You have probably heard the word consolization thrown around, usually by PC gamers explaining why they dislike some multi-platform games the last few years. They believe consoles are to blame for some of their issues. This is where the term comes in. It may mean different things for different people and in this blog post I am going to explain what it means for me.

To me consolization means that a game has borrowed heavily on ideas and concepts that are more popular on console games than on PC exclusives. I will name a few common things that I am referring to:

• Regenerating Health
• Checkpoint Save Systems
• Menus that have "press Enter to continue"
• Lack of graphics options

I dislike many of these ideas and usually become frustrated with games that have some of them, especially if they use all of them.

I dislike regenerating health because it makes the game too easy. All you have to do is hide in a corner and your well again. Some games claim it is better because health packs are a little unrealistic, the idea being where can you find a health pack on the real life battlefield to instantly heal your wounds. They forget that the body doesn't regenerate in real life like it does in games either so neither one is realistic. I prefer health packs because a game that has a health packs well placed can be more of a challenge.

I absolutely hate checkpoint save systems. There is very few things worse than playing a game, getting past a difficult portion and not being able to save it. If you die shortly after but before the next checkpoint you have to go all through it again. I see no reason not to use quick saves except that it is more difficult to implement on console games because you would have to either pause the game and save or map a button to the gamepad (they have too few as it is). See that, the only reason not to use quick saves has to do with console games, not PC games. Some games that use the checkpoint save system aren't too bad. Gears of War had checkpoints placed in decent intervals so it didn't cause me much trouble, but I am playing Stranglehold right now and it has horrible placement. Some checkpoints are 10-15 minutes apart. I like to have freedom to save whenever I please, and any developer who doesn't give it to me either doesn't care about PC users or is lazy. Oh and I also hate when you have to watch cutscenes over and over and over if you must redo a checkpoint.

The menus thing is a small gripe but I see no point in having them. Why have a menu that makes me press a button to get to the main menu I wanted to go to anyway ? It is just a waste of time.

Lack of graphics options can be a real dumb move on developers parts. One of the strengths of the PC platform is being able to make a game look as good or bad as you need or want it to look. There are many games out there that have far too few options to do this. There is really no excuse for it than laziness or not caring about PC users, same as the checkpoint problem.

Want to know why PC gamers call this consolization ? it is because most of these ideas became popular on console games and slowly became incorporated into a growing number of multi-platform titles. You will rarely see a PC exclusive game that exhibits more than 1 or 2 of these problems, and many that have none of them. I and many other PC gamers would like to see a return of quick saves, non regenerating health, no stupid menus, and plenty of graphics options. Many will blame piracy on the decreasing PC game sales, and piracy is a problem, but us getting sloppy console ideas dumped on us doesn't do any good.

Recently I had a lot of time to browse forums and websites that are gaming related, being that I was on a seven day suspension on this site, and I found two really good articles. I would like to share them with whoever may find them as interesting a read as I did.

The first article is titled PC Gaming: Why I'll Never Console Myself with Second Best and the author basically states in depth why they believe PC gaming to be the better of the platforms. It doesn't outright bash consoles but does shine a light on PC's many strengths over consoles (no it doensn't just talk about graphics).

The second article is titled Birdmen and the Casual Fallacy and the author talks about why third party developers and publishers are having a hard time having the same success as Nintendo on the Wii. The author also goes into detail on how he thinks Nintendo's current gaming strategy does not push aside it's "hardcore" following and how Nintendo may just be one smart company. This article is a long read (took me 26 minutes)but is well worth it if you have the time.

Behold is a PC setup that will cost less or equal to $650 CAD before taxes. This PC will be able to run any game out there, most with high detail. I say this with a 19" or smaller monitor in mind and not counting keyboard and mouse. I do this because it seems every day I find some retard on the shallow end of the gene pool who believes a PC that can beat consoles in detail will cost in the thousands of dollars. I am tired of looking and giving specs over and over so now I can refer them to this blog post. Also these prices will be without mail in rebates and are at a local PC shop of mine called Canada Computers. Lets begin:

Motherboard: Asus M2A-VM = $67.99

Video card: Sapphire ATI RADEON HD 4850 512MB = $204.99

CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ = $92.99

RAM: Mushkin SP2-6400 DDR2-800 2GB = $39.99

Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 160GB = $48.99

Optical drive: Asus DVD-E616A3 DVD-ROM 16X = $16.99

Power Supply: Cooler Master Extreme Power 500W = $43.99

Case: Cooler Master Elite 330 = $39.99

Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Home= $91.50

Total: $647.42

******EDIT*******

Due to popular opinion, which I happen to agree with, I have switched out Vista for XP Home. Since there will be no budget for 4GB of RAM or more and there are not enough DX10 games to warrent it Vista really isn't needed. Being that XP is cheaper I reinvested a portion of the saved funds into upgrading the processor on this build from an AMD X2 4600+ to an AMD X2 5200+. It is still under the budget set of $650.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/game-doom-quake,5310.html

It's official, Doom 4 is going to be made. I am very happy at this news, happy enough that my mind is pushing away my instant worries that the PC version will get shafted. The engine being used is "cross-platform" which means they only need to write one version of code for all three version. This sounds good, but what if PC gets a carbon copy of the PS3/360 version ? I know my PC can produce better quality graphics than that. I guess I have a lot more faith in ID Software pulling that balance act over many others. Well here's saluting the soon to be Doom 4. I hope it can continue the greatness that the rest of the series has been.

I have seen so many posts in forums about how people are angred that PC isn't getting GTAIV. They need to calm down. If they think back San Andreas came out on PS2 in October of 2004, and on PC in June of 2005. Vice City came out on PS2 in October of 2002, and on PC in May of 2003. GTAIII came out on PS2 in October of 2001 and on PC in May of 2002. See, this isn't new at all. We haven't got our PC version of GTA at the same time as consoles since maybe the GTAII days. Wait 6-7 months and I bet we have it then. I don't mind waiting, I have plenty of games to finish up that should take at least a few months.I think that tiem was well spent anyway as I believe our PC ports to have been quite good for Vice City, GTAIII, and San Andreas.