Crtic scores vs user scores - which is more reliable?

At first glance, this might seem like an unnecessary post because most gamers would immediately say they decide the purchase of a game based on the review by their favorite gaming site or sites. But wait! Its not as simple as that. Critic review scores do not always indicate how good or bad a game is. More often than not, user scores are better indicators of the quality of games.

Most people don't give much importance to user reviews and scores, and dismiss them as 'angry rants of whiny gamers'. Agreed, user reviews tend to be more negative and hard hitting than professional critic reviews. But they're also much more honest. There are several aspects which need to be considered here.

Professional reviewers are paid to rate and review games, and are often required to follow certain formats. They tend to focus a lot on the minute details, and often fail to properly judge the 'enjoyability' of the game as a whole. As a result of this, most professional review scores only indicate how 'perfect' the game is (usually on a scale of 10 or 100), rather than how 'enjoyable' it is. A technically advanced game with dull gameplay is likely to get a higher professional score (Crysis 3 is the best example of this) than a technically flawed but immensely enjoyable game (such as Deadly Premonition). But user reviews and scores are usually based purely on the enjoyability quotient of the game, because users aren't paid to go into the technical aspects and most gamers aren't even aware of these little details. We as gamers obviously want enjoyable games more than technically perfect games, so it would definitely make more sense to go by user scores rather than critic scores. Its a no-brainer, really.

Another notable aspect to consider, is the average scores of several professional reviews and user scores. That would help you take a better decision about a game's purchase (after all, games don't come cheap anymore, at least at launch). Sites like Metacritic and Gamerankings are your go-to sources for average scores. But even while considering the average, it is generally a better idea to give a higher priority to average user score than the average critic score. To illustrate this, consider the last few Call of Duty games. There is an extremely high discrepancy between the average critic and user scores on metacritic (with the critic scores being much higher than user scores), and in reality most gamers haven't really liked these games. Hence, the average user score is definitely more accurate in this context.

Considering the fact that most AAA games in recent years have been duds and games don't exactly come cheap, it would be wise to do your homework before spending your hard earned cash on a game purchase. But you can afford to take risks with Indie games, because they're often much cheaper than AAA games and have actually been better than the biggies in recent years.

Something off-topic - It looks like I'm back with a bang after my two-month hiatus, with 3 posts in 2 days!

Planned changes and enhancements

Yeah, I understand that right now this blog is pretty cumbersome to navigate and its not really easy to find the stuff you readers need. I have planned some changes which include, but not limited to, adding proper tags for all posts and dividing the page into sections. It might take some time, because Blogger is somewhat inflexible in this regard (which means I need to make manual modifications to the built-in template and add some custom code). I'm also planning to write reviews for selected games.

I'm hope I can keep my current readers engaged, and at the same time attract new ones too.

Finally, a new gaming rig!

So I'm back, after a hiatus of over two months! Really crappy stuff were going on in my professional and personal life (some issues still remain), but I'm good enough to get back to gaming and writing this blog again!

A little 'accident' (if I might say that) resulted in me getting my hands on a spanking new gaming rig which made me poorer but happier. My naughty 5-year old nephew poured a jug of water into my PC cabinet, which rendered my processor, motherboard, graphics card and power supply (some of the most expensive components) useless. He dealt the same treatment to my keyboard and mouse as well. Surprisingly, my other components (hard disk, optical drive and RAM sticks) survived this brutal assault. I knew it was time to replace the blown components. Thinking in terms of gaming, my PC was due for an upgrade anyway.

Before I describe things further, let me get my new specs out of the way (which includes some older components that still worked):-

• AMD FX 8320 3.5 Ghz 8 core processor
• Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 motherboard
• Sapphire AMD Radeon R9 280x 3GB Dual X graphics card
• Corsair 800W Power Supply
• Corsair Spec-01 cabinet
• Transcend 8GB DDR 3 1333MHhz RAM
• Seagate 1 TB internal hard disk
• Asus DVD writer
• Logitech 5.1 surround speakers
• Western Digital 3TB external had disk
• Viewsonic 21.5 inch 1080p monitor
• Cooler Master Devastator keyboard and mouse combo

The first components I bought, were of course the motherboard and processor. I went for a low end motherboard since I was on a somewhat tight budget. The stock heatsink of this processor was too noisy even under minimal load, and I was aware that it could only get worse (along with much higher temperatures too) once I started playing games. So I had to invest in a decent after-market cooler for the processor. I chose to go with a Cooler Master Hyper TX3 EVO (the only one I could afford), and its doing a pretty decent job of keeping my processor cool without noise. I probably have to invest in a better cooler when I overclock my processor, but then again I'm not likely to overclock it in the near future.

Next, it was time to choose the most important component for a gamer - the graphics card. I did a lot of research, and finally settled for the card mentioned above (Sapphire R9 280x) because that's the only one which fit my budget and also provided splendid performance (actually it crossed by budget a wee bit). This card is pretty power hungry, and I didn't want to skimp on a power supply this time (as I had been doing all these years). So I went for a 800W power supply from Corsair which was an overkill, but definitely future-proof.

Finally, only the keyboard and mouse were left. I had always used standard keyboards and mice, which wouldn't last long. This time I wanted to go for a gaming keyboard and mouse, so that they would last a few years at least with heavy use. I settled for a Cooler Master Devastator keyboard and mouse combo, which offered the best bang for the buck.

With this, I was all set to begin my next chapter in gaming, or rather continue from where I left off but with a ton of improvements. As of now, I'm thoroughly satisfied with my rig, as I'm able to run even the most resource-hungry games (such as Crysis 3 and Wolfenstein: the New Order) at 50+ frames per second on the highest possible settings (1920x1080 resolution). I'm also getting immense benefit due to the increased framerate while playing competitive multi-player games (such as Counter-Strike and Titanfall).

To sum it up, I'm a happy man now because my new monster of a PC is running circles around most games! Stay tuned for my next post, which (hopefully) won't take as long as this one!

Bringing PC exclusives to consoles - boon or bane?

This has been an age-old debate, with both console and PC gamers at loggerheads regarding the matter. So what exactly are the advantages of bringing games or franchises which were perceived as PC exclusives, to consoles? Or is it actually harming the gaming industry in general?

There are several aspects we need to analyze, before we can draw any satisfactory conclusion. The first one would be the profits, of course! Every game maker (or publisher) would obviously increase their profits if a successful PC game (or franchise) is brought to consoles, due to the increased user base. Also, people who only play games on consoles would also get a chance to experience these games. So, this would certainly result in immediate gains, both for the publisher/developer and the console gamers. But when the long term implications are considered, it paints a somewhat different picture.

When porting PC games to consoles, developers need to make a lot of compromises and trade-offs because consoles in general are a lot less powerful compared to gaming PCs. They need to find a balance so that the game performs reasonably well on consoles, while still making it as enjoyable as possible. Its a really tough task, which may sometimes even be unachievable due to the hardware limitations of consoles.

