Gamespy's 'Top 10 Ways to Know You're a PC Snob'

[A Black Falcon]

Good article... my opinion on each point is after the quote. :)

http://www.gamespy.com/articles/780/780989p1.html

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!

10. Absolutely true. "800x600 desktop", you say? Bah, that's just the desktop. For games that support it natively I always played at resolutions higher than that. 1024x768 most of the time, due to framerate issues. Even there though, you've got a higher resolution than "720p", much less pitiful 480i... as they say, even old DOS stuff looks better. All it takes is 320x240 resolution to equal the quality of a TV (because it's not interlaced on a superior PC monitor), or 640x480 for one twice as good... :)

9. True for FPSes, that's for sure. Gamepads are better for games like platformers, arcade racing games, fighting games, etc, though, so I've had gamepads for my PC ever since 1995. So I don't quite agree on this one. And besides, I've never been a big FPS fan...

8. Yup, no question. The main thing keeping me from upgrading my PC much more frequently has been money, but now I have a nice new one, so that's settled for some time now. And I do have 600GB of HDD space... :)

7. Nah... Molyneux is about on par with those other two, probably, and Wright isn't better than Miyamoto. He is good though.

6. Don't agree there obviously, otherwise what have I been doing at a Nintendo site for this long? :)

5. This one is absolutely true, though. Console games are console games (and simpler) and PC games are PC games (and more complex). I like both kinds. PC games started console-izing in the late '90s, and it accelerated in the last six or seven years. It's gotten pretty bad... from Baldur's Gate to Knights of the Old Republic or from the first Rainbow Six game to the more recent ones, the sad impact of consolization has been felt hard in the PC gaming industry. :(

4. This is part of #5, pretty much (for why so many fewer of these games are around these days), but is also absolutely true. TIE Fighter is a more complex flight simulation than any console flight game I've ever seen, and that's just a space sim!

3. Yup. See: Windows Live and how it will (should) fail.

2. Obviously not, I have both. (And yes, handhelds are consoles. Saying that because I've been playing PC games since late (December?) 1991, handheld games (GB) since Christmas 1994 (if my memory is correct), and major-console (N64 first) games since September 1999... but I consider handhelds to be consoles, so I've been playing handheld games for almost as long as I have computer ones, if not quite as long. :))

1. Not quite, but I do like PCs more. Getting this new one has reminded me of why I like PC games... suddenly, I can actually PLAY most of the games made in the last few years again like I used to be able to! :)