Demos

This week is low on notable releases, but that doesn't mean nothing is going on! You know what I'm talking about! The Battlefield 2 demo is available for download, and it is absolutely amazing! This demo has it all: stupendous graphics, voice-over-ip chat, and fantastic multiplayer levels! Everything a modern Battlefield player could want is included. If you haven't seen it yet, what are you waiting for? Download it now, and play one what is sure to be one of the best games of the year! The only thing better than this demo is the full game!

Thanks for the Diagnosis, but I'd Like Another Opinion

The argument plays out like a scene from Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail, the one where the son wants his father (who is quite alive) carted off with the dead. Despite the father's protests, the son insists that the father would be dead soon anyway, and should be carted off to save time. This is what plays in my mind whenever people talk about how PC gaming is dead, despite all evidence of the contrary. The argument appears and disappears at regular intervals, particular during dry spells for releases, and especially when a new generation of consoles is shown at E3, when the graphical might of these machines either match or surpass those of a PC.

Why does this always happen? They said that Halo would take first-person shooters away from the PC. This has not happened. Some also said that consoles would take the MMO genre away when EverQuest and Final Fantasy XI were released. That didn't happen either, but thanks for the laughs. Where do these doomsayers come from? Why are they so anxious to predict the death of a platform, especially one that actually has very little to do with consoles? Is it because there have already been a number of consoles that have died, and the long-standing PC has somehow been immune? Are they angry at the blue screen of death, patch/driver tracking, or not having the money to upgrade? Maybe it's because the 90's are over, and with it, the golden age of PC gaming, so they don't feel right with it hanging around.

While it is true that the next generation of consoles will incorporate many of the aspects associated with PC gaming such as high-end graphics and online play, saying that these things alone will destroy the PC market is simply ridiculous and misses the whole point of what makes gaming fun in the first place. When the PS2 was first released, its power surpassed that of the PC, and doomsayers predicted that it would collapse the PC games market. Not only did it not happen, but it wasn't long before people were instead talking about one of the most popular and innovative games of all time: The Sims. A game, I might add, that has had numerous expansion packs, which kept it going almost until the sequel was released four years later.

Whenever people talk about hardcore PC gamers, they imagine a guy who goes out and spends thousands of dollars on the latest technology just so he can squeeze an extra two frames per second out of the latest first-person shooter. Don't get me wrong, they exist, but not in the way many people think they do. If the argument is that the average person can afford to purchase a $400 video card every six months, then the answer is simple: They don't. Imagining the whole PC gaming community jumping up and ordering a new video card every few months is as preposterous as believing that every prospective PS3 owner is going to jump up and buy two HDTV's right now simply because the console can support it. No video card is supported to its fullest capability when it is first released, so more often than not, people wait for the price to drop before upgrading, or when a significant enough title warrants it, which are actually very few. Normally, the most significant price drops occur when a more powerful card is released, so a short development cycle is almost preferred in a twisted sort of way.

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