Halo sucks? and Next-gen Consoles vs PCs

For some random reason, I decided to google "Halo sucks" today. Wow. Seems that fans have a negative mirror image of haters. This doesn't surprise me, because I used to think "Halo is SOOO dumb." It drove me nuts when a bunch of people would end up at my house on Thursday nights to shoot each other up.

However, I finally got sucked in. I had nothing better to do late at night, so I joined in. Naturally, I was massacred. I was not one for FPS games, but for some reason the competition level was way more intense than the Counterstrike sessions we used to have. Personally, I think the advantage Halo has over most FPS games is that you can throw grenades without switching your weapon out. That changes EVERYTHING, and is a bit closer to reality.

Actually, I didn't buy an Xbox until I played Halo 2. There's no comparison to Halo 1. Dual-wielding, locking rockets, more vehicles, elites, swords, and better graphics...why the hell would anyone still bother with Halo 1? Not to mention that online multiplayer is fast and efficient. I hated surfing game rooms with the computer to try to find a good one (i.e. Counterstrike, AVP2). Not to mention someone is ALWAYS available as an opponent. Play whenever you want.

These are features that Halo-haters and PC-Elitists miss. There are Halo1-Elitsts, but I don't understand them at all. Sure, Halo 1 was fun, but it doesn't compare. As far as Halo 2 taking "less" skill, I'll never understand that either. Sure, I loved the fact you can Melee from 10 ft away in Halo 1, the grenades had no arc, and you don't have to worry about the assault rifle moving when you pull the trigger. But does that make Halo 1 take less skill?

This brings up another interesting topic: Next-gen consoles. From what we know about the 3 Next-gen systems, they will all be comparable to the current hi-end PCs available. Does this mean PC-Elists will have to STFU since they whine about specs all day? And they totally negate the fact that they waste CPU cycles and memory on the Windows or Linux running in the background whereas the consoles use almost all available resources just for the game? I think these guys should subtract the minimum requirements for their OS from their PCs specs, and they will be semi closer to the reality of the power of their PCs.

This doesn't mean I hate PCs. PCs are great; I work on them all day. What I don't like is PC gaming. The requirements always differ, which is annoying. Memory and hard drives are cheap, but a quality video card costs just as much as a new console. With a console, you almost NEVER have to worry about hardware requirements. That's convenient. Not to mention that you don't have to wait for your OS to load. Although consoles get hacked-a-plenty, I guarantee that it is a much worse situation on PCs. Should I mention that you don't have to worry about turning off your antivirus program to run a game?

What is good about PC Gaming? Your hardware is upgradeable. Currently, most games support Keyboard and Mouse (this will most likely be available for the Next Gen consoles however). With $200+ video card, the graphics are stellar. You can use multiple screens (although most games don't support it...but the PS3 is going to). There is a lot more online games. Patches are available for bugs.

All that is great, but not necessary to play a good game. In my mind, consoles will always be a better experience. Turn your system on, put in the game, and play. No extra steps, no hardware concerns, no conflicting software problems.

For fun: For the person out there accusing all console-supporters of not knowing what "Hello, World" is because they are computer-stupid, here you go:

10 PRINT"Hello, world!"
15 REM STFU, not all console gamers are computer noobs.
20 END

There you go, Commodore 64 BASIC style. I could do it in C, C++, Java, Pascal, Delphi, and Visual Basic or even an Oracle stored procedure if you really want me to.