Edge gaming city by Gary Lucken

Warning! You’re about to read a very long post about me rambling about gaming consoles. Please be careful not to overly exhaust yourself while reading. Reader discretion is advised…
So if you’re following me on Twitter or Facebook (which is very likely), you might’ve noticed I’ve been talking about gaming consoles, mostly about the differences between PS3 and Xbox360. The reason is I’m looking for something to play some games on, since the Mac still isn’t the ideal gaming rig they want you to believe. Even though there’s nothing wrong with the hardware, most ‘hard core’ games still require me to switch over to Windows on boot camp, which is kinda annoying.

Now my history with gaming consoles is quite rocky, as you could’ve read from earlier posts on my blog. In short: I had a CD-I player, which was old and compared to other devices from Nintendo and Sony, just under par as gaming device, next I had an Xbox, which just felt like one huge mistake to buy since I could barely find any games which appealed to me, and Xbox360 was announced not long after I bought it and Microsoft just completely dumped the original Xbox after the 360 came out, and now I’ve got a Wii, which is pretty much collecting dust. Yes, the new Zelda is out, but I never had any history with any other Zelda game, so I don’t really care.

However, today the situation is a bit different. I’m older, games improved immensely since the days of CD-I, and there’s actually several ‘hard core’ games now I really think they’re great, but just not out on PC for several reasons. The question is, which platform to choose?

Now I’m not even going to start with Wii U. The Wii is probably the first and last Nintendo console I’ll ever own. I mean I had fun with it, but eventually the waggling around just gets old and gimmicky, it’s crap with third party support and online gaming, and this is probably not going to change in the future. As far is known with Wii U it just seems like it’s a Wii with slightly better graphics and a freak accident between a Wii controller and a Nintendo DS. So case closed on that one.

So it’s really between Xbox360 and Playstation 3. Throughout the years there’s been a lot of arguing about which one is better, mostly in flame wars by fanboys. So I’ve tried to research both platforms on things I really want in a console, but without relying too much on average gamer reviews. This is mostly because I’m not your average gamer: I don’t really like to spend my free time to relax after a long day of work by shooting down soldiers/zombies/aliens/monsters in the most bloody and awful way possible. In fact I don’t really get most people who do. Yet most games these days pretty much revolve on killing <InsertHorribleThingsHere>. But if you look at both console exclusives with that in mind, the 360 comes forward as your friendly killing simulator, while the PS3 gladly gives you nice alternatives in other aspects of gaming, sometimes even in very experimental and creative forms. Just think of games like Little Big Planet, Heavy Rain, Flower and Echochrome. I just can’t find stuff like that on the Xbox, since Americans apparently just prefer to shoot stuff or move in very silly ways in front of their TV set.

Mind you, the Xbox360 has got its own perks. It provides a better online gaming experience, multi platform games usually just look better on it, the console interface looks a bit friendlier and the avatars are a fun and quirky way to express yourself towards your friends. It’s also a lot more social. The 360 does a much better job in connecting friends with each other with things like cross-game voice chat, integrated profiles across the platform and connectivity with Facebook and Twitter. Plus, most people just have an Xbox360 over a PS3. You’re more likely to find your friends on Xbox instead of PS3. That said, I just don’t like to pay an additional charge for doing anything online. You never have to do this on any other platform, so why do it now? Yes, it might be more reliable compared to PSN, but in this case I prefer to be frugal: I’ve got enough other things I need to spend on a regular basis.

Then there’s the whole motion control thing, which seems to be all the rage now. So far it only seems popular with dancing games and gimmicky mini-games. The technology behind Kinect does seem to be superior over Playstation Move, but I don’t have the astronomical space needed to use Kinect properly, plus I don’t like to put a thing the size of an aircraft carrier on top of my TV in order to catch some red balls on a screen. And with Move it just looks like you’re waggling a glowing rave stick, which to me makes it hardly any more immersive to play games compared to mashing buttons on a controller.
So far, motion controlled gaming never really took off beyond being fun for a while as a gimmick. And my prediction is that it’ll stay a gimmick until gaming really becomes fully immersive, which won’t happen for a while… (Playstation 9 anyone?)

So in conclusion, my preference still goes towards Playstation 3. The 360 has a lot going for it (better online, more social, nice interface), but in the end the PS3 just got nicer games. Especially this year had been a pretty lousy one for 360 exclusive titles, with nearly all them as gimmicky Kinect titles, while PS3 still went strong with titles like Uncharted, Resistance and InFamous. Now I haven’t made my decision just yet, but I think I have an idea what I’m getting for Christmas this year… ;-)