Ok, lets just say the developers did manage to port a PC game to the console along with some compromises, and the console gamers enjoyed it. This results in more game sales, which obviously translates to more profits. The game company gets buoyed by this response, hence they obviously plan the next game in the franchise so that it offers a similar experience to PC and console gamers right out of the box. Since consoles are quite underpowered compared to PCs, they have to develop the game primarily for consoles and then port it to the PC. On the surface, this may not seem like a problem. But doing this would result in a watered-down game for the PC, with only some graphical enhancements compared to console versions. This will surely alienate core fans of the series, which definitely hurts the game-makers in the long run. One way to achieve this without any compromise is to develop two different versions for PC and consoles, but it requires a lot of work and developers often feel that taking this approach would be a waste of their time and resources.

A classic example of this would be the Crysis games by Crytek. The first two games of the franchise (the original Crysis and its spin-off Crysis: Warhead) were technically marvelous open world games. Both were highly praised for their technical capabilities as well as their gameplay. When they were initially released, they remained exclusive to the PC. For the next game, the developers wanted to 'expand' the series to the consoles (read "make more money"). But it was impossible to create vast open worlds on current generation consoles at that point, due to technical limitations. Hence they eliminated the open world altogether, and settled for a game which played just like most other corridor shooters. The PC version did offer much prettier graphics, but no changes in the world or gameplay compared to console versions. This game (Crysis 2) sold well across all platforms, which prompted Crytek to even port the first two Crysis games to consoles. But the result was a mess, as reported by those who played them on console after initially playing them on PC. These decisions by Crytek (or maybe EA, who knows?) also left longtime fans of the series fuming. To combat this issue, Crytek decided to make the environment in Crysis 3 much bigger than Crysis 2, but it was still not a open world. The maps in Crysis 3 only gave the illusion of an open world, but they were just reasonably large areas 'boxed in' by clever use of environmental effects like hills, tress etc. Once again, the only 'advantage' it offered to PC gamers was the extremely gorgeous visuals. But Crysis 3 turned out to be such a dull and boring game that it failed to meet EA's sales expectations. 

Crytek worked on another game called 'Ryse: Son Of Rome" exclusively for XBox One, but it turned out to be a massive critical and commercial failure. Now, Crytek just has one project (the Homefront reeboot), and several reliable sources are indicting that Crytek may not survive as a game development studio for much longer (they recently laid off a lot of their employees). So its pretty much obvious that Crytek seems to have dug their own grave by focusing on short term profits over long term benefits.

Of course, this doesn't always have to be true. Some types of games can be brought to consoles without too many compromises. But usually, that just wouldn't be possible for most games because PCs are always technically superior to every console of that particular generation.

PC or Console? You decide!

So you want to have the best gaming experience, but confused whether you have to buy a console or a PC? Hopefully, this post should make your decision a bit easier. I'll be listing the advantages of both in detail. Read on!

You may prefer a console for the following reasons:-

• The initial cost of a console is much lower than a mid-range gaming PC. Usually, the cost of any current generation console would be just a little more than half the cost of a mid to high end gaming PC. 
• As of now, every console supports used games (although this scenario is likely to change soon). So you can just trade in your games for a price after you're done with them, or if you realize that you don't enjoy the game after buying it. This is almost impossible on PC due to aggressive DRM (Digital Rights Management) methods used for PC games.
• Playing games on a console is extremely simple and hassle free, compared to a PC. You don't need to have any knowledge of PCs, because console games do not involve changing settings to suit your hardware or troubleshooting compatibility issues. You just buy the game disc (or download a digital copy), pop it into your console and start playing instantly (although some current-gen consoles require the game to be installed first). 
• Unlike a PC, a console lasts for several years without the need to upgrade (consoles don't even support upgrading individual components). Once you buy a console, you can keep playing all the games released for it until the console actually becomes outdated and developers stop making games for it. So you save the cost of upgrades, which is inevitable on a PC (because you need to spend on upgrades quite often).
• Several excellent AAA games are console exclusives, and are never released for the PC (or released much later than on consoles). So it would make sense for you to go for a console which has the exclusives you like.

Now, here are some reasons why you may opt for a gaming PC:-

• Although a gaming PC usually costs a bomb initially, PC games are almost always priced lower than console games. Also, several major retail and digital game publishers hold sales at different points of the year, during which the games are sold dirt cheap. This actually makes the concept of 'used games' irrelevant in the world of PC gaming, because the games are sold at prices cheaper than used games during the sales. 
• A PC can be upgraded as often as needed. Yeah, it is expensive to upgrade PC components, but it allows you to enjoy the latest games at butter smooth frame-rates without compromising on the graphics or other qualities. On the other hand, consoles struggle to keep up the performance with the latest games, when they age a bit.
• PCs provide you with a choice of using the control scheme of your choice (like keyboard-mouse, gamepad, joystick or steering wheel), while you're stuck with the default gamepad on consoles. Different genres of games work best with certain control schemes (for example, first person shooters are best played with a keyboard and mouse, due to the pinpoint accuracy and aiming precision offered by the mouse).
• Modifications (commonly called 'mods') extend the life and replay value of a game much beyond its original intended estimation. As of now, mods are only possible on PCs. The possibilities with mods are endless. Also, the fact that most of these mods are fan-made (read 'free') is the icing on the cake!
• A gaming PC can also be used to perform general computing tasks, so it actually saves space (because you need not have two separate devices for computing and gaming). If you want a big-screen console experience on a PC, you can hook up your PC with your large screen Plasma TV quite easily.
• Indie games (which are low budget games developed by individuals or small game studios) have found a cozy little home on PCs. Some of these Indie games match or surpass high budget AAA games with respect to quality, and they're much cheaper too. As of now, Indie games are pretty much non-existent on consoles.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of pros and cons. In the end, what matters most is your enjoyment of playing games, irrespective of the platform on which you play them. So just consider these tips as general guidelines, and go for the platform which you feel is the most suitable for you. Happy gaming!

Reason why movies based on games usually flop

So there's this extremely popular game which has been lauded by critics and users, and this success usually tempts a movie studio or the game publishers themselves to cash in on the game's popularity by making a movie based on the game (or a game franchise). But then, why do such movies (which are based on a game or game franchise) almost always get panned by critics and fail miserably at the box office too? Here's my opinion and analysis on the reason this happens, although it may not be totally accurate.

The main focus of a game is to make the player interact with the game world and completely immerse him/her in it. Of course, most games do have an interesting premise and story, but those are just bonuses. For example, if a game doesn't really have a strong plot or story but has solid gameplay (such as the Left 4 Dead games), then the game is almost sure to be a success. On the other hand, a game with a really compelling plot but weak gameplay is not likely to find favor with critics or users. Of course, a game having both near-flawless gameplay as well as an excellent plot would obviously earn high acclaim, but a good story/plot is not always necessary for a game to succeed. The game just needs to provide a high level of immersion for the players by giving them a reasonably high degree of control over what actually happens in the game, and of course proper gameplay mechanics (for example, a shotgun should sound like a shotgun when fired, and not like a pistol).

When people make movies based on games, they fail to realize that the most important factor which was responsible for the game's success was its gameplay and player immersion. It is simply not possible to create that kind of experience with a movie, because watching a movie is always a passive activity which doesn't require (or rather, does not allow) any direct interaction with the movie's world or characters. Obviously, when its impossible for a movie to provide the aspect which made the game successful (that is, player interaction and immersion), it is often illogical to even consider that a movie based on a successful game or game franchise would also be successful. Of course, there have been a few successful movies based on games (such as 2010's Prince of Persia), but those are just exceptions which succeeded because the movie makers took a lot of liberty and the movies had little in common with the games they were based on.

