sort of upstart console. Here's a handy guide to see if you or one of your friends fits into this especially snooty class of gamer.



10. HD is So Last Gen

1080i, 720p, 1080p, pffft, whatever. 1920x1200 is where it's at. That's 1200p if you want to put it in HDTV terms. You like to point out that PC gamers have been gaming in "high definition" well before consoles could even display games in "enhanced definition," better known as 480p. Heck, 1280x1024 already beats out 720p, and standard definition 480i games? Even stuff from the days of DOS topped that.

9. Mouse & Keyboard for the Win

You believe that only chumps play first-person shooters with a gamepad. In your eyes nothing matches the precision of the good old keyboard and mouse combo. No other control scheme comes close and you fully believe that with your keyboard and mouse setup you can easily best any console gamer in any first-person shooter. Including GoldenEye. Not that you'd play that.

8. Now You're Really Playing with Power

You constantly remind people how weak consoles are. Your PC has at least 2GB of RAM, far more than any piddling console and you'd pick an Alienware system over a PlayStation 3 any day. Why settle for a 60GB harddrive when you can get 600GB? Also, you believe Crysis looks better than any next-gen console game on the horizon. (You may have a point.)

What the PC Gaming Snob sees when he looks at his own gaming rig.

7. Will Wright = Game God

"Will Wright is a bigger genius than Shigeru Miyamoto." There is nothing you love more than the expression console gamers get on their faces when you utter these words and slander the creator of their beloved Mario. You think Spore is far more promising than Super Mario Galaxy, and while you're at it you add that Peter Molyneux has more talent in his left pinky than Hideo Kojima and Shinji Mikami combined.

6. Kids' Play

Platformers are for kids. You wonder why in the world a person would want to play a game where all you do is jump from platform to platform and collect coins or rings or other such nonsense. You'd much rather be leveling up in World of Warcraft or moving up the ranks in Battlefield 2142. That's totally different!

5. Blame it on the Console Gamers

Console gamers are responsible for the decline of some of the PCs best franchises. For example, the original Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six titles were fantastic and realistic, but now they've been compromised as the games cater more to console gamers and tone down the realism. To you, this is an absolute travesty. A vein on your forehead bulges.

How the PC Gaming Snob views the average console gamer.

4. You Think That's Realistic?

GTR2 is far more realistic than Gran Turismo could ever hope to be, and if you really want to get into the nitty gritty, Gran Prix Legends is the racing game to play. Everything else is "too arcadey." Not only that, but all flying games on consoles are rubbish. The Ace Combat series is a pathetic representation of modern air combat and all the Star Wars console games don't even begin to compare to bliss that was Tie Fighter and X-Wing. Also, thanks to Microsoft Flight Simulator X you're fairly confident you could land a Boeing 737 in real life. How many console games can teach you that skillset?

3. GamerTags are Overrated

Who needs Xbox Live when you've got the Internet? You've been gaming online since Quakeworld. Not only that, but it's also completely free. You look at console owners who have to pay for online gaming services and think about all the extra custom mousepads you can afford.

2. The Invincible PC

PCs are forever. You refuse to ever buy a console and wonder why anyone would. Consoles are fixed technology whereas PCs continue to advance. PC tech gets better year by year. You just can't top a system that's constantly evolving.

1. Nyah, Nyah, Console Tools

You've read this entire column and agree with every point, own every game mentioned, and can't wait to forward it on to your console-loving friends who just don't know any better. Congratulations: You're a PC snob!

Quote:ABF I really don't get the whole "PC games are going all consoley" stuff. You may need to repeat that because I was playing Commander Keen at the time.

Quote:I think I need to point out something about interlacing. It only shows half the vertical lines, yes, but it shows them at TWO DIFFERENT PLACES back and forth repeatedly. It, for all intents and purposes, really IS the full resolution showed at half the frame rate. Your brain can't tell the difference.

Quote:There is a way to improve on keyboard and mouse though. That improvement is to make a keyboard with, basically, some of a game pad built in. Namely, an analog stick for more finess in movement.

