Old School New School and PC Gaming

     I like to rant and get a little out there with my thinking, but a thought crossed my mind as a friend of mine advised that the current "New" consoles suck compared to PC gaming. Now there is some truth to this as well there are some flaws to all forms of gaming. I feel though as a devils advocate in this era that some things are lost in all gaming and decided to explore further the old school details compared to todays gaming as well as the ups and downs of PC gaming for me. I must reiterate this is my opinion based on what I know and the information I've come upon in reading and well learning more and more of todays technology.

      So lets start on the old school / new school of consoles as this is part of what keeps me playing the games I do in the way I do. Each period of gaming had it's benefits but if you compare lets say anything before PS2 went network enabled to the Network enabled and PS3 to today you get this rift of what was added and what seems to become lost on game producers.
Old School
Benefits -

• Whole game to a disc or cartridge. (or a series of discs FF)
• Secrets (cheat codes and such) built in
• You invited your friends over to play multiplayer.
• It was a bit less social media yet social inspiring.

Flaws-

• If a game was poorly put together a whole new game had to be released.
• Over use of cheating.
• You had to go to game store to buy new games.
• Many times you had to search to find a copy of a game.

New School
Benefits-

• With online options gamers can get their games off an online store so there is always a copy available.
• If a game is poorly made they may patch or update to run better or just work better.
• Less cheating unless you have money.
• friends at your fingertips for online play

Flaws -

• Friends no longer hang out to play a game and you can't play two player online unless they have a copy.
• a lot of downloadable content so games release faster and occasionally broken in play style.
• Downloadable content can make everyone a cheater.
• Online players either really good or really bad at a game thus leading to player hate.

     Now this is just from experience and well I can't say either side has a total killing flaw yet it can define your experience on if you continue to play a game series. This is aimed more at the new school as you force more people to play online you tend to find that people sometimes clash and thus a game that they may have enjoyed they are going to avoid due to player hate. Now this also has to take into consideration connection speed lagging ability as there are some wonderful devices that allow you to almost break pedal the connection and thus allowing them to somewhat pause you and move at higher speeds due to connection buffering. I'll come back further to this rant as I really have a lot to say on this and I feel that it's own topic would be better.

Now onto PC Gaming-
     Being a child who grew up in the Nintendo era I feel that unless you can give me a controller I can work with Pc gaming is either fun or the controls are just too much for me to use for my type of gaming. I'm speaking more of the "Mouse Keyboard combo" Yeah I can use it for games of the FPS variety, but the action adventure games it just looses me a bit. I feel too lost working a keyboard to jump a chasm. Now a days though this isn't so much of a problem due to emulation and controller integration into most games. With gaming communities like Steam or Humble Bundle you get games at a reasonable price and can play how you wish. My biggest problem here is the excessive customization needed to play certain games. When I want to play I want to play now, not a half hour from now when I have finally gotten things set just right to play. Some say build it up yourself.... this would be excellent except for two small problems for me. Lack of funds and well by the time I got what I want together it's way outdated and I have to revamp my plan just to play the game I want. This is where consoles have a stronger advantage for me. I don't really need to upgrade every few months hardware wise with some games and I don't need to set many settings. Again something I prefer not saying it's better or worse.
     I'm playing devils advocate here as I feel there are some strengths to PC gaming, but have not completely gotten myself there. I'm partial to something familiar such as a Playstation or even old school Nintendo controller. So one might say this is where I currently stand. Until I rant further.
- William Dreimann

Nostalgia -

With the PS4 quickly approaching (2 days from this post) I wanted to give an overview of the Nostalgic moments of the PS3 which may soon go to the shadows just like the rest of the older consoles.
     Back before trophies I can recall the simplicity and rather unique approach the PS3 had to online gaming and well backwards compatibility.  Here are the things I remember most:

• Downloading anything on the playstation network put you at a halt to doing anything till the download was finished. Yes this was a flaw that was later fixed, but back in the hay day this was how it was done.
• Watching videos of games to come and having to wait a year or so for release..... Yes I'm looking at you LAIR.
• The amazement with how fast PS2 games loaded past the "Loading" screen.
• Heavenly Sword and how it almost stood the tests of time, still waiting for a sequel folks.
• The original Resistance Fall of Man. I did not really get into online war until this game.
• How a fair portion of the PS3 store was "Free".
• The Thursday updates to the PS store

     Then trophies came as well as many many updates. The gamer was no longer playing for just the experience of a game but to earn something that isn't really real, but is. I'll speak honestly, we all became a bunch of trophy whores. So thus leads to my second segment of Memories from the PS3 Era.

• Getting your first platinum. It seems so pointless now as we are all trying to get more and more of them but that first is always a major achievement in our books.
• Broadening of who you were willing to friend on PSN. Let's face it some of us friended others just for help getting trophies completed.
• Waiting in anticipation for a new game as you found the trophy list online and just had to find out what "Become ****'s special friend" meant.
• synching trophies to see whom of your friends holds the lead in what game.
• Judging a game on how quick and easy it was to get all trophies.

Now this still goes on today and will carry over to the 4 but still the PS3 stands rather strong as well PS4 doesn't have a whole lot promised out the door, but continuing my Nostalgic Moments.... The Birth of Playstation Plus, that's right a plan in which you were to get free games (true still to this day) free add on's (not so true nowadays) and free stuff for paying $50 bucks a year. I'll be honest I started it as I had gotten a gift card and still use it to this day. So the memories continue:

• Checking every Tuesday for what was free this week.
• scouring the playstation blog for what will be free in the weeks to come.
• downloading now able to be done in the background
• Filling your system with games you have still yet to get to .
• complaining because you bought the game day one and all of this month is games you already own.

I'll be honest this isn't all happy memories nor exactly bad ones. This is just a fair view of what I can recall of the strong years of PS3 and even with it's flaws I still hold myself as a Sony fan. Here's hoping the PS4 brings a strong future even with any flaws or madness and that the PS3 doesn't fade into obscurity.