Its high time these people stopped trying to make a quick buck by making movies based on games/game franchises, with the hope that the game's success will be replicated by the movie as well. It just doesn't work that way. If such movies are to succeed, they need to find a perfect balance in such a way that very little is common between the game and the movie, while still making it familiar to fans of the game. A big ask which is very much possible, but certainly not worth the risk.

Things that made Half-Life special

I've been overcome by nostalgia lately, so as expected, here is another post about Half-Life! At the time the first Half-Life was released (in 1998), there were already too many first person shooters which were considered groundbreaking (like Doom, Quake and Duke Nukem 3D). Although Half-Life was a first person shooter on the surface, it was radically different from every other first person shooter released until that point. Before reading this post, please keep in mind that whatever I'm saying here is with respect to the year 1998, and may not be entirely relevant today.

The first thing you'll notice is that Half-Life (and every other game in the series) doesn't have traditional videos or cut-scenes. You're never taken out of the protagonist's perspective, and the entire story is told through the happenings in the environment and the non-playing characters' (NPC) dialogs. In fact, the level of immersion is so deep that the protagonist doesn't even speak a single word (because its not possible for the actual human playing the game to be able to speak as the protagonist). Also, Half-life's protagonist is just a scientist, which is unique because he isn't a soldier or mercenary as in the case of other games (which means he isn't trained in using weapons effectively). This sense of vulnerability is ever present almost throughout the game.

Half-Life doesn't have traditional 'levels' as most other games. The entire game is one huge, continuous level by itself, and the gameplay is only interrupted by brief 'loading' messages (which just last a couple of seconds) while loading another area of the game. Also, Half-Life has a rich and varied color palette, which is in stark contrast to previous first-person shooters because they had environments which felt a bit dull and claustrophobic.

The placement of items in the game is significantly different. You won't find pickups like health, armor, ammunition, keys etc. floating on the ground (which was the norm in other games). Instead, you'll find them in more realistic locations and they never float. Health packs are found on racks or tables, and you can regain health by recharging from wall outlets. The concept of 'armor' is different in Half-Life, because the the amount of protection is determined by the remaining electric charge in your suit. You can recharge it by picking up spare batteries, or through a wall mounted unit. Similarly, ammo is found in storage crates, on racks, or on the bodies of dead human enemies. There are no 'keys' in half-life to access locked rooms, so you actually need to get an NPC (a scientist or security guard) who has access to that door to follow you, so that he can unlock it for you. Everything seems completely natural and realistic.

Half-Life was probably the first action game to feature physics based puzzles in a first person shooter. Unlike other games, you couldn't beat Half-Life just by running and gunning. You needed brains to solve these puzzles, which were always logical and never too tough to figure out. I'll provide a couple of examples. Early in the game, there is an area where you need to reach a higher level, but the ladder is broken. So you need to stack up 3 crates which are found nearby in the proper order (biggest one at the bottom and smallest one at the top) to create 'stairs' and reach that higher level. Then later on, you encounter a situation where there is a huge pit with barrels at the bottom, and you need to reach the other side of the pit. So you need to first get down into the pit (because this side has a ladder), arrange the barrels in a straight line towards the other end of the pit, climb back up and pull a a lever to fill the pit with water. This makes the barrels float on the water, which acts as a make-shift bridge for you to cross over to the other side of the pit (I don't remember if this scenario was from the original Half-Life or one of its expansions). These concepts were innovative, unique and much ahead of time.

Another aspect noteworthy about Half-Life was its bosses, or rather the boss battles. Until that point, the boss enemies in most games were just those who had several times more health than normal enemies, and usually appeared huge too. To kill them, you just had to pump them full of lead until their enormous amount of health got depleted and they died. Half-life's bosses too are huge, but the similarity with other first person shooters ends there. It is impossible to kill these boss enemies even if you unload all your ammo from every weapon on them. You need to think out of the box, and use your environment to kill them. For example, the first boss enemy you encounter in the game needs to be killed by turning on various switches (which are scattered in different areas and present challenges of their own to reach them) so as to create an electricity leak at one particular location, and then lure that boss there so that he gets electrocuted to death. Then later on towards the end of the game, you encounter another boss enemy who is invincible to your attacks in general. But still you need to shoot him at specific intervals and keep going after him so that he finally retreats to a location where you can actually kill him (because he becomes vulnerable to your attacks in that particular location due to the environment). There are 6 boss enemies in the game, and only one of them can be killed by conventional methods. The remaining 5 must be killed in other, not so obvious ways which requires you to think in a completely different way.

The final point about the gameplay worthy of mention, is the significantly improved Artificial Intelligence (AI) of both friends and foes, compared to other similar games of the era. The non-human enemies don't blindly charge at you. Smaller enemies attack you in groups, whereas bigger and stronger enemies usually attack individually or in pairs. Even then, they avoid brute force type of attacks. When you're far from them, they just spit acid on you, zap you with electric bolts, shoots fireballs at you or something else (depending on the type of enemy). But once you get close to them, they abandon all these attacks and just take you head on. Its innovative no doubt, but its nothing compared to the AI of human enemies. They almost always hunt you in groups, and you can even hear their chatter about how they plan to kill you, until they spot you and begin their attack. They're just too smart. If you're hiding in a corner of a large area full of human enemies and are waiting for them to charge at you one by one so that they become cannon fodder for your automatic rifle, that simply won't happen. They just lob a grenade at your hiding spot to flush you out, and be done with it. If you somehow survive this grenade attack, they just kill you with a single shot (because you're health would already be very low due to the grenade attack). What you might not expect, is that the non-human and human enemies are also enemies themselves, so they don't hesitate to attack each other in their own ways. Whenever there is an area populated by both human and non-human enemies, its great fun watching them attack and kill each other from a distance, and then you finally just have to clean up any remaining survivors. The same level of AI applies to your allies too, although it isn't easily noticeable. Unarmed allies run to take cover, so that you can handle the enemies in any way you deem fit. Armed allies provide cover fire when you're fighting enemies (because their firearms are usually much weaker than yours) and try to protect you as well as any unarmed allies who might be present in the same area. They're VERY careful not to shoot an ally. A funny but believable consequence of you shooting an armed ally yourself (either accidentally or on purpose) is that, they just yell 'friendly fire' for the first couple of times, but after that they just open fire on you when they believe that you too are an enemy.

Now coming to the technical aspects, Half-Life uses a heavily modified version of the Quake 2 engine called the 'GoldSRC' engine. Until that point, most games only supported software rendering, or any one mode of hardware acceleration (Direct 3D or OpenGL). But Half-life was capable of utilizing both Direct 3D and OpenGL, and also supported software rendering. This ensured maximum compatibility with your video hardware. The game looked gorgeous at that time on machines which supported 3D acceleration with Direct 3D or OpenGL, but it still looked surprisingly good and ran well on other machines too. The game even supported a wide array of resolutions, which was only limited by your monitor's capabilities.  

If you haven't played this gem yet, do yourself a favor and pick it up as soon as possible. The full game and its single-player expansions (Opposing Force and Blue Shift) are currently available dirt cheap. You may find the graphics extremely dated compared to today's standards and some gameplay elements might seem out of place. But if you can look past those minor issues (can't really call them issues, I guess), you're going to have a very enjoyable and thrilling experience. Once you're done with the game and its expansions, you can move on to Half-Life 2 and its episodes which again were excellent games with tons of innovation. I'll write about those in a future post. For now, I'm signing off!