Quote:For our previous Top 10 column, we brought you our take on the top 10 ways to tell if you're a PC gaming snob. This light-hearted list made some of you chuckle, while others folks seems to get a little steamed. We've decided to even things out this week by coming up with a list of the top 10 ways to tell if you're a console fanboy. This should prove that we believe in equality, which is why we make fun of everyone equally.

After this week we promise that the next Top 10 will leave this whole ugly affair behind. Now, please enjoy the horribly offensive and biased list below.

10. In Defense of Consoles

A console gamer reacts to our last "Top 10" column.

You read through our PC elitist list thinking to yourself "Wrong, wrong, wrong..." then went on a local message board and wrote a long rambling post about how much GameSpy sucks.

9. Big Screen Gaming

I bet you my HDTV is bigger than your PC monitor.

19-inches? 24-inches? What a joke. Real gamers play on screens that are 37-inches or bigger. You hear PC gamers brag about how great World of Warcraft looks on their Dell monitor and you laugh as you go home to sit on your couch in front of your massive HDTV hooked up to a 7.1 THX-certified surround sound system. Let's see PC gaming top that.

8. The Best Roleplaying Games Are From Japan

All the best roleplaying games are from Japan.

Baldur's Gate? Neverwinter Nights? Bah, the only real role-playing franchises come from Japan and have names like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and Chrono Trigger. Also, it's a plus if they have questing teenagers, cute furry creatures or giant birds to ride on.

7. Console Games Work

Getting PC games to run would give even Einstein a headache.

RAM requirements? Processor speed? You don't need to fiddle with anything to get console games working, you just pop in the disc and play. PC games are a whole other story, you'd have to be Einstein to figure out how to keep everything running smoothly on a PC gaming rig.

6. Miyamoto is Your God

This is your god. Bow down or face his wrath.

Shigeru Miyamoto, or "Shiggy," is your deity of choice. The man is a genius, can do no wrong, and deserves to be treated like the best thing to happen to humanity since the discovery of penicillin. You've cosplayed at Nintendo's E3 press conference and cried during the first Twilight Princess trailer.

5. Gamepads are Good Enough

This is all you need to pwn someone in a shooter.

You can do just fine on first-person shooters with the dual analog sticks on a control pad. You don't need a mouse and keyboard and you're sick of hearing PC gamers (aka - "PC whiners") bitch about how much it sucks to play an FPS with a console controller. What's even worse is when PC gamers brag about how badly they'd kick your ass if they only had their keyboard and mouse.

4. Realism Sucks

Gran Turismo is about as realistic as console gamers want or need.

You play videogames to escape from real life, not to recreate it. Why do PC gamers want realistic shooters or realistic flying games? Dying in one hit isn't fun and neither is reading a 200-page instruction manual just to get a plane off the ground. You want to just load up your game and have fun.

3. Save Games are for Wusses

Real men don't complain about not being able to save anytime.

There is nothing wrong with checkpoints in your mind. It makes games more challenging. What fun is it to save your game every ten seconds? There's nothing like roving through a dungeon for an hour and knowing that if you die you'll have to start all over again.

2. Japanese Games Rule

This is Japan, land of wacky games that PC gamers will never truly appreciate.

Katamari Damacy, Vib Ribbon, PaRappa the Rapper, these are games that stepped out of the mass market circle and had a distinct Japanese flair. You're convinced that no Western developer could ever make games that are as creative or unique and take pride that you pay the extra cash to import games that will never make it to these shores.

1. Real Friends

PC gamers settle in for a night of Raiding on WoW.

As a console player you have friends who don't just exist in World of Warcraft. Multiplayer = gaming with your buddies on the couch or at the very least chatting with them on Xbox Live. You know their real names and you hang out in real life. They're more than just another Leeroy Jenkins.

Quote:That's basically what I do. I've yet to find anything even close to a Zelda game on PC,

Quote:(though admittedly I didn't play the old RPGs, I do have the NES version of Ultima Exodus, and really the fact that it's also on NES negates any claim to it being an example, further it played a lot like Dragon Quest but with more classes).

