Wednesday 24 June 2015

I loved my PC. But I don't regret ditching it for consoles.

I loved gaming on PC. My rig was never monstrous in the spec dept, amd CPU + gtx 770, but it gave me a good year or so playing most AAA games. Games that ran far better and far more beautiful than they did on the consoles I was used to. In most cases the step up to native 1080p was enough to put my Xbox one games to shame and, for framerate, it was always just too buttery smooth for even my ps4.

But they were the well optimised games. The best case scenario if you will.

Then there were games that came along , less well optimised, from lazy developers unwilling to shape code sufficient to make a PC rig sing. Games like Assassins creed Unity. A game so horridly ported, so slapped together with no regard for quality, that it's only equal in example was astonishingly the same Publishers prior game.

Both Watch dogs and Assassins creed do not, by any means, stand alone as far as terrible PC ports go, but they are great flag bearers for the cause. We have two games from the same publisher that stutter and chug so much that framerate on most rigs are reduced to mere slideshows. Games that send even the most PC elitest sprinting for the lowest setting like Usain Bolt for Virgin media cash. No, these games are truly hideous and borked to such degree that even slinging the world's only true proven saviours fix all for PC problems at it, the wallet, is not enough to drag these games much north of a steady 30fps +.

It was because of games like that, I packed in PC gaming a while ago and headed back to the welcoming bussoms of Microsoft and Sony -  Companies that both only want me for my cash but are at least willing to offer me the allure of a steady fps to get it.

I miss 'good' PC gaming. I miss the money I saved on cheaper Steam games. I especially miss those little graphical extras you get in games. Like fur on the animals in far cry 4 or the great tessellation in GTA v. And especially envious of the way PC Geralts ponytails bobs and weaves in the wind.

But I can't go back. I can't because of games like Arkham knight.
If there'd been any game that brought me back it would have been that one. I was tempted. I'm a big Batman fan and I was as impressed by Nvidias touted gamesworks visual feature as the next guy. But I stuck with my PS4 preorder. I'm glad I did. Buying Arkham knight at launch for PC would have been a gamble. It could have been a really good port. In which case the added graphics features would have made the definitive place to experience Rocksteady's swansong.

But it wasn't a good port and that makes me sad. Sad for people out there who still have a that passion for PC gaming. I know what it's like to look forward to a new release just end up bitterly disappointed and I feel for those gamers who waited up till midnight to play there new game the moment it unlocked on Steam just to find a yet another lazy half hearted 5fps port.

I don't regret going back to consoles. I'm enjoying Arkham knight on PS4 and even though it may not run at 60fps or have Nvidias enhanced rain drops, its still clear that it was the focus of Rocksteady's attention and as such is a really solid experience.

So in summery, yeah I miss my PC. But not that much. As long as there are PC Ports like Arkham or creed in the world - I'm better off where I am.

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