No need to spend a fortune on a gaming PC. Think smart!

Its quite common to hear gamers - especially console gamers - complain that gaming PCs are too expensive and aren't worth the cost. But nothing could be further from the truth. You can get a gaming PC for just a little more cash than a console, and it would perform significantly better too! You just need to know some minor details, and you're good to go!

The first and most important point - NEVER go for pre-built gaming PCs (I've already mentioned this in a previous post). They often have imbalance regarding the components, and are almost always grossly overpriced. If gaming is your main focus, you could save a lot of money by handpicking the components and building the PC yourself (or getting it done by a professional at a nominal cost).

As a gamer, the main component you need to focus on, is the graphics card. Almost all games depend heavily on the graphics card for performance, compared to other components (except for some real time strategy games which depend more on the processor). So just allocate 40% of your budget towards the graphics card, and the remaining 60% towards your other components. Of course, this is just a guideline and not a rule-of-thumb, because too much of imbalance tends to bottleneck the graphics card.

The next component you need to focus on, is the processor. Don't just rush to buy the fastest processor or the one with most cores. They would just be an overkill. A mid-range processor would be more than sufficient for most gaming needs (except in the case of real time strategy games, as previously mentioned). Games almost always perform much better with a high end graphics card and mid-range processor, than a mid-range graphics card and high-end processor. Also, if you aren't conscious about brands, consider pairing an AMD processor with an AMD graphics card. This would save you a lot of money and give almost identical performance to the Intel processor/NVidia graphics card combo, and better performance than the AMD processor/NVidia graphics card or Intel processor/AMD graphics card combos.

Then comes the RAM. In most cases, a good strategy would be to select the highest operating frequency of the RAM (specified in MHz) and then buy the largest capacity of RAM you can afford for that particular operating frequency. Only the operating frequency of RAM affects game performance, and too not much. The amount of RAM usually affects only the time required for the game to launch, the time taken to load the game from the game menu etc. but not the actual performance of the game itself. 

The final important component you need to consider, is of course the motherboard. An expensive motherboard usually just provides additional features (such as more PCI slots, faster USB ports, multi-GPU support, or more RAM slots) but doesn't directly contribute towards the PC's performance. So there isn't really any need to splurge on  a motherboard. Just list out the features you absolutely need in a  motherboard, and then go for the least expensive board with those features from a reasonably good brand. 

The there are the other components. As a gamer, it makes sense to go for a 5.1 surround speakers (least expensive one from a good brand is sufficient) as well as a 5.1 channel sound card. The sound card can be omitted if the motherboard supports onboard 5.1 audio. Go for a full HD display which is at least 21 inches diagonally. As of now, a 1080p display ought to be enough. Resolutions higher than this would be an overkill unless your display is 50 inches or more. Make sure your cabinet is roomy and has good airflow, because gaming is a resource-intensive process which tends to heat up the components. Go for a regular keyboard/mouse (no need of expensive gaming keyboard/mouse) combo, the largest internal hard disk you can afford, and an optical disc drive. I also recommended getting a good controller, but its in no way a necessity.

This pretty much sums it up. I'm not going into details regarding the internet connection, because that depends on way too many factors. Hope this has been useful for you.

Is it worth investing in a gaming laptop?

In the general sense, the answer would be a resounding 'NO'. A laptop may be a better option for most tasks (due to its portability, lower power consumption and compactness), but for gaming, it is totally inappropriate in a lot of ways.

The first and most important aspect is ergonomics. If you don't already know, 'ergonomics' refers to the art of designing computers to avoid/reduce discomfort or injury. Laptops don't usually have an ergonomic design, because their main focus is to provide portability. Gaming is an activity which requires quick reflexes and lots of key presses/mouse movements, continuously. Also, most games are too cumbersome to be played with the laptop's touchpad (you can attach an external mouse, but it affects portability). In fact, even for non-gaming activities, using the touchpad too much can cause nerve damage in the wrist and fingers. Hence, using a laptop as your primary gaming device could cause extreme discomfort, and even injury in the long run.

The next aspect to consider, would be the laptop's specifications. It is a well known fact that if your computer can play the latest games satisfactorily, it can pretty much run circles around every other application. Most modern games require fairly powerful hardware to run. Of course, you'd need a monster of a system to be actually able to enjoy the latest games in all their glory, with most of the bells and whistles turned on. To optimize power consumption of a laptop, usually less powerful components are used. For example, the performance of an NVidia GeForce GTX 780 (which is a powerful graphics card) on a desktop would be much better than on a laptop (which uses the 'M' variant, designed for lower power consumption). Also due to their compactness, laptops tend to be more expensive than desktops in the same bracket. For example, if you consider a laptop and a desktop having similar specifications, the laptop would cost significantly more than the desktop, even though it is likely to perform slightly worse.

Now comes the part about battery life. Games are extremely resource intensive. So, playing the latest games (on a desktop or laptop) pushes the hardware to its limits. This in turn consumes significantly more power. Hence, playing games on a laptop when it is not plugged into a power source would completely drain the battery very soon. The only viable solutions to this problem are to only play games on the laptop when there is access to a power outlet, or carry additional spare batteries (fully charged). None of these solutions are actually desirable, and in some cases may be downright inconvenient.

Here comes the final and most significant drawback of a laptop - the ability to upgrade. Under normal circumstances, only two components of a laptop are upgradable - the hard disk and RAM. This means that the two most important components which affect gaming performance - the graphics card and processor - cannot be upgraded at all. In some exceptional cases, it may be possible to upgrade the graphics card (but not the processor), but the process would be too tedious and time-consuming. Considering the rate at which hardware is advancing and the fact that game developers tend to push hardware to its limits, this is a really serious limitation of laptops.

Of course, there are some other minor advantages of using desktops instead of laptops for gaming, but there isn't really a need to mention them here because it is possible to obtain those benefits on laptops too (with a bit of work). Anyway, it should be clear by now that laptops can't even approach desktops in ANY aspect - performance, comfort, upgradability and pretty much everything else - when it involves gaming.

PC gaming isn't for everyone - TOTALLY true

Not too long ago, I used to wonder why most people prefer gaming on consoles rather than PCs, although the PC clearly offers several advantages over consoles. For example, PC games usually have much better graphics than their console counterparts, provide support for modding which extend a game's life much beyond that intended by the developer, choice of keyboard-mouse or controller, the freedom of upgrading only the required components etc. Agreed, a gaming PC costs almost twice that of a current-gen console, but it can still perform all the usual functions of a PC apart from gaming (which compensates for the cost to a certain extent). It is quite common to hear PC gamers proclaim themselves as the 'Master Race', and refer to console gamers as 'Console Peasants'. But the actual reason why console gamers don't prefer to game on PCs, is not that they can't afford a gaming PC. Its entirely different. I'll just provide a couple of examples (which are my personal experiences) to illustrate this.

