Usually I don’t spend much money on games, I tend to stick to a chosen few for long periods. Online games like Star Wars Galaxies, Lord of the Rings Online and Age of Conan have kept me going pretty much since 2003 with some periods of Battlefield, Civilization, Total War, Oblivion.

I’ve always used PC as platform. Always been happy with that. Using one device for everything from mail, social media, playing music, recording music and the gaming. I’ve always looked at Playstation and other consoles as the substitute or solution for people who use Mac or can’t be bothered with a big stationary PC with the graphic cards and all.

Then a couple of months ago we bought an Xbox. I’ve been looking at this for almost a year and Maria also thought she could use it as media- center, streaming music from the library on the PC and such. I have been looking at the “kinect” technology thinking it would be cool to have with the kids growing up, they could play games on it with a bit of activity and such. And I was curious on some of the games that are clearly “Xbox-games” like the obvious Call of Duty, Modern Warfare 3.

This winter is probably the most interesting period of game-releases of all times. For my taste I should add! I have been growing tired with my Age of Conan, and after the beta test of Battlefield 3 I was hooked. And  the first proper release was also Battlefield 3, followed by Modern Warfare 3, then Skyrim just last week and in 5 weeks the awesome adventure of Star Wars; The Old Republic will start! No need to look back now, this should keep me going with games for another 10 years he he.

I will easily admit that among all these release, the best is yet to come. I’ve been waiting for this game for several years already. nothing comes close to this. Just pause the reading for a moment and watch this trailer:

What you see here isn’t actual game play, but seems to be a buffed up game play. This is a game where Lucas Arts have a saying, nothing is coincidental. I’m a sucker for real graphics in a game, makes the experience so much richer. I’ll get back to that…

I’m such a Battlefield fan that I even agreed to use the controversial, questionable and unpopular Origin-portal made by EA Games. I also found out that SW:TOR will be released through Origin and it kinda gave me no choice- I’ve had some bad trouble with Steam before and my experiences are also partly the reason for buying and Xbox, but sometimes you just have to bend over, or do you?

After only a few days with the Xbox installed we soon figured out that it’s no media center. Between my cable-TV box and the PC we can pretty much watch and listen to anything. That plan went out the door.

A week later my eldest son (he’s seven) came to visit us for a long weekend. And this is when the Xbox came to use. We had loads of fun with stuff like Lego Indiana Jones and Kung Fu Panda. Specially the two-player stuff is very entertaining.

But it pretty much stops here.

Playing the child-games I didn’t pay any attention to the graphics. I got both Fable 2 and Dragon Age Origins for starters, and the sad graphics on Dragon Age was half the reason I stopped playing after a few hours. I meen, coming from Age of Conan on high graphics settings and then trying Dragon Age on Xbox? But I didn’t know any better, I thought it was because DA is several years old already.

I ordered Call of Duty; Modern Warfare 3 “Hardened Edition” for Xbox.  A few days ago I read that Call of Duty now holds the record for most revenue during the first week of sale, beating everything from Star Wars movie- release to World of Warcraft. A whooping 400 Million USD in one week!? And as an owner of “Hardened Edition” I can honestly say that it seems like a scam. I meen, I pay 50 Euro extra for something I believe to be a Limited Edition, and all I get is the ability to dress up my Xbox avatar in a MW3 shirt? I don’t believe it’s very limited either.

Then I try it out, and after two nights of single-player I had enough balls to try out multi-player. Being used to the Battlefield-way of doing things, I got so disappointed I simply turned it of. I meen, there’s not even any means for comparison, it’s two totally different worlds. Modern Warfare is like the poor version of a multiplayer fps, with less players, smaller “maps” and graphics that takes me back to the late nineties on a PC. I even remember the Medal of Honor- series for the Playstation 2 to have better graphics then this.

Now I recognise the scenarios in this trailer to be single-player stuff, and the single-player graphics are a bit better. It’s rather rough and without finesse, but I don’t react on the graphics when playing single player. But the multiplayer game is, well: gamebreaking!

I read a good comment on the popularity of MW3 the other day. It compared the sales-success of MW3 to Britney Spears and World of Warcraft. It’s the dumbed down, pop of the moment, hyped up, easy access Xbox version of Battlefield, made for the big majority who can’t be bothered to learn different gear, equipment, vehicles, tactics and counter-tactics that you need for BF. In MW3 you spawn, run for 3 seconds, then have a duel with the opponent. In Battlefield 3 it’s about positioning, teams, roles and tactics. In a game with 32 people on each side you can’t win by yourself, in MW3 you play 4 vs 4 and personal skill is all there is to it.

And if you add the difference between MW3 on Xbox compared to BF3 on a PC with high settings there’s no real competition. If you buy the BF3 version for Xbox your simply silly, BF3 is made for PC, just like MW3 is an Xbox game. BF3 didn’t even work properly on Xbox the first weeks, it’s not a priority.

It’s an established fact that when it comes to social gaming it’s not that important for the player what environment he’s in as long as the company is good, something I totally agree with. And I’ve been looking forward to joining “Asgeir and the mad crew” for some MW3 brawls! I just have to shake the initial disappointment before I can even be bothered starting up the game again.

To make it even worse I bought Skyrim for Xbox a few days ago.

Looking at this trailer is just whoaaa! Is this a trailer for Game of Thrones? No, it’s Skyrim in the Elder Scrolls series. I started playing Daggerfall in the late nineties I think. I have Morrowind in my archives and played Oblivion up until only a year ago. This isn’t an online game, it’s an adventure/ action/ roleplaying game for a single player. You would believe the Xbox could pull this off?

After playing this two nights I gave up, put on my shoes and drove over to the game-shop. There I bought Skyrim for PC, swallowed the HUUUUUGE camel it is to install Steam again, but 30 seconds into the game my shoulders drop and I’m home! My PC can handle high settings, the ultra high gives a tiny bit of lag when I turn fast. But I can hardly see any difference between the two. And compared to the Xbox? The graphics on the Xbox wasn’t even as good as the low settings for PC.

If you’re playing games like Assassins Creed, Dragon Age or Skyrim on Xbox I honestly feel sorry for you. You have no idea what you’re missing out on. If you’re playing World of Warcraft because you don’t have a PC that can handle Age of Conan or the upcoming Star Wars; The Old Republic, I feel sorry for you.

I really dislike the development the PC-game industry is taking with the programs like Origin and Steam. This is a measure to counter the huge problem of copying and cracked games, but doing this by installing spyware on my PC isn’t the way to counter this. The problem is that these programs pretty much access the whole PC and report back to the “owner” what programs I have and how I use the PC. This information can then be sold further to companies who want to try selling me stuff, the spammers. In my opinion, I should be payed to play these games if the companies earn money in this sleazy way. It’s a well organized and highly questionable scam.

So, with games like Skyrim Total War: Shogun and Civilization I buy the PC version (I don’t want to be a hacker, I’m forced to), then I use a cracked version to play them to avoid Steam. My PC already broke down once due to Steam and cost me 150 Euro to fix. With Origin I’m in deeper trouble. You have to be very very good with cracks to access games like Battlefield 3 and SW:TOR, these are online games after all. I’m not even sure it’s doable.

After a few hectic days I know now that Xbox isn’t a good substitute for the PC. I’m thinking the Xbox is good for only one thing: Playing Star Wars Lego with the kids!

/end nerdrage

————–Jens