Quote:I'll take the best of both worlds and toss the rest.

Quote:Ultima Exodus was almost a direct port of the PC version, only with better sound (sound cards hadn't really taken hold in the PC world yet) and worse graphics to a small extent (still did that weird "only see stuff your characters can see" effect). It still let you fight a loosing battle against some kid in town if you felt like it though.

Quote:I've played One Must Fall, and I've played Street Fighter 2. I've got a pretty good idea of which of those is more complex. The fact is, different genres, for various reasons (only sometimes related to things like interface like in RTS games), make their home on different platforms.

Quote:RPGs, well that's a matter of opinion. I've played Oblivion and Torment to an extent, and I've also played a number of Japanese RPGs. Some are pretty simplistic, but some show a lot of thought and planning into a complicated system (Final Fantasy XII), and some are simplistic at first glance but have a lot of subtle strategy involved (Pokemon) and some are just plain simple (Final Fantasy 1), though that last one was made when PC RPGs were pretty simplistic as well.

Quote: Dark Jaguar I'm not debating strategy games or sims. I will however debate pretty much everything else. RPGs, well again it's a matter of taste. I've played FFXII and I've played Oblivion. They tend in different directions. One is open ended and is very flexible in character creation, but the combat system is pathetic. There is no real strategy involved. It's all determined beforehand by your stats. Don't get me wrong, I love character development, but it is what it is. On the other hand, while the character are predefined in Japanese RPGs, the combat systems are usually VERY rich. "Stand in lines and take turns stabbing each other" more accurately describes American RPGs. I really don't recall ever actually having to come up with a strategy in battle. Whether I won or not was already determined by my equipment in a game like KOTOR. Now there's something to be said for that sort of development, but I much prefer having to develop an overly complicated chain of special abilities that leads to a single conclusion. For example, I don't recall ever having to use a "jump" ability to avoid a major spell in a battle where draining MP is the way to victory, remembering to case "Reraise" on my characters to prepare for a scripted "Ultima" spell at the end of the battle, but these sorts of complicated strategies are par for the course in Japanese RPGs. All the bosses have unique abilities that require complicated battle plans. Of course, you could just power level yourself so you can just use the sword over and over until they fall down, but that's the boring way to play it.

Really what I look forward to is an RPG that combines the strengths of both styles.

Quote:I'm with DJ on this one. I have always found the battle systems in console RPGs to be more complex. KOTOR and the other PC RPGs are great fun, but the battles are pretty much as DJ said. You send your characters in and if they are more powerful than your enemies and you have good equipment you will win. I would occasionally need to use force powers or magic in PC RPGs but it was generally for healing or because some enemies took very little physical damage.

A Black Falcon Wrote:And equipment and level matter too of course, like in console RPGs, but in PC ones you change equipment less often (in console RPGs it's like 'go to next town, buy next armor type -- iron, bronze, gold, whatever'. It's silly and kind of odd, really. In PC RPGs, generally, you keep equipment for a long time. For instance, in Baldur's Gate II my main character has been wielding one weapon since maybe 15-20 hours into the game (and I'm like 130 hours in including the expansion). Another one has a weapon from even earlier. And armor? You upgrade that just as infrequently. There is much less of a focus in what your equipment is in a PC RPG... what it is is important, but once you get set up, you can know that it'll stay that way for a long time. You also know that there's a very high likelihood that the items you'll truly want to equip will come not from stores, but will come from quests or enemy drops. Stores are useful for selling items to and replenishing consumables, but not often for upgrading your characters' equipment, and that's how it should be... but you can't do that if enemies don't drop usable stuff, of course...

DMiller Wrote:I will say that console RPGs haven't progressed a whole lot in the battle department, but it is still more strategic than the battle systems of most PC RPGs. Even in FFXII, which is as close to the PC battle system that the Final Fantasy games have come, you need to program gambits to do well or battles would last a long time. Generally in good console RPGs you need to fight bosses a number of times before you can develop a solid strategy against them. I rarely fought bosses more than once in the KOTOR games, and I believe I beat the final boss in both of them on the first try.

