Console or PC?

If you game at all you've got an opinion on this matter. Some people can't imagine playing on anything less than a powerhouse PC with their mouse in one hand and a keyboard firmly under the other. Others just don't think the experience is complete unless they have a controller in their hands and are comfortably planted on their couch. Me you ask? I'm a console gamer through and through and right now I'm a big fan of the 360.

Now don't get me wrong, I game on my PC too and sometimes it's the best option, those flash games can kill a lot of time in a big hurry, and I've recently become a Steam user, but that's something for another day. I've come to believe that my hands were just engineered to use a controller and nothing else will do.

I come from the first generation of console gamers, (I never owned Pong, but I knew people who did) I got my Atari 2600 back in 1983 and man what a blast that was, at least for a year or two; even then those games only entertained for so long. Move the clock forward a few years and I rolled into my NES, I tell ya if you don't remember that time then you can't imagine how that sucker blew peoples minds. The concept of the 8 bit graphic allowed actual people to be on the screen for the first time and opened up a massive franchise of games, some very god ones too. A little bit later the SNES came along, and I have to say that the SNES had some of the finest co-op player games ever. M co-writer Darcy wasted many an hour playing Street Fighter on that one.

Not many years after that the home PC came along, but at that time the internet wasn't a big thing yet and I couldn't justify spending the money to play games that my Playstation would play, plus I wasn't a keyboarder yet so why would I give up that wonderful batterang style controller that Sony created. Fast forward a bit more and we were looking at the Xbox, a really solid console, and the PS2, probably the most prolific console the world has ever seen. Now by this time I was getting into computers, but I still couldn't justify going PC over top of my consoles, I was married to that controller.

Which brings us to the modern world. I have a decent PC in my office, my laptop is a few years old but will play some older games really nicely and conveniently, but you know what? 80% of my gaming time is spent in from of my TV with either my 360 or PS3; I have a Wii too but that's also a story for another day. And do you know what it is that keeps me married to my consoles? Well I'm glad I asked so here you go:

When you buy a console today you know that any game they make this year r the next year or the year after that is going to be able to play on that console. You don't have to worry about your video card not supporting the shading required for the new games or running out of hard drive space to install your games, or catching a virus and not being able to play games. This doesn't mean that the consoles are infallible, let's not forget the 360 RROD, but it does make for less worry, less upgrades, and more time shooting bad guys.

And let's talk about the recurring theme for a minute, controllers. The 2600 used a joystick or a paddle; I had the jet fighter joystick with the molded grip handle and the fire button on the top, man that rocked. The NES and SNES had essentially the same controller, flat with a directional arrow and a couple of buttons; the Playstation controller gave us the basic design for modern controllers, two handed full grips with triggers for each hand; the original still used the directional pad and later moved to the dual analog sticks. That brought us to the modern units with enough buttons to be confusing if you don't pay attention and for me that's worth it right there, the thought and design that go into making a controller interface that is efficient and intuitive. Yes the mouse gives you fine control on First Person Shooters but there's no elegance to the interface, and I'll take quality and elegance every time.

I guess the question you have is "Why should I care?" In truth you don't have to but here's the moral of this story: I plan to give many reviews and opinions in the future and I figure I should let you, the dear reader, know something about what makes me tick and how I make my decisions and form my opinions. Let the word go from this point on, I like consoles. Happy gaming!