For most mortals of the ’80s, personal computers were ethereal devices owned by others, never by us. It’s cool, though. We all had an NES, and the NES had plenty of great PC ports that sacrificed surprisingly little in moving to a device with a five-button controller. Godspeed, Maniac Mansion.
Ah, PC games vs Console games, the eternal war.
A point of significant personal frustration for me is knowing that a few PC-based games I own or want to own are flatly than they could have been because they had to run on an XBox or whatever. Hey, Borderlands, I’m looking at your incredibly awful excuse for a “menu” system as a prime example.
Risen is another good example; Oblivion, Fallout 3, Gothic 4… this entire genre, really, could benefit from being designed exclusively for the platform that best fits its strengths.
Interesting article, but just one quibble: Jake says that this contempt has given us Halo and Civilization Revolution like that’s a bad thing. Halo is one of the few FPS I’ve played, so I’m not really qualified to compare it to alternatives even though I enjoyed it. But I am qualified to comment on CivRev, and I love it. I love that it’s stripped down to its most interesting bits and I love that I can micromanage to my hearts content and finish a game in 4 hours instead of the 15-20 it takes me in Civ4. If only the AI were smarter and less predictable, it would be my favorite Civ game.
Maybe I’m just a dumb console gamer though. I don’t even play the “real” consoles anymore–just DS and PSP for me for the last few years.
Oh, I’m not bashing them. CivRev actually fills the incredibly important niche in the world of being an introductory version of Civ for beginners, which needed doing bad. I’m just picking on the mindset that CivRev is needed For Console Owners, because their puny minds can’t comprehend the complexities of Civ 4, while anyone who owns a PC will find it to come as naturally as breathing.
Thanks for the response! I do see your point and am sure that this line of reasoning has affected the games we see on each platform. I just also think that there are other motivations besides “console players are too dumb” for making more streamlined versions of complex PC games for consoles.
I’ve logged tons of hours in Civ 2, 3, and 4 (in other words, I’m not a beginner in need of an introduction), but I still like CivRev for giving me a similar experience in a shorter, tighter package that fits in my pocket. Although these types of streamlined games could usually be done equally well on PCs, the reverse isn’t always true just because of the drastically different interfaces (and in some cases, like my DS, much weaker specs).
you mean to say that all the interesting bits are stripped out, right? cause there’s nothing redeemable about a game where you’re stuck on tiny ass maps and can only win through combat, and where workers and city development is taken out entirely.
No, in fact that’s not what I mean to say. And I win on deity all the time with only defensive military units.
Hate to say it, but MULE did receive more than just graphical changes in its conversion to the NES. Mindscape also completely altered the town square into a sidescrolling format, compared to the original’s overhead view. In my opinion, this crippled a critical aspect of the game’s pacing. Just a heads-up.