Quote:Okay I'll drop Planescape, except for this. The focus on story shows we are looking at different aspects here.

Planescape, from what I've played of it, does have an interesting story. When I finally get back to it I intend on playing the rest of the way through. I do in fact value a good story in a game. I'd be lying if I said otherwise. But, a game can more than make up for what it lacks in an open free-interaction and choices in story with the rest of it's gameplay. I think perhaps you just haven't given these alternative styles a chance to rub off on you.

Quote:I played Neverwinter Nights, at least. I'll tell you what I will of that. Does it have an "intricate and well developed system" underneath all the gameplay?

Yes, it does. Unfortunatly, it's underealized if you ask me. Now, I appreciate things like being able to unlock a door or set a trap, but that's not really combat, that's something else. I'm talking actual combat systems. I can also appreciate a million stats that each affect different skills, like accuracy with a bow or the strenth of a magic missile (for proper attacking of the darkness). That's not really strategy though. Those are statistics. Magic: The Gathering (which I have to say I DO actually have a deck of) gives an example of real strategy, and that's got basically two statistics and somewhat simplistic rules. What matters there is clever effects where you can be all like at 1 life point and after activating a series (of tubes) special effects, you can be all "and with THAT in effect, THIS, nullifying everything you did and turning THAT against you". I've never done that in Neverwinter Nights. In that game, it really was all about boosting my statistics in various fields using various equipment to get an edge in battle. Traps set before the battle, which may not even take place due to them, don't really count. Getting the drop with stealth for an initial attack is "cute" but I was doing that in Earthbound, I was doing that in Final Fantasy with certain equipment. That's not strategy.

Okay, let me put it this way. Maybe Neverwinter Nights should also be excluded from the list. I'll admit, I haven't played either of the Fallout games (watched a friend play a little of the beginning, though that doesn't really count).

Quote:Looking at Chess again, that game has a lot of strategy and has almost no rules to it. A massive rule book doesn't necessarily make for a better, or more "in depth" game, except in the sense that it has a lot of rules. By the same token you can end up with a surprising level of depth with some basic rules so long as there is a lot of ways to vary those rules and stuff that totally violates those rules. Why not have abilities that defy the rules? It makes things more interesting if you have a pawn that can, for no good reason, change into a queen.

Quote:I would have been bored from the very first Japanese RPG I played if there wasn't involved strategy I had to come up with to win. I really don't think you are playing them the right way. I think you are just sorta power leveling. You describe a "grind" but in something like Final Fantasy (for the most part) or Chrono Trigger, I never really had to grind. Further, if you never went on side quests, I'm not surpriused you never found the armor with special effects. For example, and I know you love this form of strategy, there's the stuff that cuts all elemental attacks by 50%, or absorbs one specific element, or a sword that gets a critical strike 70% of the time, or one that drains MP to do 4x damage instead of 2x during a critical strike, or something that makes you undead, meaning instant death spells heal them completely, but you can't use party-wide cure effects any more.

Quote:Describe to me a scenario with deeply involved strategy in one of those games. Basically I'm saying I may have been playing these games "all wrong", a possibility you should consider when it comes to console RPGs. It sounds like you never once actually thought through a battle and just hit the "attack" command over and over again.

Quote:Interesting... It is unfortunate I can't find these games anywhere. I would hope Sierra would eventually release a box set, but considering what that meant with the various Quest collections, they'll likely phone it in again...

Quote:The thing is, Steam's there. They can do the full port job and sell it to pretty much everyone with very little cost to them. Now, the thing I hate about Steam is the need to connect online to play any game, even if it's single player. I understand it's a copyright protection scheme, it's just annoying when I take my laptop out and about and still need an online connection, but generally speaking I am within range of some wifi access point so most of the time I at least can still play these games.