I came across a weird problem when I tried to launch a game called 'Dead Space 3' on Windows 8.1, although it used to run perfectly on Windows 7. It displayed an error which said 'Sorry, this game cannot be run in a virtual machine', although I never even had any virtual machine software installed on my PC. I tried implementing various 'fixes' for this issue provided on the internet, but none of them seemed to work for me (although some of those fixes had worked for a few people). I tried fixing the issue for around 90 minutes, but nothing worked. Finally, I was able to get the game to run, but only after entirely disabling hardware virtualization from my motherboard's BIOS (this solution wasn't mentioned anywhere).

Then again, I was unable to launch a game called 'Clive Barker's Jericho' (It showed an error which said 'Clive Barker's Jericho has stopped working and needs to close' whenever I tried to launch it). After a bit of internet research, I found out that this was happening due to improper 'NVidia PhysX' drivers on my PC (which wasn't really accurate). The strange thing is, although PhysX is a feature supported only on NVidia video cards and I have an AMD card, the game required these drivers to be installed. I removed the present driver, downloaded the latest one and installed it, but the game still refused to run (although now it was a different issue). It launched fine, played the intro videos and then crashed to desktop. Again, the internet was my savior (although it took quite a bit of time to find the solution). Apparently, the game only runs with an older version of NVidia PhysX and doesn't recognize the new version, so I needed to have TWO versions of the NVidia PhysX drivers on my PC (a legacy version for this game, and the latest version for other games).

As you can probably see, solving such issues is almost always a hassle. I was probably able to solve these issues due to three aspects - I hold an engineering degree in Computer Science, I have a passion about computers, and I have exclusively been a PC gamer for more than 15 years. But for a console gamer who only uses the PC for day-to-day tasks (such as internet browsing, word processing etc.), it would be really difficult to troubleshoot these kind of problems. This is compounded by the fact that even a fix which works for 99 people, is not guaranteed to work for the 100th person. Although the examples I mentioned are quite extreme and rare, many games do require some sort of tweaking, to be able to run satisfactorily. When a gamer buys a game, he does so to play and enjoy it immediately, and not spend hours troubleshooting/tweaking it just to make it run satisfactorily (and still not sure of resolving the issue). Even game developers can't totally be blamed for this, because it really is a herculean task to make a game run well on all PCs (due to the PC's heterogeneous nature).

Hence, PC is a suitable gaming platform only for hardcore gamers who want the best, and also possess moderate-to-high troubleshooting skills. So I guess its high time we PC gamers stopped calling ourselves 'the master race', and realize that console gamers are just gamers who want to play games without hassles, even if that means compromising on several PC-specific advantages.

How Microsoft shot themselves in the foot with Windows 8

This post isn't directly related to PC gaming, but I'd recon it would still be an interesting read. You will find references to gaming, though.

From a purely technical point of view, Windows 8 is just a faster, more efficient and improved version of Windows 7. Microsoft has a history of releasing good and bad Windows Operating Systems alternately (Windows 98/2000 were good but Windows ME was terrible. Windows XP was a resounding success whereas Windows Vista was a broken OS which was probably released while still in Beta Testing phase. Then again, Windows 7 is considered the best version of Windows while Windows 8 was widely panned). But the main difference is, previous Windows OSs which flopped (like Window ME and Windows Vista) had some fundamental technical shortcomings whereas there was technically nothing wrong with Windows 8. So then, what really went wrong? Read on to find out.

Microsoft had really ambitious plans for Windows 8. Their idea was to provide a streamlined experience across all devices using the Windows OS and create an ecosystem which allows complete cloud-based backup and synchronization across the devices (which include PCs, laptops, Windows Phones, Windows tablets and to a certain extent, also the XBox consoles). In fact, Windows 8 has slightly lower system requirements compared to Windows 7, and boots up much faster too.There was actually no way that this ambitious initiative could possibly fail, but Microsoft still managed to botch it up due to poor decision making and a hint of arrogance.

Their biggest blunder was the decision to force the touch-based Metro UI as the default interface down the throats of PC/laptop users without a touchscreen, and the removal of the start menu. This UI was really cumbersome to use with a keyboard and mouse/touchpad. The once-familar desktop was relegated to just a 'legacy app' on Windows 8. Windows users who were accustomed to the 'desktop and start menu' interface for over a decade, realized that they had to struggle to perform tasks which they could easily do earlier. In other words, they actually had to 'learn' to use the Windows OS all over again. Switching between Metro apps and regular desktop apps was a chore. And at times, people were totally confused and lost. To cut a long story short, Windows 8 was a totally unorganized mess with two entirely different interfaces. I'm sure everyone agrees that this is annoying. But when you consider this in terms of office-based usage, it results in a criminal decrease in productivity. In Microsoft's defense, this change was necessary in order to achieve their primary goal. And they did achieve this objective to a certain extent (I owned a PC and laptop with Windows 8 and also a Windows Phone 8 based smartphone, so I could appreciate the actual good stuff). But if they had just provided a simple option for the user to choose the default interface (desktop or Metro) before installation and retained the start menu for the desktop, then Windows 8 would have been a resounding success. Agreed, it is possible to use third party apps like Start8 or Classic Shell to obtain the same interface as the previous versions of Windows with the performance/efficiency of Windows 8. But most people (who are casual users) wouldn't be aware of these options, or may not want to spend an additional $5 after buying a brand new OS at full price.

It was Microsoft's foolishness (and perhaps, arrogance) to assume that users would lap up their offering in spite of their stubbornness not to include the option to choose the default interface. Since this was achievable using third party apps, it meant that Microsoft never actually removed the code for the start menu or making desktop the default UI. They justified their decision in several ways and even posted encouraging sales figures for Windows 8. Still, its an open secret that Windows 8 was a failure which actually made most users develop hatred towards Microsoft and call for an end to Microsoft's monopoly in the desktop/laptop market. Valve's Steam service, which is the major digital gaming service on the PC, never even officially supported Windows 8 (although Steam did run without issues). In fact, the backlash was so huge that it resulted in the immediate resignation of Steven Sinofsky (president of the Windows division) and was one of the major factors for Steve Balmer's decision to retire within a year.

Microsoft still didn't want to give up on Windows 8 and accept defeat, so they began their 'damage control' tactics. In this regard, they announced Windows 8.1 which boasted a host of usability-related improvements over Windows 8 (although they were still adamant about not bringing back the start menu). People who actually bothered to try Windows 8.1 (me included) were convinced that it was a significantly improved experience compared to Windows 8. But these people were the minority because the damage was already done, and most users had decided to avoid anything related to Windows 8 like plague. Of course, Windows 8's failure couldn't have had much impact on Microsoft's long term revenue, but it dealt a massive blow to Microsoft's reputation as a brand.

Microsoft recently revealed their plans to release Windows 9 during 2015, and indirectly hinted that they wouldn't want to have anything to do with Windows 8. If they manage to restore the usability of Windows 7 and also retain the best features of Windows 8/8.1, then Windows 9 could turn out to be a winner. It would also continue Microsoft's tradition of releasing successful operating systems alternately. In any case, Microsoft is an innovative company who do value customer feedback (reversal of their initial XBox One policies is proof of that). So hopefully, the negative feedback regarding Windows 8 was just a wake-up call for them, and they'll be back with a bang with Windows 9. Fingers crossed!

Why gamers should never go for pre-built PCs

I often see people who claim to be 'gamers' buy pre-built PCs (although this trend has reduced in the past couple of years) to avoid the hassle of building one themselves. This is a really foolish thing to do. Pre-built PCs might be a good choice for any other purpose, but certainly NOT games (this includes Alienware too). Read on, to find out why.

