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At E3 this year both Sony and Microsoft showed off their new console offerings for the holiday season. Sony unveiled the Play Station 4 while Microsoft showed off the X-Box One. And the moment the X-Box One presentation was over, the fans on the Internet had kittens. Mostly because the X-Box One has some pretty hefty requirements to run it. First, you need at least a 3.0 Mb high speed internet connection to just make the darn thing work and hook it up to the Microsoft Servers. Who here in the states has a 3.0Mb internet connection? I know that we don't here. We are maybe on a good day running 1.5Mb or less. Plus the whole thing is going to be connected to the router via an 802.11n connection. While that is the most modern wireless connection, you are not going to be able to get good speed going unless the router is right next to the console. That was the good thing about the 360. It was a standalone console that did not require an always on internet connection other than if you wanted to play multiplayer games with friends or get DLC. The real kicker is the price of the PS4 versus the X-Box One. The PS4 is $399, which, while expensive is $100 less than the X-Box One's $499. I don't think I have seen a console that expensive since the Atari Jaguar back in the mid to late 90's.
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It seems that earlier this year the internet console gaming community was up in arms because some of the stuff that they showed in the previews online and the commercials for the game 'Aliens Colonial Marines' was nothing like the actual game play. All I have to say is "well duh" everything that companies show in most previews for video games are usually the cut scenes in the game while showing very little in terms of game play. This is to show off the cool stuff while not actually showing the gamers anything about the game. This is how they get the hype going for the game without actually showing you how a game is. I must admit that I was nearly sucked into buying the game from seeing the stuff that they showed in commercials. I was almost sucked in for two reasons. First, I have really wanted to play any kind of video game in the Aliens universe where you could play a Colonial Marine. There have been games that focused on the Aliens and the Predator, but very few about the marines. Second, I saw the commercial for the game on television and then saw a longer version on YouTube that same day. The game was due out on my birthday of this year. I basically became a frothing at the mouth fanboy and said "DO WANT!" I was in luck because we own an X-Box 360 and that was one of three systems that the game was available on (the other two being the PS3 and the PC). Why no WiiU? According to Wikipedia the game was to be released on the WiiU on April 5 but was ultimately cancelled. I go through all this and then I realized that I only had $19 in my bank account and that I had to make that last to the end of the month. The months came and went with me going through a jewelry making class, and I had forgotten entirely about buying the game until I stumbled across something on Cracked.com that led me to YouTube and to a video with some British guy complaining about the quality of the graphics of the game versus what was shown early on before the game was released. I'd include a link to the video, but I only managed to get through about two minutes of the six minute video before I wanted to either punch through my laptop screen or mute the whole dang thing until the video ended. I ultimately settled on option three and that is closing the computer window and going downstairs to play with my nephew. I don't think they show prisoners in Guantanamo Bay that video because it is so irritating and would violate all sorts of torture rules.
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IThe catalyst for me writing this article was that back in the middle part of June I decided to try to get back in the MMORPG world once again. For a while a few years ago I became involved in World of Warcraft, but that ultimately got old and really boring fast. There was also the whole thing about having to download a 3 gig patch to make the game run. I have had dalliances in other MMO's like City of Heroes/City of Villains after that, but that came and went at about the same rate as World of Warcraft. What really got me going was that I wanted to become involved in the Star Trek Online game. I mean after all it is Star Trek and I do like the idea of flying around in my own starship and blowing the heck out of the Borg. There's also a sort of away team element to the game as well, and I am not 100% sold on that part of the game. As I was doing my research on the game I found that STO was 100% free to play and download. This meant that I would not have to schlep down to somewhere like Target or Best Buy to get the game and then come home and install it. Going to the web site "Can You Run IT" I found out that my laptop would not be able to run the game at all. Yes my laptop is 4 years old, and cannot run the new hotness in computer games, but it is perfectly fine for what I need it to do. This left me with a dilemma. I could either save over a span of about six months and buy a new laptop and have to put up with the hassle of waiting in a Black Friday line to buy a laptop with Windows 8, I could take the same money I saved in those same six months and build my own desktop. I have built several of my own desktops out of parts since 1997, but I don't think where I would be using it would be conducive to a good airflow to keep the thing cool. After weighing everything out I finally said to myself, "screw it" and just wait two months to buy an X-Box 360 or PS3. Why a console versus a PC. First, you don't have to constantly be upgrading your video card, memory and other necessary parts to run a new game pretty much every year. This latest generation of consoles (X-Box 360 and PS3) lasted the better part of eight years before you would have to buy an X-Box One or PS4. Even then the companies will still be cranking out games for the previous generation of consoles for a couple of years after that before they make the transition to the new console. A console is better for gaming because there are many games that are exclusive to consoles that are not available on the PC. Most of the games on the computer are just MMO's or simulators that really are a time and money suck. Yes there are shooters for the PC as well, but having to memorize which key on a keyboard does what early on really sucks. On a console you have a controller with eight buttons (maximum) to do things in the game and that is all so you do not have to worry about putting mileage on your keyboard.
That's all I have for this month. I promise that next month I should have the next part of my reading the New 52 Trades in alphabetical order. I'll be 'Blue Beetle' through 'Green Lantern New Guardians'.
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