The following post originated on another site. I made the post there, and I later made this page to try to draw a larger audience.  The site in question should not have any issues with me posting this here.  I have heavily edited it anyway, so it really bears little resemblance to the original post. I am just trying to help *Newbies* to understand why I am so hostile to consoles and the newest generations of gamers.

Warning:
Just a warning in advance. This is a rant. I will not hold back. I will say things that some of you reading this will find offensive. I am sorry if you are offended, but that does not change my opinions.

The Subject is Games: Modern Games Verses *Real* Games

Games. They have existed from the time someone thought they could throw a stone farther or with more accuracy than another. And as they improved, they changed form too.

Now we have video games in a variety of forms. I will stick to the PC for this rant.

PC games are always better than console games so long as they are made with care. Console ports are almost always plain garbage. Console ports are just another term for “Too lazy to bother with fixing the glaring holes in the game”.

My sword is big and makes me feel like a man.

Let us talk about what makes a good game actually good. It is not eye-candy. It is not voice-acting. It is not shiny and sparkly armors and weapons. As a matter of fact, if the end user is not an idiot, they can derive much enjoyment from an immersive game that may not even have graphics or sound at all.

If you are one who only plays games that have the above listed crud, then I really pity you. Give me a nice Roguelike instead of the latest graphical spasm-fest any-day.

Do not misunderstand. I like graphical games too, but not if that is all they really offer. Most graphical games in the last decade are playable successfully while half-asleep. I want a game that actually makes me think. No, not just think of how it looks or sounds or if the lips sync with the voice-acting. I want to have to utilize my creativity. I want to have to think as my character would. I want to play a game with a world that reacts to me. Not just some dumb script that looks at my character statistics and places enemies that are somehow still mildly challenging. I want to have time to decide on a strategy and I want it to be something more involved than choosing between a few good weapons or skills.

Double Facepalm for Console Graphics.

I want a game that will make me prove I am not a button-mashing zombie. I want a game with more than one way to achieve victory. And victory does not have to make you a God or something. Victory could be achieving a fragile peace between warring groups. It could mean killing one powerful foe. It could mean anything if the developers have a brain and choose to use it.

Controls:

For the PC, I use a keyboard and trackball. I do not want another controller that belongs to consoles. I can turn 360 degrees and headshot anything in sight with my trackball. (I can actually take a second and pick exactly what pixel to aim at.) Why should I downgrade to something that can not do that even for the best of players?

People use controllers because they are accustomed to it. People use antiquated appliances around the house for exactly the same reason. Most people look upon this as a dumb practice. They can use what they want though. I am supremely happy with my keyboard and trackball. How many buttons do you have on your controller? I laugh at the limitations that puts on developers. PC games have no less than 101 keys on the keyboard to use any way that makes sense to the user.
Back to Eye-Candy:

Even the best console games offer so-called “High Definition” video and audio that almost always looks like a budget PC would. A nice gaming rig can really make you wonder if it is a cinematic scene you just watched… While you are actually playing the game, not in a cut-scene. On the PC, you choose what resolution you will play at. You choose all the graphical settings. Consoles do not even offer the choice of how many passes of Anisotropic Filtering or Antialiasing you can have, much less what TYPE of Antialiasing to use.

There are few things that irritate me as much as ignorant children who think they know something about “Gaming” because they have a modern console system or a steam account on their laptop. Consoles are not for people who think. They are for people who do not want to have to think. You press a button and the tray pops out. You put the disc in and close the tray and the game starts. You have earned an achievement by doing that… Lol.

Fable Disgusts me.

Real games are not even known by most people playing modern games. One of my favorites, Dungeon Master 2, was released on the PC and the Amiga back in it’s day. That was a game where you really had to think a bit to figure everything out.

(Check THIS LINK for Return to Chaos. It allows you to play all the Dungeon Master games beautifully reconstructed in a modern shell so you can avoid the hassle of messing with DOSBox)

Be sure to visit the forums in the RTC link to find the additional modules that contain all the user-made games.

The Best Game Ever Made:

My absolute favorite, and the game I played for several solid years, was Nethack. I have managed several ascensions. My first took two years of daily play. If you even know what I mean and the significance of it than I salute you.

Tell me a game that has more depth? That is more stable? That offers more choices? That can be replayed as well and as many times without going insane from playing it? Slash’EM is the Nethack variant I enjoyed the most. (Upwards of 75% of my play time for Nethack was actually used in Slash’EM, and all but two of my Ascensions were in Slash’EM)

Let me test you with one word. Demogorgon. If you know the name then you do not even need the explanation. Half my characters who got that far died the same exact way despite my personal rule to never go there without a few rather obvious items. I can spell out my Demogorgon kit from memory without so much as a second to recall. Any race and class had the same Demogorgon kit. And there is a complex strategy to use for this encounter too. I will not spoil it for you, but I still died there hundreds of times. Each required no less than a few days of solid gameplay.

THAT was a game with depth. You were immersed, or you were dead. Twitch-gamers never even figure out the interface. Every darned key on the keyboard had a purpose. A real purpose. Not just something thrown in for the heck of it.

Slash'EM Towel Head

If you try Slash’EM, take my advice after you start to figure things out. Disable Soldiers and Captains and Lieutenants. They will kill you with RPGs that are in no way fair. That is one of my biggest gripes about Slash’EM over Nethack.

Nethack taught me that although graphics and sounds are nice, they are NOT the game. Real games sadly do not make money for the developers. They take too long to make, and by the time they are ready, the developers could have made and sold dozens of garbage games that the twitchies will gladly buy so they can whine that “The Armor does not have enough sparkles” or “I heard them talking, but the lips were not perfectly synced” or something equally pointless.

Yes. You can have Shinies on the very surface of your precious Console.

Do people (in general) really care more for lip-syncing and graphics than something that makes them think and is fun?
Does anyone remember X-Com? How about the Wizardry series? The Ultima series before the seventh? Are all the good ideas and games forgotten so soon?
I still play modern PC games. I even enjoy the nice graphics and the voice acting. But I could entirely overlook that for a good game. And there are few in the making for the reasons I listed above.

I have never played WoW. I saw an advertisement that told me everything I needed to know. “This game is not for you.” I never bother with anything that looks like all shinies and sparkles. They all end up the same. They suck. Period. If a game has a nice idea or a new concept then I am interested. That interest usually ends up with me finding that it is a clone of another awful game and the nice idea was just that.

OOOOOh! Shinies!

This is the end…. My lonely Friend, the end….

This rant has been coming since the Amiga days. Please do not take it too seriously. I do not intend offense. This is just a rant to vent my extreme hostility towards a gaming world that has *Expletive Deleted* me too many times.

As always, I wish you well, and I thank you for reading my rant. 🙂

Now, a few additions. What do you think? Are you highly offended that someone would have the audacity to belittle your precious console? Then, if you can manage to give me some of the other side, I would be pleased to hear it. If all you can manage is to say that I am wrong, feel free, but no-one will pay any heed to that sort of thing. Try to tell me the strengths of the various consoles. And, please… Graphics is not a strength for consoles. I can play GTA4 on PC with graphical details and view-distances that would mock all existing consoles into the hole they scurried out from. (Forgive the term, but it is true)

By the way, this is my first post and the only time I have every used WordPress. (I am learning) So please be gentle with me. 🙂

Reply below! I would love to hear from you. Even if you only want to insult me. A well worded insult shows you actually read some of this article.
Check out Slash’EM. If you look, (And ask Google) I bet you can find versions that will run on your phone too. (With limited function or complex controls)