First, I'm considering the regular high-end PCs which are not marketed as 'Gaming PCs'. Such PCs often tend to include very powerful processors (such as the Intel Core i7), but less RAM (in gaming context) and no dedicated graphics card. For example, a PC having a 3rd generation Intel Core i7 usually has just 4GB of RAM  (of high frequency) and NO dedicated graphics card. 4 GB RAM is more than sufficient for most purposes, but would be just about manageable for modern games. Usually, the impact of having less system RAM  can't directly be observed in terms of game performance, but the game takes an eternity to load (that is, to enter into the game from the menu or load a saved game).

Now, the real major issue is with respect to the graphics card. If a pre-builtPC is not specifically marketed as a 'gaming PC', then it is almost certain not to have a dedicated graphics card. I'm sure most gamers know that no PC game released within the last few years can run satisfactorily with an onboard graphics chip. In fact, most games refuse to even launch, when they don't detect dedicated graphics hardware. This means, in spite of spending a lot on a high-end PC, the buyer needs to invest in a mid-range graphics card at least, as well as more RAM. Cost of RAM isn't too high, but the cost of a graphics card can be significant. And having a VERY high end processor is certainly an overkill with respect to games, because most games depend a lot more on the graphics card than the processor (except maybe RTS games). For example, a PC having a mid-range processor and a high-end graphics card can run a game much better than a PC with a high end processor and a mid-range graphics card.

Now, the REALLY enthusiastic gamers go for gaming PCs such as Alienware. Agreed, they are powerful enough to run almost all recent games at their highest settings. But they are GROSSLY overpriced. And although they do have a powerful graphics card, their high-end processor would be an overkill (as I have indicated in my previous paragraph).

The main disadvantage with pre-built PCs, whether they can run games or not, is the lack of component choice. The vendor offers some set combinations, and you have to choose one among them. You won't be able to customize every component as per your requirement. For a gamer, it is always beneficial to hand-pick every component of his PC so that it offers the greatest bang for the buck, without any component being a bottleneck or an overkill. He can then build it himself, or get it done by a professional for a nominal fee. When the main purpose is gaming, the combined cost of the components, and maybe the fee paid to the person who builds the PC, would still be much lower than a pre-built PC. So be smart, and choose wisely. If you're a gamer, always say no to pre-built PCs.

Life-cycle of my beloved first PC

You might want to go through this post before proceeding, but its not really necessary because I'll include the important points of that post here, as and when they're required. Also, this will be a VERY long post (just a prior warning for inpatient people who can't read long posts). But I haven't included any irrelevant information.

As previously mentioned, I got my first PC in October 1999. The specifications consisted of a 733 Mhz Pentium 3 processor, 20 GB hard disk, 64 MB RAM, 15 inch monitor and a dedicated graphics card, along with a printer and modem. This was considered quite high-end at that time (by India's standards at least). I was having the time of my life, playing all the latest games. Little did I realize that my joy-ride was about to end soon.

PC hardware was advancing rapidly, so it was just a matter of time before my PC would be unable to run the latest games. The first game which my PC was incapable of running satisfactorily was 'Prince of Persia 3D'. Although this game was released in 1999, I didn't attempt to play it until 2001. The game used to start, but only the main character was visible while the environment was fully dark. I was wondering if there was some configuration issue, because I was too naive at that time to realize that it was due to unsupported hardware. Then, through a lot of internet research, I came to know about a lot of interesting but disappointing facts. My graphics card's model was 'SiS 6326' and it had 8MB of dedicated video RAM. There were two popular APIs for 3D graphics acceleration in games, namely Direct 3D and Open GL. Some games used Direct 3D, some used Open GL and a few games were even capable of utilizing both. Apparently, Prince of Persia 3D partially utilized Open GL (although this wasn't mentioned anywhere on the box or the manual). To my dismay, I realized that my graphics card only supported Direct 3D and not Open GL, which meant that all games which utilized Open GL couldn't run properly (or not run at all) as long as I continued to use this graphics card. So it was time for my first upgrade -A graphics card with Open GL support!

After a lot of research to determine the most suitable graphics card for me with Open GL support and affordable price, I decided on a card named 'S3 Savage 4'. When I visited the shop to buy it, I asked for the 16MB model. I was pleasantly surprised when the vendor told me that he could provide me a 32MB variant at a marginally higher price because the 16MB variant was out of production. At that time I didn't even know how to replace my previous card, so I had to take my cabinet to his shop for him to do that for me and install the required drivers. I felt at the top of the world because I owned a video card supporting both Direct 3D and Open GL, which meant I could run any game. I immediately tested Prince of Persia 3D, which worked flawlessly. I was also able to play games based on the Quake 3 engine (which was a pure Open GL engine). So, my joy-ride was back on track!

But as they say, nothing lasts forever. My next hurdle came in the form of a game called 'Spider-Man: The Movie'. The game even refused to start on my PC. Then I came to know that this game required the graphics card to support a feature called 'Hardware Transform & Lighting'. This time I really didn't want to invest in an upgrade just for one game. But by now, I had realized that it was only a matter of time before all modern games require this feature. I had also noticed that game load times had become excruciatingly slow (modern games used to take more than 90 seconds to load a saved game). This was apparently due to insufficient system RAM (which was still 64 MB). So, my next upgrade was on the cards - a graphics card with Hardware Transform & Lighting support, along with more RAM.

I settled for the graphics card NVidia GeForce 2 MX 400 (which supported HW T&L, and had 64MB of dedicated video memory) along with an additional 128 MB RAM stick (which raised my total system RAM to 192 MB). So I was set to go on, but I didn't know for how long. I was well aware of the fact that by this time, PC hardware had begun advancing exponentially rather than linearly. So I knew that I would need an upgrade sooner that I'd like.

As expected, the need for the next upgrade came up within just 8 months of my previous upgrade. This time, a game called 'Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time' required a hardware feature called 'Vertex and Pixel shaders', which my current graphics card didn't support. But this time, there were several issues which made upgrading very difficult. Firstly, the size of games had already gone well past a GB, which meant my 20GB hard disk wouldn't suffice anymore. Next, my 733MHz processor was causing a bottleneck, and I realized that I couldn't upgrade the processor without upgrading the motherboard too (because my motherboard only supported Pentium 3 processors). Also, 192 MB system RAM had become insufficient. But the widely available memory at that time was DDR RAM, whereas mine was SD RAM. This meant that I had to change the motherboard too, and buy one with DDR RAM support (along with DDR RAM sticks). Hence, I had to make 5 major upgrades - graphics card, hard disk, processor, motherboard and RAM. Obviously, this would be too expensive for my comfort. So a more viable option was to sell my entire PC and buy a new one. I went one step ahead, and decided to sell EVERYTHING (which included my monitor, speakers, voltage stabilizer, keyboard and mouse, although I retained my printer and modem). I finally sold my beloved PC (which I had bought for ₹60,000) along with upgrades (which had cost around ₹25,000) in August 2004 for a supposedly 'best price' of ₹9000. But it had served me commendably for almost 5 years.

Why gamers hate Call of Duty but critics love it

Please note:-  This isn't really a review. Its just a post describing my disappointment.

I was an early fan of the Call of Duty series. I really enjoyed the first few games, namely Call of Duty + United Offensive expansion, Call of Duty 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty 4: World at War (couldn't play call of Duty 3 because it isn't available for PC). These games provided pure adrenaline rush, due to their ability of making the gamer feel like he was actually fighting a war.  I didn't play any games in the series after that, because I knew that they were clearly milking the franchise with their 'copy-paste' strategy. Anyway, after a gap 5 years, I picked up this year's 'Ghosts' for the PC because I wanted to give my once-beloved franchise another go. BIG mistake.

The major flaw I noticed, common to both multi-player and single-player, was how 'weak' most guns sounded. Even on my powerful 5.1 PC sound system, most guns 'clicked' rather than 'thudded'. This is ridiculous, especially since this is a war-themed game (where weapon sounds contribute a lot towards immersion). With respect to the multi-player alone, I found the supposedly 'new' games modes quite disappointing. Professional reviews are going on and on about how 'innovative' the multi-player is, but all these new modes are just rehashed versions of tried-and-tested formulas. Also, the addition of playable female mercenaries in multi-player serves no practical purpose, except maybe providing eye candy for a certain class of male gamers (obviously I don't belong to that category). There was a certain amount of hype about this game implementing destroyable environments in multi-player (like in Battlefield games), but it turned out to be just that - a hype. Some environments are indeed destroyable, but they always get destroyed in the same way irrespective of different player actions. For example, the rubble of a destroyed structure will ALWAYS fall in the same direction, even if you have hit it from different angles during each game. This means, the developers hardcoded this behavior just to give players the illusion of environments being destroyable. Although the multi-player is pretty decent, its nothing to write home about. There are much better multi-player games out there for sure.

Coming to the campaign, the less said about it, the better. I really missed quick-saves, but can't really complain about that because no multi-platform game ever has a quick-save feature anymore, except action-rpg hybrids like Mass Effect, Deus Ex etc.(consoles are to blame for this, but this matter is beyond the scope of this post). That apart, the campaign seemed like an interactive movie rather than a game. It is so scripted, to the extent that I can't open a door or pull a lever in my sight, until the game tells me to do that. There are games which create very immersive experiences in spite of being heavily scripted (like the Half-Life games), but in this game, the ridiculous amount of scripting actually ensures that there is no immersion at all. The artificial intelligence of both friends are foes is mediocre at best. My team-mates seem to take a LOT of hits before dying, and they also hardly inflict any significant damage to the enemies. And the enemies are so dumb and lifeless. I wonder why almost every professional review says that the Ghosts campaign is 'lengthy and memorable'. Nothing could be far from the truth. There are no more than a couple of memorable stuff in the entire single-player game, and a 5-6 hour campaign isn't what I would call 'lengthy'. My time to beat the game on 'normal' was 5 hours 6 minutes, which seems to be on par with the average playtime mentioned on www.howlongtobeat.com. The entire campaign is far too easy and monotonous. The basic formula for beating the campaign is this - Pop out of cover to shoot, get back to cover to regenerate health, rinse and repeat until all enemies are dead. The addition of the dog Riley, which the developers claimed to be groundbreaking, is nothing more than a gimmick which works occasionally but often falls flat. Lastly, war-themed games are supposed to be as realistic as possible even if the story takes a back-seat. But in this game, the gameplay is anything but realistic, and even the story seems so generic and dull.

After beating Crysis 3, I thought there could be no game which was more boring than that. But COD Ghosts is slightly more boring than Crysis 3 as well. At least Crysis 3 had gorgeous visuals to compensate for 10% of the boring gameplay, but COD Ghosts's visuals are nothing extraordinary. Extremely disappointing. Also, the huge difference between average critic scores and average user scores (68/100 vs 19/100 on metacritic as of now) does make gamers suspect that Activision actually pays critics to write favorable reviews. I just can't seem to understand how games like these manage to sell millions, or if the sales figures too are fabricated just to maintain the franchise's reputation. If it does sell millions, then I suppose a good chunk of those sales are due to 12-year old kids for whom their parents buy the games. It has reached a point where, even if Activision packs frozen dog turd in a plastic bag and markets it as 'Call of Duty - Riley Edition', people would still buy millions of those. I'm disappointed that I spent my hard earned money to buy this crap at full price (especially since Activision are too greedy and price their games 15-20% more than the standard price), but I'm PETRIFIED to think about the million ways in which such games could seriously harm the gaming industry. If people keep buying millions of copies of highly watered-down games like these, then almost every developer would start making similar games. I mean....why would they even consider making innovative games, when it is possible to sell millions by just releasing the same game with a fresh coat of paint every year?

If someone were to reverse-engineer the Call of Duty games from past few years and obtain their source codes, I'm sure that a majority of the code would be the same across all these games (with maybe some minor modifications). The only way this insanity would end, is if people stop buying such games. But I don't see this happening any time in the near future.

A custom Half-Life background for my blog!

So, I managed to create a half-decent background for my blog, which of course features images from my favorite video game series. Due to the overall image size restriction of 300kb, I couldn't really achieve the results I wanted to. Several good images are lost behind the central blog area, and the same set of images are repeated on either size. I hope this 300kb restriction is lifted soon, or at least made more liberal (like 1 MB). Until then, I won't be able to come up with anything better than this.

Is 'PC game piracy' overrated? You bet!

Alright, I'm sure you gamers would have heard game companies say that they delay or don't release games for the PC due to 'rampant PC piracy'. Nothing could be further from the truth. Through this post, I'd like to shed some light on what actually happens behind the scene in such scenarios. Hopefully, this will also prevent ignorant console gamers from taunting PC gamers in the future, by saying that the PC only get delayed console ports or not at all because PC gamers are pirates.

In reality, the piracy rates are almost identical for PC and consoles. When you say this to a console gamer, his first taunt would be "Just check out any torrent sites, and you'll find more torrents and more seeds/peers for PC games than console games". This does appear true initially. But the reality paints a different picture altogether. Console games (at least the previous gen ones) always need to be on a disc. So, people who pirate console games just burn it on multiple discs (sometimes hundreds) to distribute amongst friends or sell them at one tenth the price of the legitimate copy. But in case of PC, almost everything is digital. Hence PC pirates just download individually, whereas every console game downloaded illegally is very much likely to end up on several discs. Obviously, its impossible to track this, hence the general perception is that PC games are pirated more than console games (which is not true at all). In fact, since the past couple of years, the console versions of multiplatform games become available on torrents several days before official release, and certainly much before the PC version too. And just consider the the case of Grand Theft Auto V, which was pirated left and right in spite of being a console exclusive (as of now).

Now coming to the second most common reason given by console gamers - "consoles need to be modified in order to run pirated games whereas no hardware changes are required for PC, hence console gamers wouldn't risk modifying the hardware just to play pirated games". This 'reason' just shows how ignorant some console gamers can be. Let me tell you, the easiest way to pirate console games (which several people I know have done) is to own TWO consoles - one normal and the other modded. The combined cost of two consoles is still lesser than that of a mid-high range gaming PC. So they simply use the normal one to play legitimate games online, and use the modded one to play single player games offline (without any risk of a ban).

The third common reason is the comparison of sales numbers between PC and console versions of the same game. Time and again, console gamers and even game companies point out that games sell very few number of copies on the PC compared to consoles, which they again attribute towards piracy. On the surface, this seems to be true because most sales figures do mention this. But the most glaring fact which these people forget to consider (or deliberately avoid), is that sales figures often only account for retail sales and not digital downloads. As of now, digital downloads are almost non-existent on consoles but it makes up the majority of PC game sales over the world. In fact, except in a few third world countries, PC gamers almost always prefer digital downloads over retail boxed copies. Hence, its totally absurd to say that console games sell a lot more than PC games by comparing sales numbers. This statement would be valid only when digital sales too are included in sales figures, or when digital sales become the norm on consoles as well.

Now, the actual reasons why game companies delay PC releases of multi-platform games, or don't release it at all. In case of consoles, a part of the revenue from every sale goes to Sony or Microsoft but it doesn't work that way on the PC (although Microsoft tried to push for this with Windows 8). Also, if games come out simultaneously for both consoles and PC, most people would obviously prefer PC (better graphics, mod support, choice of keyboard/mouse or controller etc.). Due to this, the console manufacturers strike a deal with game publishers (which may involve monetary or any other benefit to the publisher) to keep their game console-exclusive for a certain period or forever. Another reason is, it is much more difficult to develop games for a heterogeneous platform like the PC (since every PC has different hardware combinations, different vendors etc.) compared to consoles (because all XBox/Playstation consoles in the world have identical hardware). So the developers are either incompetent to do this, or too lazy for this extra work. Obviously, game companies can never mention these genuine reasons in public, so they take the easy way out by using 'piracy' as an excuse and making out PC gamers to be the biggest crooks of the gaming industry. And most console gamers ignorantly believe these statements, because its working in their favor anyway.

Finally, my first PC!

You might want to read my previous post before this one, because this is a direct follow-up to that post (although the focus is different).

I was really disappointed and heartbroken about being unable to play Half-life anymore. And I knew it wouldn't be right for me to ask my cousin to buy another CD of the same game. To tackle this issue, I began pestering, or rather requesting my parents to buy a PC for me. I told them that a PC would be immensely helpful for my education (although my primary goal at that point was to just play and beat Half-Life). Being educated themselves, my parents didn't need much convincing with respect to the usefulness of a PC. So I was fortunate enough to get a spanking new PC on October 20th 1999. Yeah, I still remember the date!

My PC was rather 'special' compared to those of my cousins and friends, in several ways. The specifications of my cousins' PC was something like a 333Mhz processor, 14-inch monitor, 3GB hard disk and 32 MB RAM, which was more or less similar to the specifications of my friends' PCs too. In contrast, my PC had a 733 Mhz Pentium 3 processor,  64 MB RAM, 20 GB hard disk and a 15-inch monitor (other components like keyboard, mouse, speakers etc. were almost similar). This was considered a high end PC at that time. Now for the 'goodies'. My PC also had a dedicated graphics card (which was unusual in 1999) with 8MB memory, a color printer (the others didn't have a printer) and a 56kbps modem for dial-up internet connection (the actual internet connection was set up after a few days).

The PC made my parents poorer by ₹65,000 but it instantly made me a hero among my friends (due to it being high-end)! As expected, I purchased the original boxed copy of Half-Life within a few days (because playing it was my main objective). It cost me a whopping ₹2000, but the exhilarating game experience was well worth it. Took me around a month to beat it. I did play other games as well. At that point, even though my primary usage of the PC was for gaming, I was careful enough not to let it adversely affect my studies. As expected, I was fascinated by the internet but unlike most adolescents my age, I didn't use it as an an easy gateway to porn (which was a rage among my peers). Instead, I made use of the internet for game-related information and also my school-related work. I'll describe my initial gaming experiences in a different post.

My PC didn't remain 'special' for too long, due to rapid advancements in hardware. After several minor and major upgrades, I had to finally sell my beloved first PC in August 2004, when it became impossible to upgrade beyond a certain point and the PC couldn't run the latest games. But it did serve me well for almost 6 years, with no major repairs.

The game which got me hooked to gaming!

Its only fair that my initial gaming-related post is the one describing my humble beginning as a gamer. I first had access to a home PC in 1998. Wasn't my own, though. As a 12 year old, I was fascinated by home PCs at my cousins' residence (my cousins were kind enough to let me use it as much as I wanted) and a few of my friends' houses. During that time, DOS-based games were most popular and also more easily available, compared to Windows games. Also, since internet was either unavailable or too slow (dial-up), we could only obtain games through friends or by direct purchase. The first few PC games I played include The Lost Vikings, Prince of Persia, Hocus Pocus, Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein 3D (which were all DOS games) and Road Rash (the sole Windows game).

Then I happened to come across a terrifying and exciting game being played by my cousin on his PC. There was something really different and captivating about this game, something I couldn't quite put my finger on, which was lacking in all the previous games I played. To say that this game totally mesmerized me, would be an understatement. This real gem was none other than Half-Life, which was responsible for catapulting Valve (the developer) to super stardom and also making me treat gaming as a passion rather than a pastime. I could initially play only the game demo (titled Half-life Uplink) because my cousin's friend had borrowed his Half-life CD at that point. The demo had a cliff-hanger ending (although I later realized that the entire demo was totally unrelated to the main game) which made me want to play the full game.

Of course, I could only play it on my cousin's PC, since we didn't have a PC at our house. I kept pestering him to get his CD back from his friend, which he did after a month. That's when the REAL fun started, and I lost myself in a world of alternate reality. The actual game surpassed the demo in every way (I won't go into the details, because I'm planning to post a full Half-Life review soon). I stopped playing all other games, and only played this one whenever I visited their house (maybe once or twice in a week). Then something really unfortunate happened, which shattered my heart. My cousin's hard disk crashed, and along with it, the game as well (including its save files). I didn't mind starting the game from the beginning again (after all, I had only completed around 25%), but for some reason, the game just refused to install from the CD. I still remember that when the installation reached 97%, it used to display 'Engine.dll error' and abort the installation. At that point, me and my cousins were computer novices. This, combined with the fact that we had no internet access, meant that we couldn't troubleshoot this error, so we had to just give up. This happened sometime during mid-1990. It was a really gut wrenching feeling, and I felt my fantasy world had come crashing down. Little did I realize that this disappointment would actually act as a catalyst in transforming me into an ardent, hardcore gamer for a lifetime.

Of course, I did manage to beat this game eventually (as of today, I have beaten it innumerable times and it still remains my all time favorite game), but that will part of my next post. I want to end this post now, before I make it too long. Hope you enjoyed reading it. Lost more to come. All kinds of comments, appreciation or constructive criticism are most welcome. Signing off!

Oh yeah! Here's the box-image of the very first version of the game, which my cousin owned!

My very first post!

Alright people! Since this is my first blog post ever (not just on this blog), I won't really start off with anything related to gaming. I know that I entered the blogging scene too late, but I'm really excited about this. Spent a good chunk of last night (around 3 hours, to be precise) designing the blog as per my satisfaction. So now I'm all set! Lets just hope 2014 turns out to be a great year for PC gamers, because 2013 was rather lackluster.An honest confession I need to make here. The blog will be slightly biased towards the Half-Life series because its my favorite. series. But be assured that nothing would be unreasonable or false.